Eleven

The November air is cool but there’s not a cloud in the sky, and the bright morning sun makes me reach for my sunglasses as I drive down State Street. I’ve got at least a ten-minute drive ahead of me before I reach Jamie’s house on the east side, knowing Athens’s screwed-up stoplight system. Just enough time to call Landon.

I ignore the uneasiness in my stomach and hit his number on my speed dial.

“Hello?”

“Before you ask, yes, I’m all right, I have all of my organs still, and no, I didn’t have sex with him. He didn’t even try. Well, not until I was sober, anyway.”

There’s some clanging on the other end of the line and I would put money on it that Landon’s doing his weekly room cleaning. Not that he’s a neat freak. No, he’s way too cool for that.

“Good. Glad to hear he didn’t make a dress out of your skin or something,” Landon says, and although I hear some relief in his voice, he’s also strangely detached.

“Hey,” I say, and the clattering in the background stops. “Thank you for looking out for me. Travis said you were pretty upset.”

“I was kind of a jerk to him, honestly.”

“Well, he may have mentioned that too.”

“I would have understood if he’d beaten the shit out of me. I think I accused him of being a sexual predator at one point.”

I press the phone closer to my ear, maneuvering my car with only one hand. I can barely hear Landon. His voice is weaker than normal, almost fragile sounding.

“You were worried about me. He understood that.” I pause, thinking of what Travis said last night. “That’s all it was, right? Worry?”

Landon pauses too. I hear more rustling on his end of the line. “Yeah. Of course.” Another pause, then, “I guess I didn’t need to be. I mean, he’s not exactly the type of guy who’s going to stick around forever, but he seems decent. He wanted to take care of you.”

I pull up to a stoplight, grateful for a slight reprieve from engine noise. “Is that why you let me go home with him? ’Cause you decided he was a good guy?”

Landon sighs so loudly that I hear it on my end. “That’s just it, Sam. I shouldn’t be letting you do anything. I’m not your mother or your brother or your boyfriend. If you want to have sex with Travis, you should have sex with Travis, and I need to just . . . let it go.”

I reach up and rub my forehead. I don’t feel hungover anymore, but I could swear my brain is not working at optimum capacity. It’s like information is meandering through my synapses, not quite firing in the right directions, and it takes me a while to get what Landon’s saying. “But you’re my friend. That’s part of what friends do. They watch out for each other.”

“Yeah, that’s what friends do,” Landon says. “But friends should also let you make your own decisions.”

I say nothing, and the stoplight turns to green, so I press down on the gas.

“Are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know. He wants to but he also kind of made it clear he’s not into the boyfriend thing.”

I hear Landon hum his agreement. “And you’re seeing Jamie today?”

“On my way to pick him up. I’m going to take him to Yellow Springs to see the art.”

“Sounds good.”

There’s dead air again for a while, which makes me even more uneasy than before. Landon and I never run out of things to say to each other, and even if we’re silent, it’s usually of the comfortable variety. This is definitely not comfortable.

“Are we okay, Landon?”

“Huh?” he asks, then hums again. “Yeah. We’re fine. Sorry. Last night was really weird and, uh, I’m just really tired, you know?”

“Well, get some sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

He agrees and we both hang up. Just in time, too, because I’m on Locust Street, which is Jamie’s street, and I pull into his driveway. Jamie all but bounds out the front door and hops into the car, and I turn to him, amused.

“Good morning,” he greets me, beaming, and drops a black peacoat into my backseat. I was right about him looking gorgeous. He’s wearing a tight-fitting gray-and-white-striped shirt that I’ve never seen him wear before, with a vest over that and a pair of combat boots tugged up over his jeans. He looks more like a model than a sophomore in high school, and honestly, I’m not sure even Travis could compete with him at the moment.

“Morning.” I reach down to the console and pull up a Styrofoam cup, holding it out to him. “Coffee. You’re going to need it, trust me.”

Jamie smiles and takes the cup, drinking a bit before fastening his seat belt. He bounces a little in his seat. “So are you going to tell me where we’re going, or do I have to guess?”

“Are you up for a long drive?”

“Sure,” he says, sipping more coffee, which I’m not entirely sure he needs now. He might be naturally wired. “I told Mom I’d be gone all day, and she’s got the night shift anyway. She’ll never know what time I got back.”

“Good, ’cause where we’re going is about two hours away.” I put the car in drive and ease it back onto the road. “I thought we’d check out Yellow Springs.”

“Seriously?” Jamie whispers with reverence. “I’ve wanted to go there forever. Did you know there’s a potter there who uses a kiln that’s over two hundred years old? And one of the watercolor artists there has something hanging in the Louvre? And the glassblower . . .”

I let Jamie talk as I pull onto the highway, and I feel my lips turn up into a smirk. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Sam Raines is a master at planning dates.

While I’ll admit that the idea of spending two hours in a car with a shy boy made me a little apprehensive, I’ll also admit that it was a completely unfounded fear.

Jamie talks all the way to Yellow Springs like I’ve never heard him talk before. About everything, even the stuff that must be difficult. He tells me more about his father, and his father’s disease, and the progression of it over the months before he died. He talks about his mother’s job at the hospital. She’s a neonatal nurse, which is apparently very rewarding but, at times, the hardest of all jobs at the hospital, and it takes an emotional toll on his mom, and sometimes him in turn. I’d had the impression before that his family didn’t have much money, but as I drive he speaks openly about how hard it’s been for him and his mom to handle his father’s medical bills, and I find myself admiring him for working to pitch in, and for the way he’s so unspoiled.

He gets me talking about my parents, and even though I’m used to their quirkiness, he thinks it’s a riot. I guess to any normal person, living with two eccentrics–slash–college professors who are hippies that time forgot might be amusing, but to me they’re just Mom and Dad. Still, I tell him how my mother gets herself whipped up into a historian frenzy every time she reads a new thesis on the Founding Fathers, and how my dad does his best writing at three a.m., with a bowl of sugared almonds and a cold Magic Hat #9 on hand.

By the time we’re swinging around the outer belt of Columbus, we’ve moved on to music (our taste is different enough to be interesting, but not enough to make me cringe), politics (right in line there), and books (not the same at all, but he promises to try a few of my favorites if I give one of his favorite horror novels a chance). Before we pull into the town of Yellow Springs we’ve also discovered that neither of us can sing in tune, that we’re both suckers for cheesy family sitcoms, and that we don’t get the appeal of sushi.

If I had that stupid list that started this whole thing in my hands, I’d be checking each item off, one by one.

Yellow Springs hasn’t changed much since the last time I was here, maybe three years ago. It’s like Athens, only grown-up. There’s a sophisticated feel to it all. The pre–Civil War homes and buildings house art galleries, record stores, jewelry shops, libraries, wine cellars, and antique dealers, and the brick streets are alive with collectors and intellectuals and artists.

I park at the old train depot, which is now a yoga studio, and as Jamie and I climb out of the car, our eyes meet and we grin like idiots. The town feels like a home, a haven, a place where even amateurs like ourselves belong.

“What first?” I say, taking his hand.

“The potter? The glassblower? Maybe we could go into that museum over there, the one with the sculpture outside?”

I look all around myself. I can feel his excitement buzzing like electricity through my hand. And maybe there’s some of mine in there too. “You choose.”

We start walking, and honestly, I could be happy merely walking the streets all day. Instead, on a cue from a wooden sign, he pulls me a little off the main street through a courtyard with a winding brick path. It meanders around a few shops until coming to a stop outside an old, weathered barn. I’ve never seen a potter work, not in real life anyway, so I have no idea what Jamie’s pulling me toward. Smoke billows in giant black ribbons out of a cylindrical chimney, and through the wide arched doorway of the building I can see flames dancing, orange and red. Even twenty paces away, the heat of the fire licks at my skin.

There’s a crowd gathered, watching as the potter carefully uses long tongs to pick up pieces of his delicate artwork and lay them inside the giant stove. The crowd is nearly silent, only a few whispers now and then, and after a while I turn to Jamie. He is rapt, studying the whole process with an eager expression on his face that I’ve only seen when he talks about going to art school.

“Do you do this?”

“What, me?” he whispers back to me, making it obvious that I shouldn’t have used my full voice to ask. “No. This, um, this isn’t really my medium, you know? But I’ll have to take courses on it at the Institute.”

The Institute is the art school of his dreams in Chicago. I admit, the last time I was on the Internet, I looked it up. Even without knowing much about art, I could tell it was the place to be for serious students. And okay, maybe when I was online I also looked up art schools in New York City. There are some great ones there, you know, if Jamie would want to, say, be a little closer to NYU. For any particular reason. I squeeze his hand.

“Tell me how it works.”

Jamie grins at me, happy to have a moment when he can teach, and starts explaining the process of shaping clay and glazing it and baking it. Most of what he’s saying flies out of my brain, unabsorbed, the minute he says the words out loud, but I memorize the cadences of his speech, the little pauses and lilts that make his words as unique as he is himself.

Jamie, I decide, would make one hell of a good character for a novel.

When the potter goes inside and the show is over, Jamie leads the way again. We browse through the potter’s store, but that leads into another store, and another, and then we find ourselves in a painting supply store.

I can tell Jamie’s in heaven, so I hang back and let him browse. He picks out new brushes and colors for himself. When he’s done, he has two bags, and his face is pink with excitement.

“You’re a kid in a candy store,” I tease, and he flushes darker.

“I am. Speaking of, there’s an actual candy store across the street. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

I glance out the window and across the brick road, where a store that has displays like the inside of Willy Wonka’s factory awaits. “If what you’re thinking has anything to do with giant lollipops and chocolate, I’m on board. But then I’m going to need some coffee to balance out the sugar.”

I’m doing pretty well considering how much I drank last night, but the caffeine from this morning has worn off, and I could use a three-hour nap. Again I feel that twinge of guilt about Travis as Jamie takes my hand and leads me across the street, but it’s forgotten the moment we step inside the shop.

The candy store smells as good as it looks, and even though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I kind of want to buy one of everything. Jamie struggles with his decision and finally ends up choosing one of my favorite candies for himself—those little German raspberries. I buy a pound and promise to split the bag with him after the coffee.

It’s too chilly to sit outside, so we plop down on an old, broken-in couch inside the coffee shop and sip from antique, mismatched china. Jamie digs into the German raspberries and I smile at him. “Having fun?”

“I’ve wanted to come here forever,” he says wistfully through a mouthful of candy seeds. “Thank you, Sam.”

“Feels right, doesn’t it? This place?” Jamie nods in agreement. “I think I’d like to settle down in a place like this to write after I finish school in New York.”

“Yeah. You’d have so many places to sit and scribble. You’d probably be a regular here, and maybe in that little diner we passed by. And I could paint in the courtyards. Or if we bought one of those beautiful old homes, we could make a studio in the attic.” Jamie’s eyes widen as he realizes what he’s saying and quickly backtracks. “I mean, if we both happened to live here. And, um, you know, in the same house or something.”

“Jamie,” I say, and I reach out to brush my thumb across his cheek, “I think that sounds great.”

He lowers his gaze so that he’s smiling up at me through his eyelashes. It’s so damned cute that I put my arm around him and he tucks his legs up under himself and snuggles into me in return. We don’t say much more, and the silence isn’t awkward. I just enjoy his company, his smell, the warmth of him pressed against me. But eventually the coffee runs dry and it’s time to move on.

“Where next?” I ask.

Jamie pops one more raspberry into his mouth before rolling up the bag. “Where do you want to go?”

“I have to go to the bookstore. That’s the only place that’s a must for me. But I’m warning you, I’ll spend hours there, so let’s save it for later.”

Jamie peers out the window. “How about we go in there?”

I follow his gaze to a jewelry store window that has displays of lovely sterling silver and semiprecious stone rings and bracelets. I’m not a jewelry guy, but I’ve noticed that Jamie wears a Celtic knotted ring on his right hand, so I nod.

The inside of the store is almost overwhelming. The jewelry is grouped by color and it seems as if silver and sparkling stones are dripping from every inch of the walls, tables, and display cases all around. There’s an older, round woman with spiky white hair behind the counter, working on twisting silver wire around a large amber stone, and she looks up and offers her help, should we need it. I blurt out how impressed I am before I can temper my awe with a little bit of refinement. She smiles at me over the rims of her bifocals.

“Thank you, dear. I made it all, so if you can’t find what you’re looking for, I could probably whip something up for you before you skip town.”

I thank her, unable to imagine something that’s not already here that I could request.

I’m lost in the blue topaz section of the store when I notice that Jamie’s been paused for quite some time by a particular glass case. I wander over and peer down. The case is full of cross pendants. Some of them are blackened artfully to look like they could be from the Middle Ages, some are bright and shiny; some are thin and fragile looking, while others seem almost muscular, the silver lines wrapping around themselves like thick, sinewy tissue.

“Which one is your favorite?” I ask him, and Jamie puts his finger on top of the case, indicating the cross in the middle. It’s a pendant, and one of the few crosses that’s not quite delicate, but not overly masculine either. Its metal strands are braided into a Celtic knot that forms the points of the cross, and it’s very similar to the ring Jamie wears.

“I didn’t know you were religious,” I say, kicking myself for not thinking to ask on the way here, when we’d been knee deep in other subjects like politics and future plans.

“I’m not.” Jamie continues to stare at the cross, his expression melancholy. “I mean, I’m not anymore. Mom and I used to go to church. Before Dad got sick. Then she stopped going, so we all stopped going. It was hard to get Dad there anyway, but . . . I think she got tired of her prayers going unanswered.”

His voice has dropped to a whisper, and I reach down and take his hand, running my thumb over the ridges of his knuckles, trying to comfort him as best as I can.

“It’s a beautiful story, though, isn’t it?” he asks, turning to me, eyes hopeful. “That there was someone who wanted to save us all.”

There’s a lump in my throat and I swallow it down and look away from his heartbreaking gaze, back at the cross. I realize then what Jamie’s really looking for, and I’m hit with the crushing desire to try to be that for him.

“Yeah,” I agree, and am startled that I actually mean it. “A savior would be nice.”

Suddenly I can’t be in this little shop anymore. It’s too crowded, too hot, and I’ve got to get out.

“I’ll be outside,” I whisper to Jamie, and have to keep myself from sprinting toward the door. Jamie follows, his brows knitted together in concern.

“You okay?” he asks when we’re both outside, touching my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I say, because I’m not sure why I’m acting the way I am. I can’t explain it to myself yet, so there’s no chance of explaining it to him. I only know that I’m overwhelmed by him, by what he does to me and what he sees in me, by the things he makes me feel. “Sorry, you can stay if you—”

“Nah,” he says, offering me a smile. “But . . . I am kind of getting hungry.”

“Man cannot live on German raspberries alone,” I muse, thankful that the heaviness I felt in the jewelry shop is starting to pass. I return his smile and focus on the moment, the here and now. “There’s a great little diner down there,” I say, waving to a spot a half a block away. “It serves all locally grown, organic food.”

“Sounds exactly like the kind of place two aspiring artists should try.”

I take his hand again. It’s starting to feel weird not holding his hand, and I know this day is completely spoiling me in that regard. “Let’s go.”

“Hey,” I say, pushing my empty plate toward the edge of the table and reaching for the bill. “There’s a place you have to see before the bookstore.”

“What?” Jamie asks.

“Not telling. You’ll just have to trust me.”

He does trust me, following me quietly and without giving voice to the questions I see behind his eyes. The place I’m taking him is far off the beaten path of Yellow Springs, two blocks away from the center of town, then three more blocks north, buried in the beginnings of a residential neighborhood. We come to a halt in front of a small green house that looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright might have designed, with a stone sidewalk leading up through a pergola to the front door.

“Where are we?” Jamie asks, staring at the house, face scrunched in confusion.

“This is an art museum or . . . I guess they sell stuff, so . . . not so much a museum, but most people don’t know it exists. My parents come here when they want to buy something they can really show off.” I shrug. “I think it’s where Yellow Springs keeps the good stuff.”

Jamie laughs—a full, bright, surprised laugh. “Sam . . . you’re . . .”

“I’m amazing, go on and say it,” I tease.

“I was going to say thoughtful,” Jamie says, rolling his eyes, “but I guess amazing works too.”

We’re greeted at the door by a woman who reminds me of my mother. She’s got the same airy feeling, and very intelligent eyes, and a smile that doesn’t show on her lips but in her whole body.

“Welcome to the Green House. My name is Ninah and right now I’m enjoying my cup of afternoon tea, which is fortunate for you because it means I won’t be hovering over you when you look at these beautiful creations. So I’ll be in the kitchen,” she waves toward the back of the house, “minding my own business. If you see something you like, feel free to interrupt my tea break. And if not, let yourselves out the same way you came in, and I’ll try not to be heartbroken.”

Ninah floats away, and I notice that’s she’s barefooted under her long, patchwork skirt. Jamie and I look at each other, amused and perplexed by her speech. I drop his hand and urge him to look around.

The Green House is composed of only three small rooms, but every spare inch of the plain white walls is covered in art. I wander, keeping on the other side of the room from Jamie so that I don’t disturb him. I like what I see, some of it more than others, but I’m not here to buy. I do, however, find myself drawn to bright colors, and to things my uneducated brain can only describe as Impressionist-like, and, of course, to watercolor pieces. Then, in the second room, a painting makes me stop and call for Jamie.

He’s in the first room still, and he ducks in, eyebrow arched. “What is it?”

I point, and Jamie comes to stand next to me. The painting is watercolor, bright like I seem to like, and it’s of a pretty yellow bird, perched on a branch of a willow tree. The colors run into each other, mixing and becoming one. If not for it being so realistic instead of fanciful, it could be Jamie’s.

“It’s good,” he offers, and his fingers hover over the canvas, following the curve of the bird’s back. “I like their lines. Not definite, but precise nonetheless. It looks like it could fly off the canvas.”

I keep my eyes on the painting. “It’s not as good as yours.”

Jamie opens his mouth, tries to speak, and then shuts it again. Then he shakes his head. “No, this”—he looks for the artist’s name—“this Henri, he’s much better than I am. This is stunning work.”

I turn to Jamie, shaking my head. “It’s beautiful, yeah. But it’s not as good as yours.”

“Henri is a friend of mine.”

At the sound of a womanly voice, Jamie and I both turn around, startled, as Ninah walks through the door behind us.

I wince. “Sorry, I mean no offense to Henri. He’s obviously talented, and I’m not an art critic so what do I know? I just . . . I like his stuff better,” I say, jerking my thumb in Jamie’s direction.

Ninah leans against the wall, scrutinizing Jamie with a shrewd glare. “You are an artist?”

“I’m an art student,” Jamie corrects her with gentle modesty. “Watercolors, mostly. And birds, which is why Sam made the comparison at all, but mine’s nowhere near as good as your friend’s.”

“Let me see.”

“What?” Jamie stammers, confused.

“Let me see some of your art,” Ninah insists.

“I don’t, um. I don’t have anything with me.”

As Jamie stutters I reach for my phone, tapping through the screens until I get to a picture I took of Jamie’s Jubjub, and I hold it out for Ninah to see. “This one is mine, so it’s not for sale. But the rest are. Just flick through. He’s done a gorgeous phoenix, and a peacock and dodo that look better than I could even dream up in my imagination.”

Ninah takes my phone, casting both Jamie and me a dubious glance before looking at the screen.

“Oh,” she says after a minute, then taps the phone so that it gives her another picture. Then she starts talking—really talking—to Jamie. Questioning his methods, his instruction, his plans and goals. “And how old are you?”

“I’ll be sixteen in March,” Jamie says, and I almost regret showing Ninah the pictures. Jamie looks pale, sickly, because this art dealer is inspecting and therefore possibly criticizing his work. “I, um . . . I don’t know where I’ll go to school yet, of course, but . . . this is definitely what I want to do.”

Ninah finally tears her eyes away from the phone, hands it back to me, and settles a focused gaze on Jamie. “How much are you asking for those?”

“What? Asking? Like, to sell?”

Ninah’s lips almost falter into a smile. Almost. “Yes. How much?”

“I’ve, um . . . I’ve never thought to price them.”

“I wouldn’t take less than four hundred for each of them here, if you’d be interested.”

Jamie reaches for my hand, scrabbling at my side until he finds it, and grips it so tight I have to bite my lip to keep from yelping. “You’d sell them for me?”

“Yes. You’re quite talented. And at fifteen, I could throw around the term ‘prodigy,’ which gets all the art snobs’ panties in a bunch.” Ninah finally does smile, embellishing it with a conspiratorial wink. “Your friend is right, from what I can tell. You have talent. You should be selling these.”

Ninah begins to walk toward the mysterious back room, casting us a pointed look over her shoulder. “Well, come on. Let’s talk about your future, sweetheart. I’ll make us some tea.”

Jamie starts walking with her, turning back to me, eyes wide, to mouth, “Oh my god!” I reach out and touch his elbow.

“Hey, go talk. Unless you need me, I’d probably do more good at the bookstore. And this way it’ll be less time that you sit there watching me buy piles of old books. So . . .”

Jamie nods, his happiness shining in his blue eyes. “Okay. Go. I’ll meet you there. Sam . . . she wants to buy my art.”

I touch my palm to his cheek. “And she’s making you tea, so go on. I’ll see you soon.”

Jamie all but skips away and I watch him go, chest tight with happiness for him, and pride. Then I turn myself toward the front door. I’m not going to the bookstore, though. I lied. At the center of town I turn right, the opposite direction of the bookstore, and toward the little jewelry store we were in before. When I walk through the door and the little bell chimes over my head, the white-haired woman looks up.

“I figured you’d be back. Gonna buy that boy his cross?”

I nod to her because I can’t speak. The lump is back in my throat, and I really can’t believe I’m doing this; that I’m standing in this store again, and I’m going to buy jewelry for a boy. But at the same time, it seems like the most logical thing ever, because it will make Jamie happy, and that’s what I want more than anything right now.

The woman takes the cross out of the case and hobbles back to her desk, ringing it up on an old adding machine. She carefully wraps it in white tissue paper before placing it inside a tiny silver box. As she closes the lid on it, I feel as though she’s sealed something else in there with it. Maybe my fate.

“Knew that one was special when I was making it,” she muses, almost to herself. “It’s just been sitting here, waiting on you, honey.”

“And how long has it been waiting?” I ask, almost dreading the answer. My skin is prickly, hot and cold at the same time like I have a fever, and I hate myself for it, but my eyes feel a little watery.

She looks at me over the top of her bifocals and then begins to laugh—a small chuckle that unleashes into a cackle. “You’re never going to believe this . . . I made that one on Friday the thirteenth. I hope you’re not superstitious.”

I laugh too, and she looks at me funny. I don’t blame her. My laugh is totally off, almost shrill. I sound like a complete lunatic. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. Thank you.”

“I hope your boyfriend enjoys it,” she says in return, and holds out the box for me to take.

Friday the thirteenth. Meg is never going to believe this.

I mumble my thanks and make a hasty exit. Again, the shop is too small, too hot. I gasp for air on the street, kind of doubled over, clutching the box like it can save me. When my heart rate has returned to normal, I start walking in the direction of the bookstore.

“Sam!” I turn and Jamie’s walking toward me, coming from one of the side streets. He jogs to catch up with me. “I thought you went to the bookstore.”

“Got distracted,” I say, ignoring the box in my hands for the moment. “So . . . ?”

Jamie beams. He’s a little breathless, and it’s coloring his cheeks a pretty pink. “She’s buying ten of my paintings, more if I email her photos of them later so she can see them. And she’s thinking seriously about having a show at the Green House for me. How crazy is that?” He pauses, raising a hand to cover his mouth like he’s in utter shock. “I could pay for school this way. I never even thought about that before . . . I never considered that I could make money for art school by making art, and I wouldn’t have . . . I wouldn’t have even told her I was an artist if you hadn’t been there. I can’t believe you showed her those pictures. I can’t believe you told her I was better than her friend. I can’t believe that I was mortified when you started talking to her!”

I laugh, caught up in his excitement. The smile on his face makes my heart skip along in my chest like you see in cartoons, and we smile like goons at each other for a minute. Then I hold the silver box out.

“I got you something.”

Jamie looks down at the box, then up to me, puzzled. “What?”

I shrug, and he shakes his head at me, like I’m beyond help, before pulling the lid off the box and digging through the white tissue. When he uncovers the cross, he makes a strangled little noise in his throat. “Sam . . .”

“I didn’t get you a chain. I figured you might like it better on leather or hemp or something. I mean, if you even want to wear it at all. Just because you thought it was pretty didn’t mean that you’d actually want to wear it I guess, but if you—”

Then I can’t talk anymore because Jamie’s kissing me. His mouth is pressed to mine and my words are clogged in my throat and to hell with what I was going to say, anyway. I reach up and take Jamie’s face in my hands, kissing him back like I need the air in his lungs, and I don’t stop kissing him until I feel his hand pushing on my chest.

“Sorry,” I apologize, gasping for air. “I got carried away.”

“No, I’m sorry . . . was that . . . was that too soon or . . . not good or . . .” His skin is bright red. “I’ve never really kissed anyone before.”

I smile at him, so big that my face burns.

“What?” he asks, nervous. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”

“It was perfect,” I say, almost rolling my eyes at myself for using that adjective. “You’ve never kissed anyone before?”

He looks away from me, fingering the little cross in his hands. “Well, I played spin the bottle in sixth grade, but . . . no, no one else.” He looks back up at me, searching my face. “What? Oh my god, why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just flattered. Never been anyone’s first kiss before.”

He looks skeptical. “Are you sure it was okay?”

I answer by wrapping an arm around his waist, pulling him to me, and kissing him. This time he lets me lead, teach, and I slide my tongue between his lips. A hum vibrates in his throat, a singsong little noise of appreciation, and I swear that I could do this forever. I could spend the rest of my days on this street corner, kissing him with every ounce of everything I have, feeling him kiss me back the same way, returning it all.

When I pull away, his eyes are shut and he looks like he’s dreaming. “I like kissing,” he breathes.

I laugh. “Good. But if we stand here any longer our lips are going to freeze together, and in spite of how nice that sounds in theory, in reality it might be quite painful.” I release him from my grip and he kind of stumbles backward, and I have to give myself a couple of points for making him weak in the knees. “It’s my turn now, Mr. Big-Shot Artist. We’re going to the bookstore, and I’m finding you some suitable literary material to read.”

“God help me,” Jamie teases, and hand in hand, we set off to the bookstore.

Jamie falls asleep on the drive home, exhausted from the excitement of the day. In the backseat of my dad’s old car are our purchases: Jamie’s art supplies, a half-eaten bag of German raspberries, a silver cross, and a brown paper bag filled with used books. Some of the books are his—classics he’s avoided reading for far too long, and a few of my favorite authors—and some are mine. A few of my own choices, but also some bestsellers that Jamie swears by, a handful of Stephen King’s finest, which Jamie promises I’ll love, and even a graphic novel written by Neil Gaiman. It turns out we both love Neil Gaiman, so we’re going to take turns reading it.

I let Jamie sleep and listen to the Cure. It reminds me of Travis, but only in a distant way, and I don’t think of him at all on the way home. Instead, for the entire two hours I think about Jamie, about who he is and what he will be, and try to see myself as part of that future. By the time I pull up to his house my face hurts from smiling. I give his knee a gentle squeeze to wake him and he opens his pretty eyes, blinking at me in the darkness until he gets his bearings.

“Thank you,” he whispers to me, voice hoarse from sleep. “Today was . . .”

I smile. “Yeah. It was. Can I call you?”

He nods. “I’ll be home tomorrow. I don’t work until the evening.”

“No, I mean tonight. When I get home.”

Jamie stares at me, lips twitching into a smile. “Really? You want to talk to me after spending the whole day with me?”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m not irritated by you. Yet.”

Jamie laughs. “Sure. I’ll be up. Goodness knows I don’t need the sleep. Sorry I wasn’t much company on the way home.”

My thoughts were more than enough company. “It’s okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”

He starts to gather his things from the backseat, carefully dividing our books into separate bags. He leaves the raspberries for me.

“Good night, Sam.”

“Night,” I say, and lean toward him. He meets me halfway, and this time the kiss is short but deep and kind of sexy, like it holds secrets we’re not ready to share yet. Then he climbs out and I wait until he’s inside and a light is on before driving away.

That night we fall asleep on the phone together, and I dream about birds flying through a breeze that sounds a lot like soft laughter.