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They could still hear the party downstairs, but Ezra’s room was dark, quiet. They’d opened the window above the bed and a soft breeze gently rustled the curtains and moved over their still hot, sweaty bodies tangled together. Candace lay on her side, and Ezra had practically molded himself around her from the back, one of his strong arms under her head and the other locked around her soft middle.
“I’m not going to sleep,” Candace whispered.
“I am,” Ezra said, nuzzling his face into her neck as he pressed a firm kiss there.
“Okay.” The word was a breathy moan and she scraped her nails over his forearm, enjoying the way the hair on his arms felt underneath her fingers.
They lay in silence for a few moments. Candace could hear the faint pops of fireworks outside. She wondered if Mei had noticed that she’d disappeared, or if Miles was looking for Ezra so they could tell the story about the time they’d gotten matching trashy tattoos on a boys’ trip to Vegas. She was worried that Mei would send Miles to look for them and knew she should probably get up and tiptoe across the hall to the other spare bedroom, just in case. She knew that, but she snuggled deeper into the bed, inside the warm cocoon of Ezra’s body.
She’d leave in a little while, she reasoned to herself.
“Why aren’t you going to sleep?” Ezra asked after a while, his voice deep and thick with sleep.
Candace shivered in his arms. “Me and Mei are going to the Oscar Grant protest,” she said.
It shouldn’t have been possible for him to hold her tighter, closer, but he did and it made her entire heart clench with emotion.
Ezra kissed the column of her neck again. “You don’t want to get a few hours of sleep before that?” he asked carefully.
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I’ll oversleep.”
It was true. She and Mei had agreed to help a friend who’d volunteered to take her students to the protest and needed extra chaperones. They couldn’t be late. She didn’t want to be late. And she knew that if she closed her eyes now, she wouldn’t wake up on time, not even with the alarm she’d set. And if she didn’t wake up, Mei would come looking for her. She’d wake Miles up, no matter when he'd fallen asleep, and the two of them would look all over the house. Eventually someone would open Ezra’s door and find her in his bed.
She couldn’t let that happen. She wasn’t ready for anyone to know about their annual arrangement. At least not until she understood it herself.
But that wasn’t the only reason she didn’t want to fall asleep.
She and Ezra had been hooking up every New Year’s Eve for four years. For the past four years, she’d spent three hundred and sixty-four days waiting to see him again, relishing his rare likes on Facebook or when he popped up in the group chat they shared with Mei and Miles unexpectedly. Each time, she felt overwhelmed by just the digital imprint of him and the force of her own longing. Their time apart was an extended lesson in patience as she fought against the bone-deep urge to write him the long email confessing her feelings; the email she’d had written in her head and heart for seven years.
But all that perseverance paid off, at least for a single night each year; just a few hours really. For the past four New Year’s Eves Candace allowed herself to revel in her time with Ezra; cataloguing him the way she used to in college, noting all the small changes in him as he became some version of the boy she’d loved.
Her favorite point of observation was his voice. She drank in every word he said and marveled that every year, the timbre seemed to dip, taking on a raspy edge that had never been there before and made her shiver with arousal. It made him seem more confident, sexier; not quite like the Ezra she’d known, but just as fascinating. She also liked to note the way his accent was changing year-to-year. It wasn’t a New York accent really, but it wasn’t that weird Bay Area accent, the fast-paced slow drawl she loved, anymore either. She’d mourned it once and then over the course of the night, it had re-emerged as he spoke to their friends and drank with Miles; becoming — at least aurally — the Ezra she’d always known.
During their night together, Candace tried to memorize every detail of him. The sound of his laughter. The tickle of their arm hair when they almost touched. All his different facial expressions — frowning at Miles, playfully rolling his eyes at Mei, smiling at Candace, biting his bottom lip at Candace, staring hungrily across a room at Candace — she mentally catalogued them all, saving them up to get her through their year apart.
And when it was just them alone, she tried to memorize the feeling of his strong hands slipping under her dress and up her legs, his tongue on her breasts, the taste of his skin, the feel of his dick in her hands and mouth and sex. The way he groaned her name in her ear in that new voice but that old accent. There was so much to see and feel and know and relearn in their dark, quiet room and she didn’t want to miss a thing, because this night was all they had.
But she couldn’t tell him that. He wouldn’t understand. He might stop holding her so close and she couldn’t bear that loss. Not right now.
Candace had been up for a promotion at AeroPlan. She’d received the rejection letter three days ago right after she’d returned from a hellish cross-country trip with an inexperienced and unprofessional crew. She’d had to stay at Oakland airport three hours after landing to fill out incident reports and write up crew members; performing the responsibilities of a purser, even though she wasn’t one and according to her rejection letter, she wouldn’t be any time soon.
Being denied for yet another promotion she wanted — and more importantly, deserved — was a blow she wasn’t yet ready to deal with. And looking forward to seeing Ezra had been the post-rejection distraction she needed. So, she didn’t want to miss anything; not even the sound of his even breathing as he slept.
Ezra shifted and his dick prodded her hip.
“I thought you were going to sleep?” she whispered with a laugh.
He smiled against her skin. “If you’re not, I’m not. I’ll keep you company. I have a meeting in the city and can’t go to the protest, but I can make sure you don’t miss it,” he said.
She turned her face to the pillow to hide her smile. She thought about telling him her other reason for wanting to stay awake in that moment. She wondered if maybe he felt the same way. If maybe he could. If maybe this didn’t have to be their only night.
Ezra’s leg slipped between hers and he pressed his thigh against her wet, aching core. He raised his mouth to her ear and sucked her lobe into his mouth.
She groaned.
“I’ll stay up with you. But only if you want,” he whispered.
“I want,” she said quickly, turning toward him. “I want you.”
His face was shadowed, hiding his reaction from her. She didn’t know if he frowned at her words or if his eyes lit up and he blushed again from his ears down his neck the way he used to in college. But with the recent sting of rejection she decided to be happy about the mystery of his emotions. She only wanted to memorize the best things about their time together. Only the things she could hold close for the rest of the year to get her through the worst days and loneliest nights. She had enough mediocre or bad things in her life; she didn’t need more, especially not with Ezra.
So she allowed herself to imagine that he did blush and smile.
But she didn’t have to imagine when he lowered his head and kissed her deep and slow for what felt like blissful hours that she couldn’t track. And there was no mistaking how real it felt to fumble around with Ezra’s penis to roll on another condom in the dark without breaking their kiss, or the pleasure of how good it felt when he moved on top of her and entered her so tenderly that it brought tears to her eyes. These were the moments she wanted to remember and carry with her. And she did.