Chapter Twenty-One
Nathan’s apartment sits above a garage at the end of a long, cracked driveway, past a single-story house with peeling white
siding. It’s still pouring when I pull my car up behind his. We run together for the garage, dashing up the rickety stairs
to his front door. I fold my arms, shivering, while he fumbles with his keys and unlocks the door.
We practically fall inside the apartment, pushing the door closed behind us, both laughing a little breathlessly.
“God, it feels like a hurricane out there,” he says.
I can barely see him in the dark entryway. “Or a monsoon,” I say, awkwardly slipping out of my shoes. “Have you ever gotten
a real hurricane out here?”
I feel him move past me and then a bare light bulb switches on over our heads. “We’ve gotten hurricane remnants,” he says,
pulling off his raincoat and sending a shower of water over the doormat. “A storm tore half of Dina’s stairs out of the dune
a few years ago. It was a big job to put them back.” He hangs his coat on the single hook on the wall. “Come on in. I’m sorry
it’s a little messy.”
I follow him inside. He flicks on another light, revealing a small living room covered in gray carpet that’s seen better days.
A sagging couch sits against one wall, a TV against the other, a ceiling fan turning lazily overhead.
There’s no art on the walls. No tchotchkes on the IKEA sideboard that holds the TV.
The only signs that anyone really lives here are the half-assembled bicycle sitting in one corner, missing its wheels, and the single bookshelf filled with books on marine life and oceans.
I feel a small pang of sadness. I don’t know what I thought Nathan’s apartment would look like—I guess I never really pictured
it—but this feels too empty. There isn’t enough stuff here to even make a real mess.
Nathan pauses in the middle of the living room and turns back to me. “We could hang up your clothes,” he says. “I might have
something you could borrow.”
His hoodie held up better against the rain than my T-shirt did, but my shoulders are still damp, even under the thicker cotton,
and the hood feels heavy and sodden.
I push it back, running fingers through my wet hair. “Yeah, probably a good idea. If you don’t mind.”
We go down a hall, past a tiny bathroom, and into his bedroom. It’s as basic and sparse as the living room. No fancy headboard
for the bed. No extra throw pillows. An IKEA nightstand holds an old digital alarm clock. A lonely floor lamp stands in one
corner, its cord snaking across the floor to the outlet. The top of his dresser is covered in random things that don’t seem
to have a better place to live—charging cables, a watch, a pack of tissues, an abandoned mug, a lighter.
And a snow globe. It catches my eye, sitting alone on one side of the dresser, the only thing that looks like it’s just here
to be beautiful. It’s large for a snow globe, with a textured beige base that glitters like sand. In the middle of the globe
is a dolphin made of blown blue glass.
I reach out and pick up the snow globe, smiling. “You like dolphins.”
Nathan tucks his hands in his back pockets, hovering behind me. “I guess so,” he says. “That was my mom’s.”
I look at him quickly, but he’s not looking at me—he’s looking at the snow globe.
“Here,” he says, gently taking it out of my hands. He turns it over, shaking it, and then turns it right side up, setting
it back on the dresser. Glittering blue and white specks swirl around the dolphin, delicate and beautiful, like twinkling
bubbles in the ocean.
“Wow,” I say. “That’s really pretty.”
A smile passes across his face, but it looks sad. “Yeah,” he says. “I always thought so.”
I suddenly feel like I’m intruding someplace I shouldn’t be. Straying too close to something protected and private. “Here,
you can have this back.” I pull his hoodie off and turn toward him, holding it out.
He steps forward, taking it, and my eyes catch again on the dolphin tattoo on his arm. I can’t stop myself from reaching out,
catching his arm, and running my thumb over it, almost like I expect, somehow, to feel the shape of it outlined on his skin.
He goes still, watching me. The bedroom is dim—the only light the distant glow from the living room—but when I look up, I
can still see a few specks of light moving in his blue eyes, reflections from the snow globe on the dresser.
My heart pounds close to my skin again. I’m almost sure he can hear it.
He’s close, so close I can smell the rain on his clothes, and even though I feel like I’m intruding, I can’t make myself turn
away.
He leans forward until his forehead gently bumps against mine. His nose grazes mine. I feel his breath against my lips, both
of us hesitating for one more moment, and then we move together, mouths finding each other. And I’m melting, a puddle of fire
welling in my belly and racing to my fingertips.
He drops the hoodie on the floor and his hands touch my bare shoulders, brush down my back, catch on my hip.
I move my fingers up under his T-shirt, pushing it up over his ribs, up to his shoulders, until he leans away, just long enough to pull it over his head.
And then he pulls me toward him, kissing me deeper, fumbling with the button on my jeans.
Then with the zipper. And then his hand slides in and the last thought that flashes through my brain before I go completely lightheaded is that I never felt like this with Jackson.
This alive.
This desperate.
This inevitable.
A brief twinge of guilt catches in my stomach. I don’t want to think about Jackson now. I never want to think about him again.
And then the twinge is gone. Nathan pulls me backward, and we feel our way to the bed as I try to get my shaking fingers to
behave long enough to unzip his pants.
He pauses, leaning away from me again. “Just take them off.”
I laugh a little, heat rising up my neck. We untangle ourselves, shimmying out of our pants, and then he catches my arm, pulling
me onto the bed.
“Condom—” I start.
“Yeah, I have some in the nightstand,” he breathes into my neck.
I catch his mouth with mine, kissing him deeply. I can feel him against me now, and I run a hand down his neck, fingertips
bumping over the ridges of the scar on his chest, and then I reach into his shorts, my breath hitching with his as he shifts.
And then his hands find me too, and I go lightheaded all over again. Whatever distance might have still been lingering between
us evaporates, and any last hint of shyness leaves me. There’s only Nathan, and me, and the two of us together, the rain thrumming
on the roof over our heads.