Chapter 18
Senior Year, Second Semester
It’s official; I have an agent for my West-inspired faerie novel.
(Weeks later, my face still flames with embarrassment when I think of the Fox-West parallels.
West’s ego has never been bigger. It’s a fantastic disaster.
An absolutely humiliating dream come true.) In the span of one month, I went from an aspiring writer to an agented one.
Danielle is smart, experienced, and almost as obsessed with Juniper and Fox as I am.
When I finish my revisions based on her notes, she plans to send the book to every major publisher in New York.
No sale is ever guaranteed, but her confidence makes it hard to keep my hopes from spiraling wildly out of control.
It starts with daydreams about book signings and launch parties and hitting bestseller lists and ends with me booking plane tickets to New York.
Sure, I can be a writer from anywhere, but if Hannah Horvath taught me anything, it’s that grad school sucks, and why would you live in the Midwest when you could live in Brooklyn instead?
It’s almost midnight, and my heart is racing when the train spits West and me out into Penn Station.
I’m hopped up on Red Bull, disgusting airplane coffee, and the incomparable high of blasting “Welcome to New York” through my headphones as the city came into view.
We drag our suitcases up the steps and emerge into a cold night in Midtown.
It’s spring break in Arizona, but it still feels like winter here.
Goose bumps race across my bare legs, and my breath puffs in front of me.
I glance at West as he messes with the strap of his bag, swearing lightly under his breath as he struggles with it.
He’s finally letting his hair grow out, and the East Coast humidity has unearthed a loose curl above his ear.
The urge to run my fingers through it is stronger than ever, and my head feels a little buzzy.
After so many years of schooling my heart and my hands into submission around him, it’s wild to know that I can touch him whenever I want.
My eyes trail from his stern profile to the busy midnight street, and cold spring air expands like champagne bubbles in my chest, fizzing with the promise of dreams I’ve been carrying for more than half my life.
“You ready?” I ask.
He slings his bag over his shoulder and nods.
“How do we get to the hotel? Cab? Subway?” He surveys the dark street with wide, apprehensive eyes.
West has never been to New York, and I plan to wield my vast experience over his head.
(I spent four days here with my family the summer before fifth grade.
If West needs to know what the inside of the Statue of Liberty looks like, I’m his girl.)
I bounce on the balls of my feet to stay warm. “We walk.”
He drops his arm around my shoulder and rubs his hand against my skin to warm me up.
We walk a few blocks to a Koreatown hotel wedged between a liquor store and a hair salon, and I’ve never felt as grown-up as I do standing at a hotel check-in counter with my boyfriend.
The moment West palms the room key, however, my nerves catch up with me.
He might be a New York virgin, but I’m an actual virgin, and this week we’ll be staying together, in a hotel room, in the same bed.
I didn’t set out to be a twenty-two-year-old who has never had sex, but it never felt right with anyone else.
(Likely because I was in love with West. Obvious only in hindsight, if you can believe it.) It’s been about a month since West kissed me in our spot outside Modern Languages, and it’s getting harder and harder to say goodbye when he pulls himself out of my arms at night.
Until now, we’ve been taking our time, tiptoeing over lines that were once carefully drawn, finding new places to touch, new ways to make each other gasp.
We come to a stop in front of a door, and I take a deep breath, knowing that I’m finally ready.
West grins down at me like there’s a thought bubble above my head, tucks one finger into the waistband of my jeans, and pulls me in to him.
I blush hot, and he sweeps his thumbs over my heated cheekbones before trailing a familiar path over my mole, across my jaw, down the side of my neck.
I turn my head to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist. Eyes shining bright, he swipes the key card to unlock our room.
I push the door open in anticipation and dissolve in a fit of laughter.
It’s so tiny that West could stand in the center and touch both walls, but that’s not what gets me.
He follows me into the room with a strangled groan. “Bunk beds?”
We stand in front of the rickety furniture and eye each other warily. We might need to rethink our plans. I don’t even know if we can both fit in one of those beds.
“They really said if we’re going to pay like broke college students, we’re going to sleep like broke college students.”
“To be fair, some of us are broke college dropouts,” West deadpans as he places his duffel bag on the floor. My stomach tightens at the remark.
“Well, in a couple of months, we’ll both be broke, and college won’t have mattered at all.”
“You’re about to sell your book for a million dollars, but okay.”
I roll my eyes. “No one gets million-dollar book deals.”
West slants his eyebrows. “You sure about that?”
“Fine, almost no one, and definitely not me.”
He crosses his arms and leans against the post of the bunk bed with a sardonic smile. “I can’t wait to say I told you so. Top or bottom?” he asks, changing the subject so abruptly that my mind returns to the daydreams I was having in the hall.
“What?”
“Top or bottom?” he asks again slowly, one side of his mouth curling up. “Where do you want to sleep?”
My cheeks flush. “Top.”
“Perfect. This arrangement will be good inspiration for you,” he says, his eyes glinting in the dim light.
I smell a setup. “How so?”
“You can start planning book two while you’re lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, pining for me.”
“I hate you.”
His smirk transforms into a wide grin as he pulls me into his arms. I yelp in surprise when he cuts me off by planting a kiss on my lips, and my embarrassment melts into desire.
As he pulls away, I nip his bottom lip with my teeth. “You’ll be the one dreaming of me,” I joke.
He looks at me through half-moon eyes, which makes my throat dry. “I always do, Jupiter.” He kisses my forehead and then leans toward the window to pull back the curtain. “Check it out.”
I stand over an ancient radiator, and my breath fogs the glass as I stare at the glittering Empire State Building. “Should we go out?” It’s late, but we’re still on Pacific time, and I’m so loaded with adrenaline that I don’t think I could sleep in these shitty bunk beds if my life depended on it.
West wraps his arms around me from behind and rests his chin on the top of my head. “Sure. This is your trip, I’m just along for the ride.”
I frown. I don’t want him to think of it like that. I want him to want to be here. I crane my neck back to look at him. “What do you think of New York so far?”
He nudges my face back to the window, and I watch his eyebrows raise in the reflection of the glass. “I think I need to see it before I form an opinion, but I’m not worried. If you love it, I’ll love it.”
I spin in his arms and peer up at him. “Do you mean it?”
His eyes heat as he tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and cinches me tighter against his chest. He opens his mouth, grimaces, closes it again. “All these years later, I still have a hard time finding the right words around you,” he says, an edge of frustration bleeding through.
“What do you mean?”
He rubs the back of his neck. Looking at war with himself as he considers what to say, he finally reaches a détente. “I hope you get everything you’ve ever wanted, Mars, starting with New York.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and tug until his lips are on mine.
The kiss surprises him, and we’re both knocked off balance, stumbling sideways.
I grab his shoulders and pull him again, harder this time, until we’re lying flush against each other on the bottom bunk, his body pressing into mine.
He shifts until his weight is half-balanced on the mattress, one leg thrown over mine, pinning me with his hips.
He bends his head and kisses me with brain-melting, aching slowness, but after several hazy, lazy minutes, I am unmoored with want.
His unhurried, careful, exploratory kisses aren’t nearly enough. I need all of him, right now.
“I’m ready,” I whisper against his lips.
He pulls back in surprise. “What?”
“I’m ready,” I say again as I reach for his belt buckle.
“Now?” He looks slightly horrified.
“Now,” I confirm as I slide his belt out of his pants. I drop it to the floor and reach for his button.
His eyes rove over the walls of the dingy room, halting on the bunk bed only a foot above his head. “Here?” he asks weakly. “I wanted something less…dreary than this for you. For us.” If I weren’t horizontal, the rasp in his voice would have buckled my knees.
“West,” I say, drawing his attention back to me. “Are you really going to make me say it again?”
His pupils grow, black swallowing amber, and his careful restraint snaps.
He presses his thigh up between my legs and rocks into me, overwhelming me with the exquisite gift of friction.
My eyelids flutter shut as he parts my lips with an insistent tongue and presses his body into mine, bracketing my head with his forearms. “One day,” he says, peppering me with frenzied kisses between each word, “I’ll find the right words. ”