35 #2
Her skin felt even hotter than MC remembered.
There was no longer even a pretense of pretending to watch the movie.
Nora leaned the side of her head against the top of her seat, watching MC touch her, while MC watched her own hand moving under Nora’s clothes.
She wasn’t wearing a bra. MC leaned in and kissed her neck, still trying to keep the volume at a minimum, rolling a nipple between her fingers.
Nora’s pulse was racing under her mouth. “You can go harder,” she whispered.
MC went harder. Nora was wearing the same citrus perfume as the night they’d first kissed. It made MC feel insistent. She wanted Nora to know how much had built up in her since they’d last done this, how hard it was to hold back.
Someone got up in the front row. MC and Nora froze, though they were at least fifty feet away. When the person had walked out of the theater, Nora bit MC’s ear and said, “I want you inside me.”
MC ran her fingertips down the center of Nora’s stomach, then over and across her hips. One of Nora’s knees had already fallen toward the armrest. “Right now?”
“Right now.”
MC slid her hand into her underwear, feeling how ready she was, and pushed two fingers in. Nora looked up at the ceiling, her mouth open a little. MC had never done anything like this before. She couldn’t even believe how little she cared about the riskiness of it.
“Deeper,” Nora said.
MC went deeper, as deep as she could. Nora had closed her mouth, but her jaw was tense, like she was biting back something.
Her forehead was furrowed. Her eyelids had fluttered shut.
MC moved slowly, feeling Nora’s hips coming up slightly from the seat, seeking contact with the heel of MC’s hand.
The pressure to give the appearance of stillness made their pace glacial, drawing out every sensation.
MC felt like she was about to lose it all over again when Nora finally reached up and put a hand over MC’s throat.
She closed her eyes, her whole body going stiff. MC watched her in a state of shock.
When Nora had finished, she let go of MC’s neck, her hand falling to MC’s wrist. Keeping her there for a minute. MC wished Nora would look back at her. But as the credits rolled, her eyes stayed on the screen, heavy lidded.
Eventually Reloaded started up, and they left through the emergency exit.
In the brightly lit hall, Nora held tight to MC’s arm. MC’s heart beat heavily in her chest. Neither of them said a word.
MC told herself not to think about Nora leaving. They’d seized the moment, made use of the time they had left. In Nora’s car, Nora kept her hand on MC’s leg as she backed out of the parking lot, like she didn’t want to lose contact for a second. Or maybe that was just how MC felt.
Nora kept to the speed limit for most of the drive, but hardly braked at the stop signs on their road. Just before she pulled into her driveway, the headlights caught the realtor’s sign, hanging from its white post by the mailbox. The SOLD panel was swinging in the spring breeze.
MC finally managed to find her voice. “That was—”
“Do you think the ambush is over?” Nora said, taking her hand off MC’s leg, focusing on backing her car into the garage.
“Probably.” MC’s heart sank. “Are you saying I should go?”
“What?” Nora checked her mirror. “Not necessarily. I mean, if you want to stay out a little longer, I can make tea. Or whatever.”
The offer didn’t sound entirely genuine, but MC couldn’t imagine being apart just yet. “Okay. That sounds good.”
They got out of the car. Nora opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. It was dark. She didn’t turn on the lights. MC followed.
In a split second, Nora’s hands were all over her again, cupping her face, pulling off her windbreaker, fingernails raking down her back. They were both panting when MC tried to kiss her. But Nora turned away at the last second.
“Okay,” MC said, grabbing Nora’s wrists, “what is going on with you?”
Some of Nora’s hair had spilled out of her ponytail. She pulled away from MC and tucked it behind her ear. “What do you mean?”
“It was kinky, in the theater, to not actually kiss. But now it feels like you’re avoiding it.”
“Oh.” Nora frowned. “I didn’t realize.”
MC stared. “You look so guilty right now.”
“What do you want me to say? I’m leaving in a few weeks and trying not to let this overwhelm me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Nora looked off, unsteady.
“What happened at the bar?” MC pressed. “I get that Jen was rude, but you acted like I was the one who’d screwed up somehow. And then I didn’t hear from you all weekend.”
“I just needed space. Why is that such a big deal?”
“Because you didn’t actually articulate that, and it hurt my feelings.
” MC crossed her arms. “Not to mention how confusing it is to then hook up with you, only to have you tell me you’re trying to avoid being intimate, even though everything’s already ridiculously intimate.
” MC took a breath, shocked to have put the full extent of her feelings out there without a second thought.
“MC,” Nora said. Her smirk was gone, her expression almost pleading.
But MC wasn’t going to stop.
“I like being with you so much. I’m so fucking upset that you’re leaving.”
“But—”
“But what? I’d rather we be honest with each other, even if it’s painful.” She took Nora’s hands again. “I feel like I’m sort of, I don’t know, falling—”
“Don’t.” Nora’s eyes had gone wide.
“Don’t what?”
“Say whatever you were going to say.”
“But you don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why does it matter if I say it?”
“Saying something is powerful.” She sounded panicked. “You think you’re just trying to get something off your chest, to see if it makes you feel better. But once it’s out in the world, it takes on a life of its own.”
“I know.”
“No,” Nora said emphatically, “you don’t.”
“Then explain it to me.”
But Nora had gotten something in her eye. Or that’s what MC thought, watching her suddenly put a hand to her face, her forefinger and her thumb rubbing across her closed eyes. At which point MC noticed that Nora was also holding her breath. And that her shoulders had drawn together.
“Oh god,” MC said. “Did I—?”
“No.” Nora sniffed. “I’m just being a baby.”
“You’re really not.” MC pulled Nora toward her. “It feels like maybe you still don’t trust me, though.” Nora held her breath, not looking into MC’s eyes. “Should I apologize more?”
“No. It’s not you.” She finally blew out a breath. “It’s me.”
MC waited, confused.
“This is so stupid,” Nora grumbled, scrubbing at her face. “I just can’t seem to stop worrying that I... manifested something by writing that goddamn book. Something that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I’d never written it, you never would’ve come back here, never would’ve started looking at me the way you did.” She swallowed. “The way you’re looking at me now.”
A chill went down MC’s spine.
Took a bestseller to finally get her attention, huh?
“So what?” she said, like it was irrelevant that she’d been oblivious, uninterested, fixated on someone else; irrelevant that for nearly a decade, she’d forgotten about Nora.
“So,” Nora said softly, “you never would’ve thought about me.”
The woman who’d gotten one look at her at a wedding and written an entire novel.
MC’s mouth was suddenly dry. “Doesn’t that just make me stupid?”
“You aren’t stupid, MC.”
“Then... trust me to know my own feelings.” She gripped Nora’s shoulders. “I’m not seventeen anymore. Okay? I want this. Whatever it is. I want you .”
“But do you see what I’m saying? What if you only want me because I made you want me?”
Silence stretched out between them.
“I mean...” MC paused. “You did.”
Nora’s eyes widened.
“Not like that,” MC quickly added. “But you made me see you.” She bit her lip. “Thank god.”
Nora looked like she wasn’t sure what to make of this.
Then a loud, alien warbling broke out across the kitchen.
“What the hell?” MC said, ducking in fear, eyes scanning the ceiling for whatever freak of nature had made its way in.
Nora pitched her voice over the demonic sound: “It’s a clock!”
MC saw it hanging over the kitchen table, each number on its face accompanied by a small painting of a different bird.
The noise ceased. MC straightened, still vaguely terrified.
“Eleven,” Nora said quietly, “is the kookaburra.”
“The kookaburra,” MC repeated.
Nora grabbed her shirt and kissed her.