Chapter 9 Why Didn’t We Tell Each Other? #2
I came out of the bathroom to find him tinkering with the thermostat.
“I’m roasting. What the fuck is the deal with the heater?” he said.
“Daria put in a work order. I asked her yesterday.” The furnace in our hall was on the fritz and wouldn’t work for three days straight, then it would suddenly start working but wouldn’t stop. That’s what you get when you live in an old building in New York City.
I started to shimmy out of my tights. “Turn around,” I commanded, but he continued to watch me.
“Turn around, I’m gonna change.” He finally did.
Begrudgingly. I threw on a summery flower dress that was sitting in a pile of clothes on my bed, then I sat down on the floor and watched as Matt kicked off his shoes.
He slid across the hardwood in his socks and tried to pry open the window.
“It’ll get cold in here really fast if you open that. ”
He turned and eyed me, wearing next to nothing in my tiny spaghetti-strap dress.
And then he took his shirt off. My breath hitched every time I saw him shirtless.
His shoulders were broad but his waist was narrow, and he wore his jeans low on his hips, sometimes with boxers, sometimes without.
That night he was sans boxers and wearing the shoelace belt I’d made for him.
“Whatchya lookin’ at?” He walked toward me, smirking.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I was looking at your cool belt.”
“Sure you were.” He grabbed the bottle of tequila from my bookshelf, took a swig, and handed it to me, but I waved it off. I couldn’t drink another drop. “My other belt broke. My mom’s going to make me a new one when I’m there for break.”
“She makes belts?”
“Yeah, she’s crafty.”
“How does she do it?”
“She uses little metal tools to create designs in the leather.” He pointed to the leather strap on his camera, which was resting on my nightstand, where he had left it the day before.
I didn’t look over. I was still busy staring at his happy trail .
. . which didn’t escape him. When I looked up at his face, I saw that his eyes were on me, unblinking.
I shook myself out of the daze and reached over to pick up the camera. There was an intricate pattern of circles and triangles perforated into the leather. “That’s really cool.”
Hovering over me, he held his hand out. “Come on, dance with me.”
“What? No.”
“Get up here and dance with me, chicken.”
“I’m not a very good dancer and I’m too tipsy.”
“You seemed to be pretty good at that little flirty thing in the lounge with what’s-his-face.”
“I feel stupid about that. Please don’t bring it up. Anyway, you were the one doing body shots with Jennifer Aniston.”
“She does kind of look like Jennifer Aniston, huh?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Come on, get up here. I’ll lead. All you have to do is follow.”
I took his hand and stood up. I laughed nervously but he didn’t hesitate; he pressed one hand into the small of my back, grabbed my other hand in his, and pulled me into his bare chest. “Hand on my shoulder, Gracie.”
The song “With or Without You” by U2 came on.
Matt swayed to the beat then pushed me back and twirled me around.
When he brought me back in, our bodies were even closer than before.
He dropped his head down and kissed my bare shoulder.
My heart was racing. His skin was hot against mine.
We stopped moving and stepped away from each other, just a few inches.
I ran my index finger down the indentation of his obliques and admired the sculpted muscles of his lower abdomen.
The deep V of his abs seemed to point down, sending my eyes on a little trip south.
I could see from the way his chest was moving that his breathing had picked up, too.
“What are you doing?” His voice was low.
“Sorry . . .” I tried to pull my hand away from his stomach, but he grabbed it and put it back.
“You don’t have to stop.”
I put my hands on his waist and slid them up his hard sides to his chest and the soft tuft of hair in the center before they came to rest behind his neck. We began to sway, like we were slow dancing. His eyes were closed but he was smiling. “Mmm. My turn.”
“You don’t take me seriously, do you, Matt?”
His eyes shot open. He pulled me flush to his body so I could feel him hard against me. “Is that serious enough for you?” he said, roughly.
I pushed him away and staggered sideways. He sat down on the bed and tapped his foot on the CD player to stop the music. Leaning over, he set his elbows on his knees, letting his head fall between them. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.” I shuffled across the floor, feeling embarrassed for the first time in a long time. I plopped down next to him and threw my arm over his shoulder. We lay back across the bed and stared up at the ceiling. I rested my head on his arm like we had done so many times before.
“It’s not fair for me to do that. I’m really sorry, Matt.”
“It’s fine,” he said, but I don’t think he meant it.
I had thought over and over in my head how I would say what I wanted to say to him, but it came out all wrong. “Do you want me to get naked so you can . . . I mean, do you want to take a picture of my, of me . . . you know, like the naked girl in the . . .”
He chuckled. “Do you think that’s gonna help my situation, Grace?” He lifted his head and glanced down at his crotch.
I could feel that my face was hot and completely red. “No, I mean . . .” I swallowed, and tears began to cloud my eyes. My voice didn’t sound like my own. I sounded so weak. “I’m a virgin, Matt.”
There weren’t many virgins my age at NYU, and I was beginning to wonder if I had missed my window.
That’s what happens; as you get older, it gets harder and harder to pursue an intimate relationship with someone.
I had avoided it because I was so laser-focused on school and music.
By sophomore year, I was literally the only person I knew who was still a virgin.
I felt like a joke. And I was scared guys would think I was weird or inexperienced.
Matt’s face was penitent and his eyes were wide. He brushed my cheek with his palm. “I know, Grace. I’ve known since, like, the first day we met. You don’t have to do anything. I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”
“You knew?”
He nodded. I guess it was that obvious. Did I have “VIRGIN” tattooed on my forehead?
“I just thought maybe you would want to take a picture of me, like the other girl?”
I could see in that moment that Matt knew it would mean more to me than to him. “I would love to photograph you, Grace. I will always want to photograph you.”
He stood from the bed and took a deep breath to collect himself before grabbing his camera. Looking back at me, curled up in my dress, he said, “I’ll just take the pictures. You do whatever makes you feel comfortable, okay?”
“Okay. Can we have music?”
“Of course.” He changed the CD and put on Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over.
” I moved to the edge of the bed and lifted the dress over my head, tossed it aside, and then I slid my panties down to my ankles and kicked them off, never once looking up at Matt.
Holding my hands over my bare breasts, I heard him snap a few pictures while I sat there, very still, looking down at the ground.
He walked over to the lamp and put some thin material over the shade, dimming the light.
I turned and pulled the bedspread back, revealing the white sheets before lying back on the pillow.
I looked up at him finally but kept my body covered with my hands as best as I could.
His head was cocked to the side, like he was studying the composition, while he held the camera by the lens in his left hand.
As he walked toward me, I could tell he was trying to read my expression.
He stood over me at the edge of the bed and ran his right hand over my propped-up knee before skimming it down my calf. “Try to relax, okay, baby?”
I nodded nervously. “My boobs are really small.”
He shook his head and smiled. “Take your hands away, Grace. You’re beautiful.
” Something about Matt’s confidence and the way he took photography so seriously made it easier for me to pose for him.
When he pulled the camera away from his eyes, I could see the beatific expression on his face.
It reminded me of the way I felt when I played music.
It was like something transcendent happened to him when he took pictures.
Closing my eyes and breathing shallowly, I put my hands above my head and then heard the shutter clicking away as Jeff Buckley promised me that it would never ever be over.
Later, as I lay wrapped in my blankets, I watched Matt scouring the room. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for my shirt.”
I yanked it out from underneath the bed. “Found it. But it’s mine now.” I pulled it over my head. I loved the way Matt’s clothes smelled, like fabric softener and man soap.
“Holding my clothes hostage?”
“Stay with me?”
He stared at me for an uncomfortably long time.
“Matt?”
“All right,” he said, quietly. He slipped his jeans off and came toward me in his boxers. When I yanked back the old quilt, he slid between the blankets. “Come here, Gracie,” he said, pulling me toward him. I passed out in his arms.
Would I ever be able to stop thinking about how it felt to be wrapped up in him like that?
Our bodies merged into one. Sleeping alone would never feel normal again.
The way he moved was confident. Male. Slipping into his embrace was the most natural thing.
Maybe it was because of all the months we’d been studying each other, waiting for this moment.
Or maybe it was because he had done this before.