If Only (30 page)

His hand rests atop the thin layer of cotton that separates him from the rest of me, from all of me.

“Tell me again how long it’s been.”

I sigh. “Shut up and touch me.”

“How long?”

This time I groan. “It was two years when I got here, so you do the math.”

He teases, his fingers sinking below the hem. I put my hand on his wrist, coaxing him to slide down farther. My breaths grow shallow at his touch, at having him so close to where I want him. He moves with me, but only for a second. Then his hand stalls.

“Then you won’t mind waiting a couple more weeks.”

I let out a gasp, one completely devoid of pleasure. A rush of insecurity creeps in. It’s been over two years, and Logan was my first. It’s not as if I’ve ever been well-practiced at any of this. What if he thinks it’s going to be awful?

His mouth rests right by my ear now, his warm breath and the faint smell of mint, and him, intoxicating.

“Because I don’t want to rush this, to be with you for the first time and not be able to keep you with me all night and into the next morning and the day beyond that. In fact, I think I’m going to need you to pencil me in for an entire weekend.”

The idea of such a weekend sends a shock of pleasure through me, but then it falters. I can’t look at him, but I have to ask.

“Is it
because
it’s been so long? Are you worried it won’t be, you know, up to your expectations?”

“Brooks.” His voice tries to soothe me as he cups my cheek, turning my face to his.

I try to read his dark-blue eyes, but again I’m paralyzed by all the reasons why, on the night before we’re leaving each other, he doesn’t want me the way I want him.

“You still want me like that, don’t you?”

Again he says my name. “Brooks.” But this time there is a soft pleading, the hint of restraint.

He pulls my bare leg up over his, though the bottom half of him is still covered in flannel. Then he kisses me hard and unrelenting, his tongue grazing my teeth and parting them to enter my mouth. My breasts are firm against his skin, his stomach a smooth muscular coil. His hand runs up the back of my thigh, entering my bikini briefs from the bottom. I inhale, a sharp breath of bewildered pleasure, as his finger slips up and inside of me. “Does this answer your question?”

Our mouths collide again, the delicious taste of him filling me—everything Noah filling me—until I know, without a doubt, that he is worth the wait.

“Yes,” I answer, the word no more than a breath. “Yes. I daresay it does.”

Slowly his hand slides up, tickling my abdomen, but I don’t care. I don’t laugh. Instead I’m hungry for his skin on mine, the more I get, the more I need. When I reach to reciprocate, he presses against my hand.

Both of us tease the other with touch. His lips explore every inch of my exposed skin until my body is wrapped in his kiss, and I can’t imagine being anywhere but here, with anyone but him.

“Noah,” I whisper.

“Brooks,” he whispers back.

“I don’t want to say good-bye.”

For several seconds he says nothing, his hand sliding my bangs from my face.

“I know,” he says, his lips finding mine again. I don’t realize I’m crying until he wipes the first tear away. “I know,” he says again. Neither of us means tomorrow, but we don’t say it. We don’t have to.

That night I break the habit of sleep clothes. Other than a pair of boxers and bikini briefs, we are a tangle of arms and legs, of skin and lips, of magnificent sleep and the heartbreak of waking and parting.

How will I say good-bye for real and not shatter into a million pieces?

Because, of course, I’ve known the whole time. I am in love with Noah Keating.

Two weeks in Thessaloniki, Elaina’s gorgeous waterfront city on the mainland of Greece, should have gone by in a flash. Crystal blue skies, the hilly plains and plateaus of white buildings and terra cotta roofs, the squat cylindrical stone of the White Tower—I would have to recollect all of this through pictures on my phone. Though it is still not warm enough to swim, Elaina and I spent days walking the pale sand of the beach outside the hotel restaurant her family owned. I tasted the most gorgeous feta, drank banana juice, and finally succumbed to Turkish coffee. I marveled at Elaina’s dog, Bromios—a cockapoo ironically named for the Greek god of fear—who only understood Greek, Elaina being the only one in her family who speaks English. Still, I felt welcomed and loved by her mother, father, brother, and grandmother, and I knew being there is what sealed the deal for her family to say yes to our plans of summer travel. But always, always, my thoughts turned to Noah. To seeing him again, to ending the two-year dry spell not with Mr. Right Now but with the guy I’m in love with, and then leaving him right when we’ve finally found each other.

Weary with travel, after a day of flying to London and then taking the train back to Aberdeen, I rest my head on Elaina’s shoulder in the cab.

“You had fun, yes?” she asks.

“Of course. Your family is lovely.”

“They like you.” She smiles. “Enough to let me go with you.”

“You didn’t tell them about Duncan, though.”

She sighs. “When he is ready to make that kind of a promise to me, then I tell them. As long as I am with you, they will trust me.”

I lift my head to look at her. “What was that phrase your parents kept saying to me?
Omorfo
something.”

Her smile shifts, and I can’t read her expression. “
Omorfo koritsi me lepemena matia
. They called you
pretty girl with sad eyes
.”

I bang my head against the headrest of my seat. “Is it that obvious? Oh, Elaina. I don’t want them to think I didn’t enjoy my time with them, with you. I really, truly did.”

“But you love him.”

My heart races at her recognition, and I fight back the pressure of tears.

“I do.”

“Why is that something to be sad about?” Her tone is cool, logical.

“Because I live in Illinois. He lives in Ohio.”

Her eyes narrow, as if I’ve said the most ridiculous thing on Earth.

“I do not know American geography well, but tell me something. Is there a giant body of water that separates you from him, much like one that separates Scotland from Greece?”

“No, but…”

“Jordan.” Her
r
rolls my name into that extra syllable. “Why does it have to end? You do not see Duncan and me planning for our relationship to dissolve. Do you?”

My cheeks suddenly burn with anger.

“That’s not fair, Elaina. You two have the entire summer together to figure out where you go from here. It’s April already. Noah and I are just beginning, and we have only six weeks left. That is not the foundation for a long-distance relationship.”

The fear I’ve been suppressing, the one that’s made it both easy and painful for me to visualize the end, rises to the surface. I love Noah. I
love
him, and I’ve admitted that not only to myself but to Elaina. I would fight for him, for us to go beyond this short span of time together, but I have no indication that he feels the same way. He’s done nothing but acknowledge the end, exactly as I have been since the day I arrived.

You were right.

“Stupid, stupid, American girl,” Elaina says, breaking the silence. “How can you not see that he feels the same way?”

“Because,” I admit, matter-of-factly, “he’s never told me.”

She doesn’t have to respond. Her look says it all, that
I
, of course, have never told him.

By the time we get back to our flat, it’s nearly ten p.m. Duncan and Noah are not due to arrive from Ireland until tomorrow evening, which leaves only tomorrow night and Sunday to soak him in before classes resume. So when I roll my suitcase up to the entrance of our building, I am breathless to find Noah sitting there on the small patch of concrete in front of the door.

I let go of my suitcase and run the last twenty feet, giving him barely enough time to stand before hurling myself into his arms. There are no words, no question as to why or how he’s back a day early. There’s only lips crushing against lips as he lifts me to his mouth, the tips of my toes leaving the ground as he pulls me closer, ensuring no space exists between us. The only reason we stop, other than for air, is because we are reminded that we are not alone.

Elaina audibly clears her throat before speaking.

“I will let you two get back to devouring each other if you could please tell me where your Scottish companion is.”

Noah laughs, and although we are no longer kissing, our arms are still wrapped tightly around each other. “We arrived a couple of hours ago. He is in town visiting with his parents and should be back soon. He’ll be sorry he didn’t make it here first.”

And then I see something very rare, a stupid, goofy,
I’m in love
grin take over Elaina’s face. She quickly regains her composure before speaking again.

“Good. I have time for a coffee. You two may continue.” She steps past us and walks inside.

And, oh, do we continue.

Several minutes go by as our mouths make up for two weeks of separation, but we can’t make up for everything out here.

When our lips finally part, I’m the one who speaks. “I’m not going to be ready to do this in May.” I’m not sure if he hears the faint break in my voice, but as the reality of what the next six weeks mean sinks in deeper, I know I won’t be ready, no matter how much I think I’m preparing myself. Noah and I have never really talked about the summer other than he knows I am traveling with Elaina and Duncan.

“Come with me,” I say. The thought of it, the suggestion, has me short of breath, so much so that I can’t finish the rest of the sentence.

He clasps my hand in his, and he brings my tattooed wrist to his mouth, bathing me with his warmth. The weather in Scotland is still cold enough to warrant my fleece, but Noah manages to push the sleeve up past my elbow so his lips can weave a trail of warmth up my arm.

“I’m all yours,” he says, softly, against my skin.

My eyes flutter closed at his touch, and I almost forget what I was saying. If only to keep my focus, I pull my arm away and lift his head so his eyes meet mine.

“Not now. I mean, yes, I do want you to come with me now. But I’m talking about this summer. We need more time. Come with me to Europe. Stay with me until August.”

My hands on his neck, I feel his pulse quicken, his breaths become ragged. But his eyes do not shine with the same fervor I feel. They are a dark, stormy blue, reminding me of the night he told me he and Hailey came here together.

“Jordan.” My first name. The word soaked in pain. He has not used my first name since February, so whatever comes next can’t be good. “I’m student teaching in the fall, graduating in January.”

We know so little of each other beyond what is here, in Aberdeen. We’ve never discussed our futures, not even our separate futures, and he can see that I don’t understand.

“There are meetings, both at the university and the school where I’m placed, in mid-July and early August. I have only the summer to prep the courses I’m going to teach.”

The impossibility of what I’m asking him abounds in his words, in the added strain to his voice.

“There’s nothing I want more,” he says, kissing my lashes that are now wet with tears. “But I can’t.”

The night isn’t the homecoming I expect after first seeing him in front of the building. Noah stays the night, kissing me softly and reading to me my favorite passage from
Gatsby
, the shirt scene. But a wall rises slowly between us, both of us adding the bricks. We go on like this for weeks, not spending time apart, but not wholly being together. I still ache for him, for his touch, but now that we’re building the wall, we exercise restraint, blocking the pain that would accompany the kind of intimacy we’ll never share. By the time the wall is done, May will approach with ease. At least, that’s what I’m sure we tell ourselves.

May

Much Ado About Everything

“It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.”

E. M. Forster

A Room with a View

Chapter Twenty-seven

Though my employment ended a week ago, I went back to the Blue Lantern last night for a small farewell with Elaina, Daniel, the kitchen staff, and friends. Noah and Duncan were there as well, and though we’ve spent nearly every night together since my return from Greece, the distance between Noah and me thickens.

We wake together each morning, but the closer we get to May, the more excuses he finds to leave, keep us separate, compartmentalize our relationship.

“I forgot something I need for class. I’ll see you there.” Other times it’s “I’m going to stay late this afternoon to work on a paper in the lab.”

The worst is that I never question it. I let him pull away because I get it. Maybe if we do it little by little, we can chip away at the hurt we know is coming. So I take comfort in knowing he’ll be here when I sleep, but I let him build a wall because I need it, too.

I’d nearly given up on writing in my journal, always afraid that reading it later would be too painful. But once Noah solidified that May had to be the end, I went back and retraced everything that happened between us, even the painful parts, because there is nothing about this year, about him, that I want to forget.

Today I wake before my alarm, the last day of classes, the Friday of our performance. Noah left early to go back to Fyfe and shower, so I skim through the journal, reliving the year in fast-forward. Tomorrow I get on a train to Dover, where Elaina, Duncan, and I will take the ferry to Calais to begin our summer.

“You will not be the pretty girl with the sad eyes. Not for ten weeks.”

Elaina chants this to me daily, my mantra for the past week. I promise her I won’t, but I’ve been known to break promises.

It doesn’t take me long to thumb through the entire journal, and upon reaching the end, I page back to an earlier entry, one dated the morning of January second. My breath catches at a thought, and without letting my logic get in the way, I rip the page from the journal and throw it in my messenger bag. I
know
what I want. A certain giddiness overrides my impending dread, and I almost skip down the stairs to meet Noah outside. It’s our last day. I have nothing more to lose than what I’m already losing tomorrow, and I’ll have no one to blame but myself—not God, the universe, or L. Ron—if I don’t take this chance.