I remember only a weak attempt at shoving my phone under my pillow before happily dissolving into dreams.
I wanted to imagine that Ocean was thinking what I was thinking: that he, too, felt this thing between us building with terrifying, breathless speed and didn’t know how or even whether to slow it down. But I couldn’t know for certain. And Ocean had gone quiet for so long I started to worry. He didn’t move from my bed as he scanned my room again, and my knot of nervousness grew only more wild.
“Too weird?” I finally said. “Is this too weird?”
Ocean laughed as he stood up, shook his head, and smiled. “Is that really what you think is going through my mind right now?”
I hesitated. Reconsidered. “Maybe?”
He laughed again. And then he glanced at the clock on my wall and said, “Looks like we only have a few minutes left.” But he’d come forward as he spoke. He stood in front of me now.
“Yeah,” I said softly.
He stepped, somehow, even closer to me. He slipped his hands into the back pockets of my jeans and I almost gasped and he pulled me tighter, pressed the lines of our bodies together and he leaned in, rested his forehead against mine. He wrapped his arms around my waist and just held me there, like that, for a moment. “Hey,” he whispered. “Can I just tell you that I think you’re really, really beautiful? Can I just tell you that?”
I felt my cheeks warm. He was so close I was sure he could hear my heart pounding. Our bodies seemed soldered together.
I whispered his name.
He kissed me once, gently, and lingered there, our lips still touching. My body trembled. Ocean closed his eyes.
“This is crazy,” he said.
And then he kissed me desperately, without warning, and feeling shot through my veins with a searing, explosive heat. I felt suddenly molten. His lips were soft and he smelled so good and my mind had filled with static. My hands moved from his waist and up his back, and, in an accidental, unrehearsed movement, they slipped under his sweater.
I froze.
The sensation of his bare skin under my hands was so unexpected. New. A little frightening. Ocean broke our kiss and smiled, gently, against my mouth.
“Are you afraid to touch me?” he said.
I nodded.
I felt his smile deepen.
But then I trailed my fingers along the smooth expanse of his back and he took a quick, sudden breath. I felt his muscles tighten.
Carefully, I traced the curve of his spine. I touched his waist, my hands moving around his torso. He felt so strong. The lines of his body were deeply, alarmingly sexy. And I was just beginning to get brave when he clamped his hands down on mine.
He took another unsteady breath and pressed his face into my cheek. Laughed, shakily. He didn’t say a word. He just shook his head.
The pleasure of being this close to him was unlike anything I’d ever imagined. It was hyper-real. Impossible. His arms were around me now, strong and warm and pulling me close, and he just about lifted me off the floor.
There was a tiny part of my brain that knew this was a bad idea. I knew Navid could walk in here at any minute. I knew my parents were just moments away. I knew it, and somehow, I didn’t care.
I closed my eyes and rested my head against his chest. Breathed him in.
Ocean pulled back, just a little. He looked me in the eye and his own eyes were heavy, suddenly. Bright and deep and terrified.
He said, “What would you do if I fell in love with you?”
And my entire body answered his question. Heat filled my blood, the gaps in my bones. My heart felt suddenly alive with emotion and I didn’t know how to say what I was thinking, what I wanted to say, which was—
Is this love?
—and I never had the chance.
Navid knocked on the door, hard, and we were like shrapnel, flying apart.
Ocean looked a little flushed. He took a second, looked around, looked at me. He didn’t say goodbye, exactly. He just looked at me.
And then he was gone.
Two hours later, he texted me.
are you in bed?
yes
can i ask you a weird question?
I stared at my phone for a second. I took a deep breath.
okay
what does your hair look like?
I actually laughed out loud, before I remembered that my parents were sleeping. Girls never seemed to care about the state of my hair,