19
T o Gabby!” Jim said, hoisting a can of beer over his head.
“To Conrad!” Jerry added, banging his beer against Jim’s.
Jim’s wife raised her wineglass. “To the kid who’s going to have the most annoyingly perfect parents!”
Everyone laughed, leaning back in their chairs, the table an explosion of half-finished plates, mismatched casserole dishes, and countless empty bottles of alcohol.
Jim’s kids were jumping around on the couch in front of the TV.
Jae was long gone. MC nibbled on one of her godawful tahini chocolate-chip cookies as Conrad pulled out his phone and changed the soft jazz to Céline Dion.
“No,” she groaned.
But her complaint was drowned out by the dramatic opening of “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.”
MC’s mom had headed back to her hotel with Lance after dessert.
Lois had said her goodbyes next, waving off Nora’s offer of a ride home.
But the two of them stepped aside to chat at the front door just before Lois left, standing close together, Lois looking irritated—or more irritated than usual—before she finally turned away.
MC, confused and disappointed and extremely self-conscious about how things had gone under the elm tree, worried that Nora would leave soon after.
But she’d stuck around, congratulating Gabby and complimenting Conrad on the turkey.
MC had tried to mirror her casual energy, but found it impossible, her thoughts racing over why Nora had wanted them to come back inside after everything MC had said to her—whether the emergence of some partial truth between them signaled the beginning of the end.
Or maybe MC was just bad at romantic speeches.
She kept trying to put them back into proximity anyway, but Nora kept letting herself get pulled into other conversations.
As MC ferried dishes from the table to the sink, she felt bitterly certain this was how it was always going to be between them.
Talking around their real feelings, speaking in subtext, or speaking directly for only short stretches, after which it was necessary to be silent and apart.
It should’ve been a familiar dynamic, but the existence of Nora’s book made it impossible for MC to just let things lie this time.
Girl Next Door may not have been strictly accurate, but—MC only realized this now—it spoke to her, even just in excerpts, in a way nothing had ever spoken to her before. It made her feel recognized.
Conrad started to sing along with Céline, a hand to his chest, his expression a convincing pantomime of heartbreak.
He’d undone the top buttons on his shirt and opened a bottle of whiskey.
Gabby went between covering her ears and picking up dirty napkins from the abandoned places at the table.
Jim and Jerry, meanwhile, joined Conrad, their deep voices butchering the soprano.
When the theatrics had subsided and everyone was settling back into side conversations, the music normalized. Nora finally said goodbye, brief and awkward, waving at everyone as MC stared at her with open desperation.
And then she was gone.
MC sat with Conrad on the couch for a while, playing with Jim’s kids.
She helped Gabby cover dishes with plastic wrap and jigsaw them together in the fridge.
Jim’s daughter started crying uncontrollably at some point, and that was the signal for their family to head home.
Half an hour later, Jerry, realizing the energy was gone, made a pointless show of pushing in chairs before grabbing his coat and flashing a peace sign on his way out.
“Big success,” Gabby said, stifling a yawn.
“Agreed,” said Conrad.
But when she tried to pull him to the bedroom, he said he needed to cool off from the whiskey and ambled to the basement stairs instead.
MC tried not to linger on how disappointed Gabby looked.
Alone at last, she listened to the fridge humming.
The clock ticking. She put a hand on her stomach.
Too much liquid was sloshing around. She went to the pantry and made herself eat peanut butter, straight from the jar, overwhelmed yet again by the night’s events and hoping sleep would clear her head.
She wasn’t optimistic. She’d entered a state of disbelief that she’d said all those things to Nora.
Her only explanation was that the significance of the spot under the elm tree had possessed her, overriding her judgment, making her feel like they really were back in high school again.
She absolutely wasn’t supposed to be pursuing Nora in a romantic way.
She was in Green Hills to write a story about her—an assignment she was keeping secret not just from Nora herself, but from Conrad and Gabby, and had been for months.
Why did she keep forgetting that?
She needed to talk to Joe first thing in the morning. Get serious about wrapping up the project with minimal damage.
Because if there was one benefit of the night’s torturous rumination on subterfuge, it was that she’d finally started to get an inkling of an idea for how to approach the article, inspired by S. K. Smith herself.
She was screwing the lid back on the jar when there was a faint knock on the door.
At first, she thought she’d imagined it. But then there was another knock, firmer this time.
She walked into the mudroom and peered out the glass panels in the door.
Nora was on the porch in sweats and a raincoat.
“Hey,” MC said, opening the door, smiling in surprise.
Nora’s expression was grim. “I came back for my cookie plate.”
“Oh. I’ll grab it for you.”
“Don’t!” Nora blew out a breath and put a hand on her forehead. “I lied. I mean, I did forget the plate. But I’m back here because you just... drive me fucking crazy.”
MC frowned. “I said too much, didn’t I?”
“No. You said everything I’ve ever wanted to hear. That’s the problem.”
Nora stepped through the door, hesitated for a second, and kissed her.
It was like at Delfino’s. Unexpected at first, then surprisingly natural.
Except now they were alone, and it was dark, and there was no reason to stop.
Nora slid her arms around MC’s neck. The rainwater from her coat dampened MC’s shoulders.
MC pulled Nora closer and tugged her shirt up a little, reaching under, her fingers grazing Nora’s feverishly hot skin.
Nora pushed her tongue deeper into MC’s mouth, and MC let her hands roam farther, to the valley of her lower back, the subtle planes of muscle along her shoulder blades.
This, they could do. No talking. No thinking.
At some point, Nora broke the kiss and closed the door behind her.
When she turned back to MC, she put her hands on MC’s shoulders and pressed down.
MC’s knees were already weak. She sank onto the bench by the door, and then Nora was climbing into her lap.
Rolling her hips slightly. Watching for MC’s reaction.
MC ran her palms over Nora’s thighs and squeezed. Nora exhaled at the pressure, her breath warm on MC’s brow as she rested the tip of her thumb on MC’s bottom lip. They kissed again, and MC felt like she was dreaming, like this was all too good to be true.
Eventually she took Nora’s hand and led her to the guest room.
There, Nora peeled off her raincoat and let it drop to the floor.
As they came together again, she made that same low humming sound MC had been trying to recapture in her mind for weeks.
The sound of Nora losing control. Giving in to something.
Which was why, MC realized, it’d taken such a hold of her.
Because for all Nora’s self-possession, all her firmness of opinion, all her insistence on doing things on her own terms and no one else’s, there was some part of her that could be swept away. And MC was the one who could do it.
“Take your shirt off,” Nora said.
“You first.”
Nora yanked the flimsy garment over her head. She looked completely at ease in her nakedness. She slowly undid MC’s buttons.
“Sorry about the twin bed,” MC said.
Nora had started walking back to the edge of it.
MC followed. When Nora sat down and spread her legs, MC stepped between them, Nora leaning forward to meet her again.
She kissed MC’s navel, tracing her tongue around it.
MC shuddered as Nora popped the top button of her pants.
She’d never moved this quickly before. But she’d never been with someone who’d known her for so long.
Even the intervening years of silence had collapsed over the last few months, a buildup amplified by having gone unnoticed.
Before she knew it, they were both on the bed, MC on top of Nora, a knee between her legs.
Nora hooked an ankle around MC’s calf. MC kissed along Nora’s ribs.
There was the expected awkwardness of learning someone’s body for the first time, but there was also a certain level of comfort, a sense of permission offered a long time ago at last being taken.
When the moment seemed right, MC switched their positions, lying on her back and pulling Nora up, up, up, until she was planting her knees on either side of MC’s head.
Nora kept her weight shifted back at first. MC grazed her teeth against the cotton of her underwear.
They stayed that way as long as either of them could handle, MC skimming her hands up Nora’s sides, feeling her torso flexing, her breathing heavy as she gripped the top of the headboard and finally moved her hips.
“You’re so hot,” MC said. The infuriating fabric still separated them.
Nora whimpered but didn’t pick up her pace.
Eventually MC couldn’t help herself anymore.
She curled her arms around Nora’s thighs, pinning her, one hand squeezing Nora’s leg, the other working below the hem of Nora’s underwear to pull it aside.
She ran her tongue along the wet mess of her and was rewarded with a gasp, Nora’s hands tangling in her hair.
It took MC out of herself, in the best way, her focus entirely on what Nora wanted most.
MC circled her tongue for a while, then dipped inside.
Nora pulled her hair harder. MC snaked her hands from Nora’s hips to her belly, then higher, brushing her thumbs across Nora’s breasts.
She tried to take her time. But what was happening between them seemed to have its own momentum.
She gave in to it, trusting the rhythm, until Nora’s thighs tensed up, her torso bending forward.
When her muscles had finally gone slack and her hands had loosened in MC’s hair, MC felt a strange surge of warmth in her chest. She closed her eyes. Nora sat back and touched MC’s cheek, stroking tenderly along her jaw.
“That feels nice,” MC said.
She turned her head to kiss the inside of Nora’s thigh. But Nora was already reaching a hand behind her, rubbing slowly between MC’s legs. MC laughed, surprised to be switching gears already.
“Tell me what you like,” Nora said. Her fingers had started to curl.
“I’m... having trouble thinking.”
“You need to think about it?” Nora increased her pressure, which made MC’s breath get short. “Turn on your stomach.”
MC did as she was told, Nora climbing off her for a second so she could rearrange them, straddling MC’s back. She felt Nora’s hands on her shoulders, Nora’s breath on her neck. Nora took her earlobe between her teeth and said, “You make me want to move fast.”
“I can tell.”
“But I don’t need to.” Nora worked her thumbs down the sides of MC’s spine. “We could take a break. Talk about books.”
MC laughed again. “Oh yeah. Extremely sexy.”
“I like how smart you are.” Nora was leaning over her again, her hair tickling MC’s back. “And funny.”
“But not intentionally.”
“Not always.” Nora ran her tongue up the side of MC’s neck. “And unexpectedly passionate.”
“I’m full of surprises,” she managed to say. But as soon as the words had left her mouth, she couldn’t help thinking of the one surprise Nora wouldn’t be too pleased about.
Nora dropped her knee between MC’s legs, draping her body against MC’s back. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah,” MC said, pushing up onto her elbows a little. Nora ran a hand along MC’s waist, bracing herself with the other, moonlight tracing a shadow along the tendon that ran up her arm.
“Can I touch you?” Nora asked.
MC closed her eyes, feeling how wet Nora still was against the back of her thigh. “Nora—”
“What?”
Nora’s hand moved lower, but not all the way; MC felt like she was losing her mind.
“Do you just want to say my name?” Nora teased.
MC held one of the pillows in her fists.
“Go on.” Nora traced a finger along MC’s hip. “Say it.”
MC gritted her teeth. “Nora.”
“Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
“I... “
Nora was pressing her hips into MC’s, her nipples hard against MC’s back, her breath hot against MC’s ear, and MC felt so much want, it should’ve been obvious, all too easy to put into words.
A bead of sweat rolled down her neck. She wanted this, everything, so badly. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Why couldn’t she just say it?
She put her hand on Nora’s and guided it all the way down, rubbing it against herself. Finally, she said, “I don’t want you to stop.” It was the best she could do.
She felt Nora’s arms tightening around her, heard the way her breathing quickened. And that was what she concentrated on, everything turning slick between them, the way they melded together, until she finally finished, an electric jolt to the center of her body.
She collapsed against the damp sheet. Nora left a trail of kisses down her back. She felt overwhelmed, physically and emotionally. She’d hoped these sides of herself could be kept separate.
She cleared her throat and said, “You’re not going to leave, are you?”
Nora paused.
“I feel like you’re not the type to stick around until morning,” MC said. “But I really wish you would.”
Nora lay down next to her. MC realized they’d hardly faced each other since she first showed up. She reached out and tucked Nora’s hair behind her ear, enchanted by the intricate curve of cartilage, unable to stop herself from tugging her earlobe a little.
“Just this once,” Nora said, throwing a leg over MC’s hip and closing her eyes.