by A. J. Pine
“US History and Political Science. How about you?”
“English literature. Best reason to spend a year in the UK.” Hmmm. Talk about a mismatch of interests. Why the hell is he here if he’s an American history major? Oh, right. I can ask him this.
“What do you want to be, a politician?”
He laughs. “Uh, no. That would be my dad. What do you want to do, teach?”
“Uh, that would be my mom and my dad.” And that’s the magic question, the one my parents would love me to answer. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I love stories, living in someone else’s world for a while. Sure beats textbooks. I kind of always assumed the only option for a literature major was to become a teacher.”
“Ah, yes. Choosing a career because there’s no other option. I hear that brings great happiness.”
I look down at my hands, taking an interest in a hanging cuticle in lieu of defending myself because Griffin is right. He’s known me for less than a Friends episode of time and can already say what I avoid telling myself.
“Hey,” he says, his hand reaching for mine. “I was just messing with you. It’s not like I have a plan all mapped out.”
I look up, relieved to shift the focus back to him.
“Why are you here, then? I can’t imagine you’ll find much in your major in Aberdeen, Scotland.”
“Electives,” he says. “I’ve already fulfilled my double major requirements other than the few classes I’ll take senior year. Thank you, AP classes in high school. Means I’m here for the fun stuff.”
I swallow when he says this, trying to coat the sudden dryness in my mouth. On the one hand, we have nothing in common when it comes to academic interests. On the other hand, he must be pretty intelligent if he’s close to completing a double major already. And then there’s that maddeningly adorable grin. Okay, grin cancels out academic incompatibility.
He stares at me, his lips pursed into a taunting grin. I’m about to fill the awkward silence when he speaks.
“It’s my turn. Do you always get lost in your head?”
Thought he wouldn’t notice.
“That obvious?”
He nods.
“Do you really always say what you are thinking?”
He nods again.
“Always?” I ask.
“Always,” he answers. “I grew up with three older sisters, Jen, Megan, and Natalie. Speaking up was the only way to get noticed sometimes. And there’s a lot of power in being straightforward.”
Yeah, like unnerving those in your presence.
“Sisters, huh? Bet you learned a lot from them.”
He crosses his arms and rests his head against the window.
“Sometimes too much. If I could unlearn a thing or two…” He trails off for a few seconds. “But much I had to learn on my own.” He waggles his brows. “The fun stuff.”
I swallow again. Don’t they come by with a drink cart or something on trains? Every time his eyes find mine, I almost ask if he’s thirsty, too. But his voice never falters, nor does his gaze. Damn Sam and her power of suggestion.
I clear my throat, determined to call bullshit rather than let him feed me any more.
“Really? It was that easy being the youngest of four and the only boy? From womb to Lothario in one fell swoop?” I cross my arms and hold his stare, daring him to show me something real. Two can play this game.
“When did I ever say easy?” His tone shifts, no longer ribbing me with innuendo. Something wistful, even sad, replaces the bravado, and I want to take it back, tell him I was joking, because I don’t need real. I don’t want real. Ignoring my natural tendencies means quite the opposite of real.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to imply anything about you or your family.”
He shakes his head. “You didn’t say anything wrong. Like I said, they taught me a lot, even if I didn’t want to learn it all. My youngest sister, Megan, was a senior in high school when I was a freshman. I watched her fall in love and subsequently get her heart ripped out. The usual. I knew the guy was a dick. It’s kind of a kindred thing. We can tell our own kind.”
I rest my hand on his arm. “You’re not a dick.”
“No?” He pulls his arm away, runs his hand through his shaggy waves, and looks up to avoid my eyes. “My sisters call me a serial monogamist. I don’t cheat. Never have. Only one girl at a time, but I’m not looking for forever. I’m great with right now, but beyond a month or two, things get complicated.” His eyes come back to mine. “So maybe I am a dick, but I’ve never once tried to hide it.”
Shit. A man-whore with a heart.
“Isn’t it lonely, to never really connect with someone long-term?”
His consummate grin reappears. “You’re thinking about it the wrong way. It’s kind of hard to be lonely when you’re never alone. Plus, no complications, no loose ends. It works.”
“For now,” I say, not wanting to push the issue. Maybe he’s on to something. Logan and I connected long-term. At least I thought we connected, but on more than one occasion, even if he was right next to me, I never felt lonelier. That’s how I knew. Whatever I was looking for, I hadn’t found it. Ever since him, I’ve continued to look, probably for something that doesn’t exist.
“Now is all that matters.” He shrugs, like everyone lives by his motto. “Hey. What’s with the side eyes?”
“Katie was ready for you right now.” I throw his words back at him. “You’ve got girls so willing to give you what you want, they’re writing phone numbers on your palm. I’m not that kind of girl…”
I stop myself from saying any more, from bringing an analysis of Jordan-before-Scotland into the mix.
“You’re not like that,” he says, “which is exactly why I like you. You’d never write your number on a guy’s hand.”
I throw back my head and laugh. “Though I’ve had ample opportunity. If I told you how many guys have thrust a palm and a pen in my face, just begging for digits…”
“No,” Griffin says, shaking his head. “They don’t. Wanna know why?”
At first I think he’s teasing me, but his eyes narrow on mine. The corners of his mouth stay even. My laughter dwindles into silent anticipation of his answer.
“Because they know you’d say no.”
I squirm in my chair, wishing I could put more distance between us.
“You’re not a Kathy.”
“Katie,” I remind him.
“Whatever,” he says. “You’re the commitment type. I can see it.”
“What do you mean you can see it? Maybe I’m totally a Katie. Maybe I’m all about right now.” But I have to force the words. I want them to be true, want this year to be what it should be—a place for reinvention, for me to break free of the restraints I’ve put on myself for too long.
My breaths grow shallow. What I wouldn’t give to text Sam this second, ask her what sort of wizardry she pulled to drop this guy in my path. “Here he is,” she’d say. “Mr. Right Now. Strike while the iron is hot!”
But instead of striking, I opt for distance. Time to take a break.
“I think I’m going to be off to the loo. Again.” I stand in the aisle.
Griffin pulls his phone from his pocket and holds it out to me.
“Your…what did you call them…digits?” he asks.
This is my opportunity. Give him my number and prove that I can be a Katie. I can have fun for now and say “Fuck it” to worrying about what comes next, prove he doesn’t have me pegged. My hand twitches at my side as I contemplate reaching toward him. But I cross my arms over my chest instead, not able to do this one little thing to invoke change.
He shrugs, fishing a pair of earbuds out of the same pocket and plugging them into the phone. “If I’m asleep when you get back, feel free to wake me with a number on my palm, or with your lips, whatever you deem necessary.”
I lean in and push his shoulder hard this time, and his only response is a quick laugh before he closes his ey
es and snuggles up against the window.
Maybe I will.
Chapter Two
I take my time getting to the toilet. That really is a fitting name for the room as there is barely anything else in it other than the aforementioned receptacle and a dollhouse-sized sink. I need to weigh my options here. First, I met a really cute guy. And he’s flirting with me. Second, I know no one in Aberdeen…except for the cute guy. Cute guy is American, funny, has good teeth—and girls doling out their numbers after nothing more than an introduction. I can work with most of this.
The loo door says OCCUPIED, which does not bode well for my waiting because I have to pee. Now. Thankfully, I hear the sad excuse for a sink inside. Good, my wait will be short. As the lock clicks open, the train jostles enough that the bathroom’s occupant stumbles out, pinning me up against the doors that lead back into my train car.
My face is buried in his neck and, despite his exiting the tiniest closet of a public loo, he smells good. Like, really good. Like, running-through-a-field-of-just-cut-grass, laundry-fresh-out-of-the-dryer good.
He pushes back, his hands resting on the door on either side of me, a small laugh mingling with his exhale. “Sorry,” he says, his Midwestern accent unmistakable. Another American. “Turbulence, I guess.” His voice is deep with the slightest rasp, and I can hear his smile. When I look up, my stomach does this flippy thing that makes me think I should get into the closet loo stat. Glinting blue eyes stare back at me, and I see my dazed reflection in his irises. I should say something, right? I should stop staring and say something.
A tremble of a laugh precedes my words. “I thought that only happened on airplanes.”
His brown hair is long enough that it’s starting to curl up at his temples and above his ears. I stifle the urge to run my hands through it and silently berate myself for said urge. Something is wrong with me.
He smiles and shrugs. “It’s all yours,” he says, stepping aside. “Watch your step on the dismount.” He looks back at me, nodding toward the door with a hesitant smile.
I regain my composure, ready for my wittiest retort. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Or, maybe I’ll opt for not even close to witty.
I rush into the body-sized compartment and lock the door. My breathing steadies, and my stomach stops doing acrobatics. What the hell was that?
When I exit the loo, I make sure to watch my step on the dismount. What I’m not expecting is to see loo boy examining the compartment door, running his fingers along the seam.
“So, here’s the thing,” he says, his brows knitted together. “The door is kind of jammed.”
He looks down, avoiding my eyes.
I should respond to what he said, but my only thought right now is how my stomach contracts again at the sound of his voice.
“Hey.” He’s talking again. “Did you hear me?” His gazelifts to meet mine, and this time I see it, the glassy panic in his eyes.
“Are you okay?” I ask, somehow regaining composure. His eyes plead for something, and I want to help him. But I don’t know what he needs.
I grab the handle of the pocket door and try to slide it open, just to be sure he’s right. It doesn’t budge.
As if God, or the universe, or L. Ron Hubbard has it in for me, the train jostles again, thrusting me straight back into loo boy.
Seriously?
My hands splay against his chest, his hard chest that I can feel beneath his thin T-shirt. The pulse of his heartbeat echoes into my hand, and I don’t want to break the connection. It would be weird, though, and a little creepy on my part, not to.
Come on, Jordan. Get your shit together.
He grabs me by the shoulders, and I suck in a breath. But he pushes me from him so I regain my footing and straighten, leaning on the closed door of the loo. He lets go as quickly as he grabbed me, but my shoulders hold on to the memory of his touch.
Whatever that something was in his eyes, it slowly dissipates.
“You’re a good distraction,” he says, a small smile blooming on his face.
“Distraction?” I ask.
“Sorry. Did I say that out loud?” He scratches the back of his head. “I think I better get your name if we’re going to keep bumping into each other like this.” Much like his smile, his voice is tentative, the statement coming off more as a question. He glances once through the door that has us trapped and then back at me, like he’s expecting someone to free us at any moment.
“No pun intended?” I ask.
“Actually,” he says, “pun absolutely intended. I’m Noah.” His features relax, calming me in the process.
“I’m Jordan,” I reply, my nervous hands releasing the hem of my shirt. “Jordan Brooks.”
He didn’t ask for my last name. Filling the silence with useless information, though, seems to be one of my many talents.
“Nice to meet you, Jordan Brooks,” he says, his mouth parting in a grin, his unease morphing into assurance.
“What are we supposed to do?” I ask.
He slides down the door that has us in our predicament, extending his legs as far as they’ll go before hitting the wall of the loo. With no other options, I move next to him and do the same.
“I guess we wait.” He looks around the vestibule. “Not such a small space, is it?”
He says it like he’s convincing himself. Because the space is small, a pocket meant only for one or two people to stand.
He leans back, knocking his knee into mine the way I imagine a big brother would do, but I don’t have a brother, and Noah’s knee against mine doesn’t give the brotherly vibe as a pulse of excitement rushes through me.
His hand reaches to his back pocket and pulls out a small paperback.
“Come on,” I say when I see the cover. “You do not walk around with a copy of The Great Gatsby in your back pocket.”
He opens the book and feigns reading, but it doesn’t hide the flush of color that fills his cheeks. Noah turns toward me, his blue eyes peering over those of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, and though the rest of his face is covered, I can tell he’s smiling. He lowers the novel and starts to speak.
“You’re judging me for being prepared for a lock-in beside a public restroom? I think you’re just sorry you didn’t think of it first.”
I stare at him hard, trying to figure him out. He lets out a small, raspy chuckle, the sound filling the tiny space where we sit. Minutes ago he looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here, but now we’re knocking knees, about to have story time with Fitzgerald.
“I’m an English major, secondary education, actually. I student teach next fall at my old high school, and this”—he brandishes the book—“is one of the units I need to prepare.” He thumbs through the pages but keeps talking. “Plus, having something familiar, something comfortable in a potentially uncomfortable situation helps.”
I knock my knee back against his. “Is this an uncomfortable situation?” I don’t know where my forwardness comes from. I should be uncomfortable with this strange guy who gets my heart racing just being near him. But instead I’m less nervous the more we talk.
I grab Fitzgerald’s masterpiece from his hand and appraise its worn edges and spine. The pages are dog-eared and filled with highlighted lines and annotations. I read a few of his handwritten notes, which illustrate passionate understanding of the characters and an undisguised zeal for the story.
“This is not the work of a guy who is preparing, a year in advance I might say, to teach this book. You love this book.”
His grin widens, and I struggle for air at the sight of it, not just because of its beauty but because of what put it there in the first place—a book.
“You caught me.”
What about this, Sam? What am I supposed to do with a guy who beams at me noticing his love for a book?
I do the only thing I can do and hop on the nerd train. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” British literature is my passion, but I’ll never fo
rget reading The Great Gatsby, nor will I ever apologize for memorizing and reciting my favorite lines of books.
“Impressive,” he remarks, and all signs of Noah’s unease dissolve with that one word. He holds my gaze, and his smile meets his eyes. I want to look away now not because of our bumbling introduction but because it’s too much. But I can’t do it. I’m trapped.
“It’s the only book I remember from high school, the only one that moved me to tears. That last line? The futility of all Gatsby tried to do to prove himself to the woman he loved? He was never able to escape his past or the boy he was when he first met Daisy. What he tried to do, it was ridiculous, insane, and at the same time altogether lovely. But it was for nothing.”
My voice catches at the memory of finishing the book for the first time, of realizing that no matter how hard you try, life doesn’t always have a happy ending.
Something shifts in his gaze, and Noah pulls the book from my hand, laying it on the floor between us. His hand returns to rest on my cheek, and before I have time to process what he’s doing, his lips sweep against mine. For a few seconds I rationalize that I imagined it because things like this don’t happen to me. Guys don’t ask me to inscribe my number on their hands, and they certainly don’t kiss me minutes after we meet. But the train coasts smoothly on the tracks, so his palm on my face, drawing me to him, is no act of turbulence. I freeze, unable to kiss him back yet not daring to pull away. Thoughts of Griffin, of a fairy-tale year, disintegrate into this moment. For the first time I believe it. Now is all that matters. And right now, Noah’s lips cover mine again.
The first kiss was a question, but now he possesses a sureness betraying his initial reticence. And that scent, the reason I could have stayed buried in his chest on our first meeting, intoxicates me. My shock quickly melts, and so do I, falling against him in a kiss so gentle, so delicious. This kiss is an answer. I think of Daisy and Gatsby before the book started, what they must have been like when they had hope, and I savor the taste of their hope as my hands find their way to the hair I wanted to touch the moment Noah fell out of that bathroom door.
