Chapter 14 Marigold #2
The restaurant turns out to be a short twenty-minute trip away by subway.
The restaurant is still mostly empty when we arrive—but as I wait at the bar, sipping on a sbagliato, it starts filling up.
Jamie was right about the outfit. It’s all cocktail dresses and dinner jackets in here, the anniversary-birthday-first-date crowd eating oysters and filet mignon.
The decor is aggressively Christmas-themed, fairy lights twinkling and a lush tree glittering with ornaments next to the piano.
I wonder how long Jamie’s been playing here, that they let him take such a major holiday.
I wonder if anyone else at Parker knows.
Jamie takes to the piano at six-thirty exactly.
There’s no announcement, no hubbub. When he starts playing, the music integrates seamlessly into the atmosphere.
If I were one of the patrons, I don’t know that I would have even noticed it at first. It slides into the background, a pleasant undercurrent to the murmur of conversation.
But I’m not watching my glass, I’m watching Jamie. And even surrounded by strangers, it is in private that Jamie shows me the clench of a jaw, the held breath then sudden exhale, eyelashes fluttering against cheeks and long hands coaxing beauty out of the song, note by heart-wrenching note.
It’s like watching a man in love, his emotions held back by the slimmest ribbon.
It makes no sense. This is not the man I know from Parker, who plays like he has his heart locked away in a safe. Why can’t he play like this when we’re at school?
Right now—here, in this place—he is sublime.
If Jamie’s music fades into the background for the restaurant patrons, then I am the only one who hangs on to every beautiful note.
I sit at the bar clutching my now-watery cocktail and let him take me on a journey of dynamics and codas and the sweet-smelling valleys of decrescendos.
At some point, I am half-aware of the bartender getting my attention, trading in my drink for a fresh one, then another—but for the most part, I am hooked on him.
By the time he’s finished his set, I’m so caught in his undertow that the moment he stops playing feels like having my anchor cut loose.
All of a sudden, I’m adrift, dizzy in the white roar of conversation and clinking silverware—and somehow, I’ve accumulated more than one empty glass at my elbow as the bartender discreetly slides yet another sbagliato across the counter.
“That was incredible,” I say when Jamie makes it back to my side. “You sounded…fantastic, to be honest.”
“I can’t believe you’re still here,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
He shakes his head slowly. “I mean, it’s been five hours. And you’re still here.”
Five hours. Has it really been that long? The sbagliato count says yes.
“I meant what I said. That was really, really good, Jamie. I had no idea you could play like that.” Okay, that came out worse than I meant it to. “I mean—that is, it was different from—just—”
How to say You didn’t sound like a bloodless but perfect AI when you played without sounding like an asshole?
“Don’t strain yourself,” he says with an arched brow.
I scowl. “Just shut up and take the compliment, James.”
“Ooooh, not James. What are you, my mother?”
“You call me Marigold.”
“Fair.”
He hesitates, his mouth doing this funny thing where it looks like he almost bit his lip, then realized what he was doing and thought better of it. “Do you…would you rather I call you Goldie? Sorry. I never really thought about it.”
I’m pretty sure he has thought about it, actually, but I’ll let that one go.
“No,” I say. “It’s okay. I kind of like it when you call me Marigold. You’re the only person who does.”
And even though I knew damn well it was because he hates me, my stupid romantic brain for years fantasized about how, when he fell in love with me, he’d call me “Marigold” and it would be a secret shared between us.
Who needs “baby” when you have Jamie’s gorgeous, full lips shaping the syllables of your name and speaking it like a prayer? Marigold.
“Well, I guess you can call me James. If you want.”
“I’m good with Jamie.”
“Thank god.”
We both laugh, only a little awkwardly, and I find myself tilting in toward him despite myself, like he’s my only source of heat.
“Did you want to go?” he asks, gesturing vaguely toward the door. “Or…?”
“Dinner first.”
“Okay. I can get us a table if you just—”
I shake my head. “Not here. I was thinking shawarma. There’s a cart two blocks down.”
Both his brows go up this time. “Sure. Let’s do it. I’ll go clock out then.”
The night is cool when we emerge, the kind of deep early-winter evening that’s just slightly chillier than you expected—but in the way that makes you want to push up your sleeves and soak it in, not shiver.
Holiday decorations sparkle in the trees and bushes lining the street, every window we pass done up with holly and gold.
I’m extra cognizant of Jamie’s presence at my side; he keeps needing to list in close to me to allow other people to pass by on the sidewalk, our shoulders all but bumping together.
In a way, I think touching would be less fraught; as it is, the scant space between our bodies buzzes with tension.
The shawarma spot is a popular pick, apparently; there are three people ahead of us in line when we arrive, and the universe chooses that moment to decide it’s time to rain.
I burst out laughing. I can’t help myself—it’s the kind of cosmic coincidence that feels like God himself decided now is The Moment to divinely ruin things.
“Shit,” Jamie exclaims, and I’m already looking around like maybe I’ll find an umbrella conveniently tilted against a nearby wall or something. Jamie shrugs off his dinner jacket and holds it over my head.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t want you to get wet!”
The rain has picked up fast. Already, Jamie’s hair is plastered to his forehead, the thin white fabric of his dress shirt clinging to his shoulders. I can see the tan glow of his skin through the newly translucent cotton.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I grouse, and I pull him in closer so that we’re both huddled together under those four square feet of cover. His body is a hot flare against mine, both my hands still reflexively gripping the front of his shirt.
And I’m not as strong as I think, because I don’t even try to fight it.
I let my weight tilt in against his, leaning forward so I can feel the cold damp of him soak into the front of my dress.
He’s so…firm. One of my hands abandons its death grip on Jamie’s shirt to press flat against his hip instead, marveling at the contour of his muscular frame against my palm.
I’m distantly aware that the people in front of us have moved up to order their food—they, of course, had been smart enough to bring umbrellas—but right now, the rest of the city feels very far away.
My eyes are level with Jamie’s throat as he swallows convulsively; I trace his stubbled skin with my gaze, his clenching jaw, and the softness of his parted lips.
His eyes, when I finally look at them, are half-lidded and dark.
“Marigold…”
It comes out taut, half a plea, and I can’t stop.
God, I can’t stop.
I kiss him.
For a moment, his lips are dumb and frozen against mine—almost long enough for me to regret it—but then his hand slides into my hair, and he’s kissing me back with the kind of fierce need that makes me certain he’s thought about this before. Probably a lot.
Fuck oh my god is this really happening oh my goddddd—
His lips are softer than I expect, and I wonder if he can taste the sbagliatos on mine, bitter and astringent.
One of his fingers loops through my hair like he wants to knot us together.
He’s totally abandoned the whole jacket-over-my-head idea, and the rain is freezing, my dress already starting to cling to my back, but like I give a fuck because Jamie Larson is kissing me and that is the only thing that matters in the entire world.
From what feels like universes away, I become aware of the people in front of us heading off to wherever people go past midnight in the pouring rain, and I manage—with great pain—to break the kiss.
“Shit,” Jamie murmurs. His gaze is even darker than before, and the Christmas lights around us are bright enough that I can see the color flushing his cheeks.
“Shit,” I echo back.
I can barely catch my breath. Probably the alcohol, but I feel like I’ve just finished some crazy workout and I’m exhausted and euphoric all at the same time, practically dizzy with it.
“Um,” I make myself say, clinging to reality with both hands. “We should probably…you know…” I gesture weakly toward the food cart.
“Right. Yeah. Okay.” He clearly has as much trouble dragging himself out of my personal space as I do his, the pair of us approaching the cart to order. I default to a falafel pita, because I definitely can’t focus enough to choose anything more exciting.
By the time we’re done ordering, retreating to the relative dryness under a Le Pain Quotidien awning, both of us are sodden.
Jamie looks like he just got fished out of a lake, and I probably look about the same.
We make eye contact and both laugh at the same time—the awkward tension bursting past the floodgates.
The contrast makes me feel heavy and relaxed, like I just smoked a really excellent bowl, and Jamie reaches to swipe my hair away from where it’s plastered to my face.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” he says.
“I mean,” I say. “Yeah.”
“Are you…That is. I’ve been wanting that for a while. Probably longer than my ego wants to admit.”
My heart thumps wild in my chest at that. I’ve been wanting that for a while. A while. Wanting. Wanting me. “Same. Since we were first-years, actually. I probably shouldn’t admit that out loud; it’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he says softly, and the hand that’s in my hair drifts lower, along the side of my neck, my shoulder. It’s like he can’t stop touching me. A frisson of want cuts hot down my spine.
“So what now?” I say. “Please tell me you won’t go back to hating me because I’m a better pianist than you.”
That earns me another laugh, and god, I’ll never get over the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, when he really smiles, not the cold slice of a smirk or the brief bitter mask he puts on after someone compliments him on his playing, but true and bright and for me. All for me.
“Right now, I think we should eat our food. And then I think we should get the fuck out of here.”
“I like this plan. I like food.” I arch a brow. “And I like whatever it is you’re planning to do to me once we get home.”
I can’t believe I’m talking like this; maybe I’m drunker than I thought, or maybe it’s just the intoxication of this moment, Jamie’s kiss still tingling on my lips and his body so close to mine, him looking at me like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
I only eat about half my sandwich, suddenly not all that hungry anymore. It’s still raining by the time we’re both done.
Jamie gestures in the direction of the subway station. “Run for it? Or Uber?”
“Run for it.”
“All right. On three. One…two…”
We dart out from under the awning—Jamie awkwardly hunched under his jacket, and me far past the point of caring, laughing like some giddy teenager as Jamie reaches over and takes my hand in his, latching us together so we don’t get separated.
The subway is empty when we get there, all the evening partiers already emptied out at their destinations—that liminal space between leaving for the night and the flood that will follow in a few hours of people returning home, drunk and laughing and flushed with the intoxication of a wild night out.
There’s no crowd pressing me and Jamie together, but he leans in anyway, bracketing me between his arms as we stand by the doors, oddly protective.
Alone, with no one there to watch, Jamie kisses me again.
Gently this time, skimming the backs of his fingers along the line of my jaw.
My hands find his hips, then smooth up toward his narrow waist, memorizing the shape of him.
The tension draws tighter and tighter in my stomach the whole way home, the space between us hot and taut in the elevator up to my apartment, that security camera on the ceiling the only thing keeping me from tangling myself in his arms.
We strip off our sodden jackets and shoes in the entryway, my wet hair dripping all over the parquet floor.
“I’ll get a towel,” Jamie offers, but I shake my head.
“Not now.”
He lifts his brows and I lift mine right back, hooking my forefingers through his belt loops and pulling him close. I rise onto the balls of my feet and kiss him once more, dragging my lips along his stubbled jaw, his rain-slick neck. I imagine I can feel his pulse racing against my skin.
I press my mouth right there, right at his carotid. “Not yet.”