Chapter 19
Harrison washes his hands at my sink, having just finished mixing pancake batter for Saturday morning breakfast. Which is hot. Super, incredibly hot.
I’m also currently ruminating on whether it’s weird for me to think it’s hot when he washes his hands.
Like, something about the way he pushes up his hoodie sleeves to his elbows, then carefully tests the water temperature, then thoroughly rubs the soap between his fingers is really doing it for me.
My theory that not being able to have penetrative sex makes me think about sex all the time and in turn makes me horny is evidently true. And apparently, it’s only worse when you’ve kissed the person. My entire body feels too warm, and I can’t stop staring at his forearms.
It’s been a week since we kissed, and I am on edge.
This week has been hell—all of my shifts at Jo Jo’s were closing shifts, and Harrison works during the day, so we only saw each other a couple of times, and only briefly.
That is definitely what taking it slow means, but still. I missed him. (I’m pathetic.)
We reserved Saturday morning to actually spend time together, and I spent all week daydreaming about a variety of far-fetched romantic scenarios that all began with a casual Saturday morning coffee and then evolved into scenes ranging from a gondola ride through Venice to a mountaintop picnic ending in confessions of love.
In each of these dreams, I was still home in time for my three o’clock shift at Jo Jo’s.
Even still, all my far-fetched expectations were exceeded the moment I opened the door for him this morning and he greeted me with a long, slow kiss before heading directly to my kitchen to get started on breakfast.
“Emma,” he says.
I pry my eyes away from his forearms and up to his face, where he has an amused glint in his eyes. “Huh?”
“Do you want banana pancakes or regular?”
“Regular, please!”
Taking the bowl over to the stove, he carefully spoons the batter into the pan he’d preheated. My stove is the kind with the little metal spiral burners, except all of the burners are at a slight angle, meaning any liquid or semi-liquid you pour into a pan immediately collects into one corner.
The batter slides a bit before becoming solid enough to stop, and now all the pancakes are ovals.
He turns around and shoots me a sarcastic, pursed-lips look.
“Listen, if you didn’t want to deal with my shitty-ass stove, you should’ve told me to come upstairs instead.”
“That would’ve defeated the purpose of me making you breakfast in bed.”
“I’m sitting on a barstool right now.”
He leans forward against the island, and when he’s a few inches short, he hops up and propels himself forward so he can plant a quick kiss on my lips, then lands back on the floor.
“Bed was too far from the kitchen. Needed you closer,” he says, then returns his attention to my stove. (My attention is still consumed by the butterflies in my stomach.) “Plus, we live in the same building. Why don’t we have the same model stove?”
“I hate to break it to you, but basement apartments are designed for people in a different tax bracket.”
Harrison flips the first pancake, revealing a perfect light brown. “If you don’t want the landlord to come fix it, fine, but we’re going to try to fix it ourselves, then.”
“Hmmmmm,” I say, tapping my finger against my chin. “Or you can just cook for me in your apartment from now on?”
“What about when you cook for yourself ?” He flips another pancake. (Also perfect.)
“I’m going to be so honest—”
“Forget I asked,” he says, holding up the spatula like a hand. “Your answer is going to stress me out.”
If that’s going to stress him out, a lot of other things about my life would give him an aneurysm.
Twenty minutes later, we’re curled up on my couch with two formerly heaping plates of pancakes.
Now they’re empty except for streaks of syrup.
I set my plate down on the coffee table, then turn so my back is against the armrest, stretching out my feet.
Harrison sets his plate down, then gently grabs my ankles, placing my feet in his lap.
He starts massaging my feet through my fluffy pink socks, and I think I see the gates of heaven opening.
Some ungodly sound must come out of my mouth because Harrison lets out a snort of laughter. “You poor thing. You’ve been working so hard, on your feet all morning to make us breakfast—”
I curl forward and gently slap his arm before collapsing back onto the couch. Mercifully, he continues the massage.
“You look like one hundred years of tension are seeping out of your body right now,” he observes.
“I think this is the best morning of my life,” I whisper, trying not to disrupt the peace.
The only way this could’ve been better is if I had woken up with Harrison in my bed, rather than a text from Harrison asking if I was awake and if I’d like pancakes.
We’ll get there eventually. (I hope.) Oh, yeah? Cobalt says.
Harrison’s phone buzzes, and I let out a playful humph as he removes his hands and fishes his phone out of his pocket. As he reads the text, his expression shifts, so slightly it wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye. Thankfully my eyes are hypersensitive to Harrison’s expressions.[*]
“What is it?” I ask.
His eyes flick over to mine, a hint of guilt on his face. “I hate to say it, but I have to go.”
I look out the kitchen window as if I’m going to find an explanation by way of a fire truck or a tornado. My eyes are met only with summer flowers and sunlight. “What do you mean?”
“My mom texted. She needs me.”
I wait for him to offer further explanation, but he doesn’t.
“What does she need?” I ask cautiously.
Harrison reaches forward and picks a bit of fuzz off my sock. I pull my feet back toward my body, and he returns his hands to his lap.
“She has a friend coming over for lunch and needs me to be there.”
I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. “So…what, she just wants emotional support?”
He shrugs. “Something like that. But she told me she needs me to be there, so I need to go make sure she’s okay.”
I don’t think you have the right to ask someone to prioritize you over their mother when you’re just…what, flirting? Open to hooking up in the future? Friends with Limited Benefits?
Yeah, I don’t have solid ground to stand on. You hurt my feelings isn’t a great reason for him not to go check in on a family member with clinical depression.
“Do you need help?” I ask, even though I know I shouldn’t. I don’t know what point I’m trying to prove, but I can feel him about to fail this test I have yet to define. “I can come, if you want.”
He shakes his head faster than I want him to. “No need. Thanks, though.”
Yep. That’s a failing grade. F minus.
“What if she needs more help?” I push. Harrison raises an eyebrow. “Like, what if she needs a woman’s touch? What if she needs someone to French braid her hair, and you don’t know how to do it?”
“I know how to French braid,” Harrison says, smirking. “So I’ve got that one covered.”
“You’re lying to me,” I say, erupting into laughter. He shakes his head, grinning. “No freaking way is that true.”
“It’s true. I swear. I have a younger cousin who taught me, like, twenty years ago, and it stuck.”
I grab the hairband off my wrist and flick it at him with the skill of a middle school boy armed with a rubber band. He catches it midair (hot), and I spin around, leaning my back against his arm.
His body shakes behind me as he laughs. He gently grabs my hair, pulling it into a ponytail. I’m about to tell him that’s not typically the first step in a French braid, but then he leans forward and places a slow kiss against the back of my neck.
My breath comes in short.
“I promise I’ll prove it soon, but right now I need to head out.”
Reluctantly, I lean forward, allowing him space to stand. He stretches his arms up above his head (biiiiiiig stretch) then places his hands on his hips and turns to me. “I’ll text you later tonight?”
I would’ve preferred him to say See you as soon as I get back from my mom’s? Or maybe Come over tonight and make out? After all, I reserved half of the day for him. But I guess you have to take what you can get when you’re just Friends with Limited Benefits.
“Yeah,” I say, waving my hands. “Get outta here.”
He leans forward, placing his hands on my cheeks to tip my head up and give me a soft kiss.
Words I shouldn’t be thinking, much less saying, almost slip out of my mouth in response.
“I—I’ll see you. Good luck with your mom,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says, then tucks my hair behind my ears and leaves me.
“And then my roommate’s boyfriend’s cousin licked the salt lamp so aggressively, it slid. Off. The. Table,” Rose says, stopping to emphasize each word. “It shattered into a million salty pieces. Everything tastes like salt now. The air. My shoes. The floor.”
Licking salt off of shoes and the floor sounds like the kind of thing Harrison would see a six-year-old patient for, but I refrain from telling Rose that because I’m absolutely certain she would tell me to stop acting like her mom, and then I would feel old.
“I mean, our living room looks like we’re prepping for a snowstorm. There’s salt coating the ground,” she adds.
“Well—”
I don’t know how I intend to finish that sentence, but I’m interrupted by the appearance of Kurt at the register. A teenage girl with impressively long box braids and a freckly boy with braces stand behind him.
“Hi, Emma,” he says. I don’t think he’s used my name prior to this moment, but I respect the instinct to show off and prove he’s a regular.
“Hey, Kurt!” His girlfriend looks at him with an impressed eyebrow tilt, and he grins. I play it up. “Good to see you!”
He places a ratty library copy of Slaughterhouse-Five on the counter. “Guess what I finished.”
“And me,” the girlfriend says. The freckly boy shoots me a cringe-smile as if to say me, too.
“This is my girlfriend, Tisha, and my friend Zach,” Kurt says.
I smile and wave at both of them. “I’m Emma. Nice to meet you!”