9 Years Ago
9 YEARS AGO
JANE
“I like when you lie on top of me,” I say, my words muffled by Nikolai’s chest.
The bed shakes as he laughs, and I join him, the two of us creating a melody sweeter than anything he sings onstage. What was supposed to be a one-time thing, a friend helping out a friend, has turned into us spending every moment together the last two months.
“You wouldn’t like it if I fell asleep like this.” His breath is hot against my neck as he tucks his head into my shoulder. I cling to him, relishing the way he melts on top of me.
“Yes, I would.”
“I’d suffocate you.”
“No, you’re just like my own personal weighted blanket.”
He chuckles as he rolls off, and a chill replaces his presence. “What do you want to do tonight?”
“Lie here and stare at the ceiling.”
He playfully pokes my side and I swat his hand away.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Did you have something in mind?”
“Maybe.”
“Like what?” I roll onto my side and prop my head on a fist. “Our options are kind of limited.”
He grimaces. “We could tell him, you know.”
I shake my head, but he continues, “I hate lying to him. And I hated even more at our show last night that I couldn’t kiss you afterward.”
“I don’t like it either.” I pick at a loose thread of the worn comforter. “But we still haven’t even…” I trail off and cover it with a cough.
What I wanted to say was that we haven’t even talked about what this is between us. And I think we should figure that out first before telling my brother, or even the rest of our friends. But it’s a conversation I’ve been avoiding because I don’t know what this is to him. Am I just someone to bide his time with until someone prettier comes along? Am I just another one of his flings that he’ll eventually drop for the next best thing?
A gentle hand tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and he rubs the strands between his fingers before pulling away. He does that a lot; feeling my hair. I asked him about it once and he told me my hair felt like the most luxurious silk and he’s lucky to be able to run his hands through it whenever he wants.
My face heats as his eyes scan me, eyelashes fluttering against his high cheekbones. Want, need, and longing fill them and a tug pulls at my lower stomach.
I shift, the air stifling with not only the heat from the way he looks at me but also with the words left unsaid between us.
Gathering up my courage, I start, “Should we talk?—”
Nikolai jumps off the bed and pulls on my legs, dragging me to the edge. I let out a squeal as he pulls me to my feet and steadies me.
“I have a plan for tonight. Run home and change into something comfortable and meet me here in half an hour.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“Nope.” He’s already walking into his closet and pulling his shirt over his head. As his exposed chest and abs come into view, I stand there like an idiot, fixated on them as he flips through a rack of clothing.
He notices me staring and smirks, flexing his pecs. Next thing I know, a balled up T-shirt hits me square in the face. His laughter echoes as I glare at him while I pull the fabric away from my obstructed vision.
“Stop drooling over me and do what you’re told,” he teases.
I hate the breathy tone that comes out as I try to retort, “You can’t tell me what to do.”
He simply raises a cocky brow at me as he pulls a sweatshirt over his head that matches his eyes.
I stomp out of his room and as much as I’d like to defy him for the sake of it, I change quickly before going to his house, just like he told me to. Because at this point, Nikolai keeps pulling me further and further into the deep end with him.
“This is the perfect night.”
I don’t know how he pulled all this together so quickly, but he really outdid himself.
When I got back to his house, I immediately hopped in his car and we drove out to a field where Nikolai parked, hidden amongst trees and away from the road. He put the seats down his car and laid sleeping bags and mounds of blankets and pillows out, creating a cozy, makeshift bed. Then he pulled out his laptop and set it on the dash with Legally Blonde queued up and pulled out a few bags of snacks and a flask of his favorite vodka.
To combat the cold, we’ve snuggled together under the blankets and I’m curled into his side as the movie starts.
“I can’t believe you’re actually going to watch this,” I say, eyes glued to the screen of a movie I’ve seen more times than I could possibly count. If given the opportunity, I could likely recite it word for word.
“I feel like I have to at this point,” he says, squeezing my shoulder. “With the number of references you make to it. And your Halloween costume? It’s time I see what the obsession is about.”
I dressed as Elle Woods last Halloween and it’s my favorite costume I’ve worn.
“It’s not an obsession.”
I feel his eyes bore into the side of my face.
“Whatever. Just pay attention.”
As we watch the movie, he makes little jokes here and there, berating Warner every chance he can get for ruining things with Elle and I think this might be my favorite time watching this movie yet. I laugh at his commentary and add my own.
“So is this what made you want to go to law school?” he asks. Onscreen, Elle is taking over Brooke’s trial and it holds my rapt attention enough that Nikolai has to poke my side to get to me to answer his question.
“No,” I say, batting his hand away. “I mean, yes, it further solidified my decision and gave me someone to look up to. But I had already decided long before my mom and I ever watched this movie for the first time that I wanted to be a lawyer.”
“She was your role model growing up?” He points to Elle Woods.
Nodding, I beam. “In all of her pink and sparkly glory.”
He huffs and shakes his head. “Well, the color choice has clearly rubbed off on you. Is Harvard because of her, too?”
“No. Again, that was a decision made long before. You know my dad went to Harvard, right?”
“Nope.”
“Well, he did. Not their law school, but he’s always had dreams of his kids following in his footsteps and continuing his legacy there. And you and I both know Walker isn’t going to be the one to do that.”
Nikolai stifles a grin. “So you became his only hope?”
“Pretty much.” I shrug.
“You shouldn’t do it just because it’s your dad’s dream.”
“You think I’d actually do something like alter the entire course of my future because it’s what someone else wants?” My tone is defensive and Nikolai holds his hands up in surrender, leaving the spots where he was previously holding me ice cold.
“Not at all,” he backtracks. “I was just saying it in case no one else had told you so.”
“If it wasn’t my dream, I wouldn’t be doing it. But it is. I want to make sure artists like you and my brother and Reid and Hayden don’t get screwed over.”
Unlike the movie still playing in the background, I want to specialize in entertainment law. Their band has already been approached by a few agents, interested in signing them after graduation, and the majority of them have been shady at best, downright deceitful at worst.
Luckily, my parents have helped them navigate their options and most recently, some guy named Arun invited them to LA a few weeks ago for a meeting. His interest seems legit, and according to my parents’ lawyer, the contract is surprisingly decent.
But it’s easy to imagine how easily it would be for young artists to sign the first promise that comes across their starving, creative hands and bind them in for years with no way out.
“You going to work for me one day, LJ?” Nikolai smirks, and it does something to my heart.
“You wish, pretty boy.”
He shifts and places one of his legs over my own, blanketing it in heat. “Well then, I’m glad to know you’ll have my back one day when you graduate with that fancy degree.”
“You know it. I’m going to do it.” The words are spoken to him, but they’re more of a reassurance to myself. I believe I can do it. I’m smart enough. Driven enough. But soon I’m going to go from a big fish in a little pond to a little fish in a shark tank.
“I know you are. There’s not a single doubt in my mind.” He says it so definitively, so sure of himself and my ability that my chest swells and I lean forward and press my lips to his.
He opens, allowing my tongue to snake inside his mouth and taste him. It feels like we’re the only two people in the world as we kiss, cocooned in his car and tucked away in the trees.
He’s the one to break the kiss. I pull back, slightly breathless, as I take in his flushed cheeks and lazy smile.
He’s beautiful.
And he’s all mine.
At least for right now.
“Are you still riding the high of your acceptance letter you got this week, or is the dreamy look in your eye from kissing me?” he teases, and while his words are playful, they invite a heavy, gloomy cloud over our night.
“We haven’t really talked about that.” I pick at a loose thread in the quilt cocooning us both against the chill.
“About you getting accepted to Harvard? Or about you moving to Boston in a few months and me moving to LA?”
The upcoming miles that are going to separate us wrap about my throat and chest. We’re just starting to explore this new connection between us. Are we going to be able to withstand the distance?
And what about my brother? Our friends? When do we tell them? We’re lying by omission to everyone we love and that’s just one more brick on top of an already unstable foundation as we look ahead to being separated.
“Hey,” Nikolai says, cupping my face and pulling my gaze to meet his. His eyes are soft and unbothered, no trace of the swirling anxiety that’s currently churning my gut and making me regret eating that last handful of sour gummies. “Don’t think about that right now.”
“But don’t you think we should talk about it? I mean, it’s not just a car ride away or a few hours. It’s across an entire country.”
His lips thin and he chews the inside of his cheek. “Why not just focus on the now? Enjoy this moment?”
I wish I could. More than anything. It’s one of my favorite traits of his. The ability to live in the moment, not stress about the unknowns of the future and take everything day by day.
But my mind doesn’t operate like that.
“You make it sound so easy,” I say bitterly.
“Why can’t it be?”
“You aren’t worried about it? Like at all?”
“Why worry about something that we can’t change? And months away?”
A heavy sigh racks my chest, and I start to pull back, shifting to the other side of the car. But before I can get far, Nikolai bands an arm around my waist and flips himself so he’s on top of me.
“What are you?—”
“Shut up and let me quiet that beautiful, racing mind of yours.”
And as the credits begin to roll, he silences all troubled thoughts about distance and our diverging paths with gentle kisses down my neck and sweet nothings whispered in my ear.
He makes me forget momentarily how utterly terrified I feel about falling in love with him…and knowing we don’t have much time left.