Sadie #4
I thanked Jess’s uncle as the group started another game, and when we got outside, my car was sitting in the driveway.
“Jess DeLuca,” I sighed, so relieved the Civic was free that I was positively giddy. Without his help, I would’ve had to wait until payday to get my car out of jail. “I cannot thank you enough.”
Only…I tilted my head and squinted in the darkness. “Wait—did they wash my car?”
“Ray always kisses Sal’s ass, so if my uncle asked him to unboot your car and bring it over,” Jess said, “odds are good he filled up the tank and got it washed.”
“Okay, who are these people?” I asked, suddenly aware of the way he was right there, towering over me. I swallowed and said, “This has been a surreal evening.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I know they’re a little much—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I mean in the very best way. I loved it, and I’m actually a little bummed to leave.”
“Yeah?” he said, his voice quiet, his dark eyes all over me.
“Yeah,” I replied, feeling breathless.
“Okay, so listen,” he said, his face suddenly the only thing I could see. “I know I wasn’t what you had planned for tonight and it’s been a long time, so you don’t even know me anymore, but I’d love to give you my number in case you ever feel like—”
“I do,” I interrupted yet again, way too eager. I cleared my throat. “I mean, I would.”
His lips slid into that smirk.
“I mean, I would love that,” I said, rolling my eyes at my inability to remain coherent while under the influence of his presence.
I pulled out my phone and handed it to him, looking away while he added himself to my contacts, because something about the sight of his fingers on the screen made my stomach dip. I glanced at my car, then did a double take when I noticed there was something sitting on the passenger seat.
I opened the door, looked inside, and couldn’t believe my eyes.
Impossible.
“Um” was all I could manage to say as I pulled out the basket, utterly blown away as I set it on the roof of my car and looked at its contents.
A gallon of milk, a container of Nesquik powder, a Taco Bell gift card, and a four-pack of Red Bull.
“How?” I asked, turning back around to face him, my suddenly cartwheeling brain rendering me incapable of stringing together full sentences as I looked up at him.
He shrugged, wearing a mischievous smile. “Maybe Ray likes to kiss my ass, too.”
“You remembered,” I said, shaking my head in awe as I looked up at him. “You remembered all of them.”
“It’s only three vices,” he said, as if this ridiculously thoughtful gesture was nothing at all. “And I didn’t have time to get the meatballs.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said, feeling like my breath was all stopped up in my chest.
“Well, I don’t know what it is about you, O’Connor,” he said, distracting me with the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.
“But even in the ninth grade, you made me remember all your tiny details. The cherry ChapStick clipped to your backpack, the freesia hand lotion, Human Boy being number one on your potential list of cat names; it all stayed with me.”
I looked into those dark eyes and felt lightheaded, because something about the fact that he’d remembered sweet little nothings felt absurdly monumental.
I’d forgotten all about the cherry ChapStick, but Jess hadn’t.
“Did you ever get a cat, by the way?” he asked, and I was very aware of how close he was standing, of how my back was pressed against the side of my car, of how near his mouth was to mine.
I nodded. “Eight months ago. An orange tabby.”
“And…?” he asked, his eyes dipping down to my lips, dear god.
“And his name is Human Boy.”
He looked stunned. “You’re kidding.”
I shook my head, feeling stunned all of a sudden.
I swear he leaned just a little closer as he said, “I feel like this is—”
I cut off his words with my mouth.
Yes, I, Sadie O’Connor, went up on Chuck Taylor tiptoe and rudely interrupted him, because he made me feel too spontaneous, far too romantic. My hands settled on the front of his crisp dress shirt—wow, that is a solid chest—as my lips crashed into his.
And he didn’t even flinch.
Jess angled his head and kissed me back like it was the only thing he’d ever wanted to do, like it was what he’d been planning to do all along.
Big warm hands snaked around my waist and pulled me closer while he fed me white-hot kisses, his bold mouth moving exactly the way ninth-grade Sadie had always imagined it would, like Jess DeLuca knew all the best dark secrets.
And when he finally raised his head—after an obscene amount of time had passed, for the record—he gave me that toe-curling smirk. “It kills me to say this, but I have to go take that stupid Vespa over to my sister, O’Connor.”
“Oh. Yeah,” I said, feeling like I was underwater, like everything in the world—except for Jess DeLuca—was fuzzy.
But then he said three words I hadn’t expected to hear that night, three words that made everything about the warm summer evening snap into razor-sharp focus.
He tucked one of my curls behind my ear, looked me in the eye, and said, “You should come.”