“I thought I did.” Josh stares out over the city. “And then I knew I didn’t, and she knew she didn’t, but we stayed together, because…I don’t know why. Maybe because we thought we should be in love. At least I did. I wanted to be in love.” He looks back at me. “Have you ever been in love?”
“No.” Yes. With you.
A motorcycle passes on the road below. We listen until its guttural roar fades away. Josh glances at me, and then he double-takes. “You’re shivering.”
“Oh, I’m fine. I like the chill.”
But he’s already on his knees, removing his coat. He swings it up and around my shoulders, and the weight of it stuns me in more ways than one. My body weakens with lust. The coat smells like citrus and ink and him.
“I saw you that next night,” he says.
“Huh?” My eyes open. “What night?”
“Last summer. I went back to the café at midnight the next night, and I saw you there. I knew it was a long shot, but…I had this feeling you might be there. And you were.”
I know that feeling. I had that feeling. “Why didn’t I see you?”
“I never went inside. I saw you through the window, and you…”
“I was with Kurt,” I finish.
“So I kept walking. I felt like such an idiot. If only I’d known, I wish I’d known. You’d been so funny and flirty, and—”
“Flirty?”
“Yeah.” He grins. “I could kinda tell you liked me.”
“Ohmygod.” I’m mortified.
“No! It was cute. Trust me, it was really, really cute.”
“Yeah, nope. I want to die now, thanks.”
“No. I’m serious. I always liked you, but I thought you didn’t like me. You would never talk to me. So I didn’t think you were even an option, and then I got together with Rashmi, and that was that. But I realized last summer that you’re just shy.”
Back up, back up, back up. “You always liked me?”
“A supersmart hot girl who reads comics? Are you kidding? You were definitely on my radar.”
Hot. I’ve been upgraded to hot. No one has ever called me hot. Cute? Yes. Adorable? Yes, often, and it makes me want to punch them. I didn’t know short girls could even be hot. I thought I’d been permanently relegated to elfin-pixie-child status.
“Well, bloody noses.” I hug his coat tighter. “Those are definitely hot.”
Josh buries his head in his hands. He moans. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“I believe the laws of physics did that.”
“And my chin.”
I laugh. “But until that last part, it was pretty great, right? I mean, we had actual fireworks. Talk about a credits-rolling, happily-ever-after kind of a kiss.”
“If only I could take credit for those.”
“You know…you can always try again.”
He raises his head. “Setting off fireworks?”
“A second first kiss.”