By the time we get off the train, we’re back to normal. Whatever that means. It’s not the same normal as yesterday. It’s not even the same normal as three hours ago.
The rain starts coming down in sheets, and we run into a darkened doorway a block from the station. It’s a very small doorway and it’s pretty much raining sideways, so it’s not that useful for keeping dry. My skirt is plastered to my legs, and water streams down my arms from my hair.
“We should just run for it,” I say. “We’re already soaked.”
“I know. I kind of like it.” He grins and draws me closer.
“Get your mind out of the gutter.” I run two fingers down his chest. “What’s your mother going to say when we both show up looking like drowned rats?”
“Probably that we should have taken an umbrella.” He pulls me to his hips. “We could stop at yours and you can change.”
“Um, no.” I’ve already thought about that and dismissed it.
“Don’t trust me, do you?”
“It’s not you.” It’s me. Because the way my body is reacting to being pressed up against him like this, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be the only one taking my clothes off. As it is, it’s all I can do not to writhe up against him, and I definitely don’t writhe.
Except he draws me closer and I do.
And when Finn cups my butt and my leg wraps around his, I feel the bulge in his shorts pressing against my pelvis. Knowing he has that reaction to me makes me feel powerful. And hot. Temperature-hot. Desirable-hot.
Hot.
And bothered.
I press against him, and he rocks up against me while his mouth devours mine. His hands slide underneath my shirt, unhooking my bra, gliding over my wet skin. I lift up his shirt and slip my fingers around the waistband of his shorts, yanking him closer by the belt loops. He’s just undone the first two buttons on my blouse when his phone rings from his back pocket.
It’s like an alarm. We both freeze mid-grope, and he reaches for the phone. I’m impressed his voice sounds so even when he answers because he never stops looking at me, never stops touching me. And even though he’s tracing my collarbone across my shoulders, I feel it much lower.
Finn hangs up and slides the phone back into his pocket, still not breaking my gaze. “We, uh, need to stop for milk.”
“Okay.” I glance out at the rain. It’s still pouring. “Do we need to go?”
“Probably.” His finger rests in the V of my blouse, and his other hand brings my hips back to his. “But we need to make a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
His hands still. “We need to agree we’re going to stop. That we’re not going to sleep together.”
“What do you mean?” The fire in my veins turns to ice.
If I had any doubt, the certainty in his voice erases it. “You deserve someone better. Not someone you’re going to wish you could undo.”
“How do you know what I wish I could undo?”
“I don’t. But I know I won’t be it.”
“You’re making a big assumption for our first date, aren’t you?” That comes out halfway between defensive and flirtatious, but it’s better than confused, which is how I really feel.
“I don’t think so.” The smile he gives me sends my stomach to my knees. “Tell me you don’t want me just as much as I want you.”
He leans over and kisses me again. As if to prove it. It’s just long enough that both of us are breathing hard when we pull back, and there’s no arguing. I’m as worked up as he is.
“What do we do about that then?” Because I can’t imagine how we uncross this line.
He grins. “Remember what they say about anticipation?”
“Remind me.” It’s my turn to kiss him to make sure it’s not just his terms. Although I should have known better. Finn’s more than ready for me. But unlike the last frantic ten minutes, this kiss is heartbreakingly gentle. His thumbs trace my cheekbones as he rains soft kisses on my lips, my jaw and down my neck, ending with a barely there kiss in the hollow of my throat. He pulls back and holds my gaze as he reaches around to hook up my bra, grazing the edges of my breasts. A jolt runs through me and I let out a gasp that makes him bite his lip, but he just lets his hands skim my waist before buttoning up my blouse and taking a deliberate step back.
He holds out his arm and I take it, stepping out into the rain. I wait to feel rejected before realizing I’m not going to. Finn’s not rejecting me. At all. In fact, between sidestepping puddles, stopping at the 7-Eleven for milk, and ducking into another doorway for a more PG-rated makeout session, Finn’s tender and oh-so-sweet. As we head up to his apartment, he’s gentle as he brushes the water off my shoulders in the elevator.
“You’re soaked.”
“I know. I should have stopped by for clothes once I realized you weren’t going to let me seduce you.”
“Was that your plan? You should have said so.” He laughs, and his smile stays in his eyes. “Don’t worry, you can borrow. I’ll find something that only falls down half the time.”
We burst into his apartment arm-in-arm, although Finn drops his hand when Eloise looks up from the couch with a startled smile. She springs up and takes the grocery bag as we shed our shoes and Finn pulls his shirt over his head. She doesn’t miss his hand skimming my hip before she goes into the alcove kitchen, and I wonder how much she knows about Dad’s ultimatum.
It sounds terrible, but I haven’t thought about Eloise that much. Finn never mentions her, and Dad doesn’t either. I used to assume it was for entirely different reasons, but when I think of what I do know about her, I’m not so sure. Eloise has had a hard time. She and Finn aren’t that close. Her ex-husband was horrible. All true. Still, I can’t help but feel she’s not exactly blameless. How could she be?
“You two are drenched,” she calls.
“No kidding. It’s pouring. I’m going to get some clothes,” Finn says. He leaves me dripping on the doormat and comes back a minute later with dry clothes and a towel. “If you want a shower, it’s in the same place as yours.”
I scurry across the floor to drip as little as possible and stand under the hot water, letting it stream through my hair and down my back. Their shower is higher than ours so I can actually stand up straight and it feels amazing, even though the water pressure is crap. Even with the back of my head under the water, I hear Finn and Eloise talking.
“You had a good day then?” she asks.
“Yeah, it was good. Odaiba’s kind of crazy.” I hear rattling of glasses.
“You and Zosia are spending a lot of time together.” Eloise tries to sound casual.
And Finn tries not to sound annoyed. “And?”
“And I wonder what you think about that?”
I try to hold my breath for his answer, but I have to breathe because it takes him a long time to speak and all he says is, “Yeah.”
Which tells me nothing, but there must be something in his face because Eloise says, “It will be okay, you know. You can do this.”
Finn’s moved out of the kitchen so I can’t hear his reply, but I hear Eloise’s protest follow him. Whatever it’s about, they don’t come back into earshot, and I finish up and slip on the clothes he’s lent me. A Lakers T-shirt and shorts that only stay up if I fold over and twist the waistband. I hang my wet clothes over the railing of the shower and tread out into the empty living room.
Their apartment isn’t much different from ours, but where ours is more or less standard issue, Eloise has painted the walls a blue-gray, and there are fans and Japanese prints interspersed with photographs. Eloise and Finn. An older woman who must be a grandmother. Finn at ten, maybe. He has the same smile, the same buzz cut.
I knock on the half-open door of his room—although I just assume it’s his room because he went in there before, not because I’ve been in myself. “Can I come in?”
He’s sitting on the floor, thumbing through a book and nods, gesturing me to the futon. “Feel better?” He wears a T-shirt and shorts similar to the ones he’s offered me.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I’m busy taking in the details of the room. The light is soft and the first thing I notice is there are a ton of books, at least by Japanese standards. I know he hangs out at Kinokuniya, but either he’s doing as much buying as browsing or he brought a lot of books with him. His guitar is propped in the corner with a stack of papers piled on a stool next to it, the notebook he often has with him on top. He follows my eyes with his own.
“Songs?” He nods. “Can I see?”
His face flickers in surprise, but he nods again. I reach for the papers and leaf through. The loose papers are all music, chords scribbled on the lines. I recognize the notes from my stint with the piano back when I was nine, but not well enough to bring any of it to life in my head. I open the notebook and skim the pages, but he watches my face too closely for me to read any of it.
“Are you going to play anything for me?” I ask.
“What do you want to hear?”
“Everything.”
“Maybe.” He glances at the clock. “It’s still early. I think we have some movies.”
“I’d rather listen to you play guitar.”
He gives me a look. “You have to give to get, you know.”
“What do you want?” I raise my eyebrows suggestively, and he smiles but shakes his head.
“Not that. One question.”
“What do you mean?”
“One question. I ask, you answer, and I’ll play for you until dawn if you’d like.”
“I would like. Speaking of, where am I sleeping?” I haven’t seen Eloise since we walked in, but I can’t imagine she doesn’t care where I sleep.
“You can have my bed. I’ll take the floor or the couch.” He knows I’m about to object. “And that’s the way it is, so don’t make a big deal out of it.”
I stick my tongue out at him and lay down on the futon. The pillow smells like Obsession for Men, and I take a deep breath in. God.
“Fine, so what’s the deal with this question?”
I expect some kind of preface, even though maybe I should know better. “How did you move on? When your mom died? How did you get over it?”
What the hell kind of question is that?
“I didn’t.”
Impatience flashes across his face. “Zosia.”
“It’s true.” I sit back up. I can’t be laying down for this. “I miss her all the time. Some days it’s worse than others, but there’s at least one moment, even on the best days, when I miss her like I did then. She told me before she died it’d get better. I don’t think she imagined it would take so long.”
“Did you miss her today?”
I nod. “When I was getting ready. I wanted her there, you know, to help me figure out what to wear. To tell me I had nothing to be nervous about. She had no patience for theatrics. She’d have told me to suck it up.”
Finn looks down, but I can see his smile. I’m about to tell him it doesn’t offend me when his smile disappears. “So if you’re not over it, how do you do it? Because you seem like you have your shit together about it. Completely.”
Suddenly I understand. He’s asking because he thinks I know something he doesn’t. I still don’t know everything that happened with his father, but whatever it was, it’s not over.
“Oh, Finn. I don’t know. I don’t.” I swallow hard. I want more than anything to say something that will help. “Maybe it’s different when you miss someone because they’re really gone.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He says it so quietly, and I know it didn’t help at all.
I’m wondering what to say when he reaches for his guitar. The chords are soft as he starts to play, and I realize he’s not going to say anymore. He asked. I answered. The end.
But I need to try again. “I went to school the day she died. She’d been sick and it was getting worse. Every day was a little bit worse. But she said I needed to go. School was important. I was in art class and a lady from the office came in to talk to Mrs. Rubio, the teacher. All I heard Mrs. Rubio say was ‘your mother’ and ‘the office,’ and I don’t know why, but I thought my mom was there, that somehow she’d suddenly gotten strong enough, well enough, and she was there in the office. I ran down the hall in my art smock with paint on my hands. My Aunt Gwen was there, Dad’s sister. And I kept asking her where Mom was. She didn’t understand; she didn’t know what I thought. Until I finally screamed at her. I remember it so vividly. I screamed, ‘But they told me Mom was in the office.’And she just shook her head. Really slow, like she could keep me from knowing.”
My eyes swim with tears, and Finn leans toward me over his guitar, but he doesn’t move to touch me.
“I went home and they let me see her. She looked so peaceful. Finally. They thought I’d get hysterical, but you know what did it? Seeing the green paint on my hands. I went to wash my hands later and I lost it. Completely. Because that paint was from the last minute before I didn’t have a mother anymore.” I blink and the tears spill over.
Finn brushes his fingers across my cheek, but I’m grateful he doesn’t embrace me. I haven’t cried for my mother in a long time, but I’ve done it enough that I know I’ve got to get it under control or the emotional fallout will last for days. I take deep shaky breaths and squeeze my eyes shut until the tears are just a trickle. I lift my head and look back up at him.
“Sorry. Better.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, Zosia. Or better.”
Of all people, he knows that’s not true. I say, “Why do you call me that?”
“What?”
“Zosia.”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “It’s your name. What else would I call you?”
“Most people call me Zo or Zoe.”
“That’s not who you are to me.” He kisses my forehead as he says this and slides over next to me on the futon. “Why did you tell me that? About your mom?”
I focus on our hands as he presses his flat against mine. “The minute I realized what I’d lost wasn’t when I found out she was dead. It was when I understood what I didn’t have anymore. Because that’s what you spend your life trying to get over. At least for me. As soon as she said cancer, we knew she was going to die. But it’s missing her, knowing she’ll never be there no matter what…” His hand is so much bigger than mine. We weave our fingers together and let go. Again. Again. “There’s a saying in Polish. Nigdy odszukują wiatr w terenie. To jest bezużyteczne próbować odkrycie co już jest nieobecny. Never seek the wind in the field. It’s useless to try to find what is already gone.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I do. But it’s harder to live it.”
Finn’s fingers close over mine and stay there. We’re sitting there, hand-in-hand, hip-to-hip when Eloise raps on the door and pushes it open. I jump away, but Finn doesn’t move.
“Hey, Zo. I just wanted to make sure you have everything you need.” Her eyes sweep over us, and even though we’re not doing anything—and I mean anything, since I dropped his hand—I feel uncomfortable. I don’t know what or if she’ll report back to Dad, but given his attitude about Finn, I don’t want Eloise to have any ammunition.
“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.” I force a smile. “Thanks for having me. I told Dad I was fine at home, but I think he worries there will be some crisis and I’ll be on my own trying to speak Japanese.”
“I’m sure you’d do fine if that were the case. He just didn’t want you to have to worry about anything. And we’re more than happy to have you.” She leans against the doorway. “We have some movies if you’re interested. I think we got the latest Bourne one.”
“I offered, but she’s not interested,” Finn says.
Eloise raises her eyebrows, and I imagine her wondering what I am interested in, so I add quickly, “Finn said he’d play me some of his songs.”
“Really?” She looks at Finn, not me, her eyebrows barely visible now.
“Really.” His tone makes it clear that he’d appreciate it if she didn’t say another word.
Eloise gets it, although her eyes rest on me again. I remember Finn saying he didn’t really play his stuff for other people, and I wonder if that includes his mom. I don’t get to think more about that, though, because she says, “Okay. Well, I have an early start, so I’m off to bed. Are you two set with sleeping arrangements?”
I’m glad Finn jumps in because I have no idea what to say. “Yeah, Mom. I told Zosia she could have my bed.”
“Where are you going to sleep?”
He shrugs. “Floor. Couch. Somewhere.”
“We have the extra futon if you want to put it in here. That way I won’t wake you in the morning.”
I wonder if my mouth is hanging open because Eloise basically just suggested we sleep together. Well, okay, maybe not that. But she definitely suggested we share a room, which is way more than Dad would do. Finn’s lips curl a little, and I’m pretty sure he’s remembering the conversation we had earlier about not having sex when he says, “Yeah, sure. That should be no problem at all.”
Eloise doesn’t seem to be the type to miss the sarcasm, but she ignores it. “Okay. Come get it then and I’ll leave you to it.” She glances at me. “Goodnight, Zo.”
I mumble goodnight and Finn follows her out. It takes a long time, considering the apartment is tiny and there’s not that much storage. I listen for whispers but only hear something heavy sliding across the wooden floor, clicks, more sliding. I pick up the nearest book and start to thumb through, scanning the drawings and text before I flip back to the cover. Organic Chemistry. There are some sticky notes and I page through those, noting the marks in the margin. It’s Finn’s handwriting and I manage to read two sentences he’s written before he comes back in, dropping the rolled-up futon in the doorway.
“Studying?” he asks.
I make a face. “I’m not even sure this is English.” I take one final look at the book before closing it. “You’re really smart, aren’t you?”
“Book-smart, yes. You shouldn’t sound so surprised.” He sits down next to me.
I laugh. “I’m not. You’re at MIT, for God’s sake.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t judge a book by its cover.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “You know - juvie, the tat.”
His tone is casual, but I can tell it’s forced. There’s a question there he wouldn’t dare ask directly, but it doesn’t mean he cares any less about the answer. “That’s not who you are to me, Finn.” My voice is soft as I peek at him through strands of hair that fall into my eyes, and he looks away.
He clears his throat. “So did you want to watch the Bourne movie?”
“No.” Half of me is disappointed he didn’t force the question. Half is relieved because I have no idea what I would say if he actually asked who he is to me. The only answer I have is he’s more than he was this morning and less than he’s going to be, if today is anything to go by.
“So what do you want to do?” he asks.
“I thought you were going to play guitar for me.”
“I told you. I don’t usually play for other people.” He reaches for the guitar as he says it.
“I know. But you’re going to play for me.” I make myself find his gaze and hold it.
He doesn’t look away. “But I’m going to play for you.”
And he does. Long after the lights are out and I’m tucked into his bed, the soft chords of his guitar fill the room. Occasionally he hums along, but he doesn’t sing and I don’t ask him to. I fall asleep with the music, and when I wake up it’s 3:15, still and dark. I hear Finn’s even breathing and reach out. He’s closer than I thought, and my hand lands on his chest. His eyes fly open.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Are you okay?”
I nod before I realize he can’t see me in the dark. “Yes, go back to sleep.”
He mumbles something and pulls me to the edge of my futon, threading his legs through mine. The futon is only a little smaller than a twin mattress and my leg falls in the gap, but I don’t move it away. I’m pretty sure Finn’s back to sleep the second he stops moving, but I lay there for a long time listening to the sound of our breathing perfectly in sync.