Love Bait

34| When lightning strikes

The room falls quiet, but if I had super hearing, I imagine I'd hear Jordan's heartbeat steadily thumping through the dark. He doesn't speak for at least a minute. Doesn't move. He's as frozen as the statue of the mermaid from the cave.

A sliver of moonlight pools in through the shutters, dusting his cheeks with feathers of light. It feels intimate straddling him in the dark like this. More intimate than anything else. There's a strange vulnerability that comes with being this close to a person but not being able to see them. We rely so heavily on social cues, on facial expressions to guide our next move, but now his face is a canvas.

"We have a generator in the basement," I say, but neither of us moves.

His breathing is shallow, his chest barely rising beneath my hands. I wish I knew what to say to make him feel better, but right now I'm powerless. Talking about pizza had helped to calm him the last time, but something tells me that's not going to cut it with a hurricane.

Slowly, I lift my hands from off his chest and wrap them around his neck, pulling him into a hug. He's as stiff as a board for maybe a second, but then his own arms hug me back. 

So much has happened since that first storm in the cafe that this time, it feels right. He draws me closer and buries his face in my neck. His skin is so soft, warm, and I realize it's not just me comforting him. He's comforting me, too.

Out of nowhere, it hits me how much I'm going to miss him when he leaves. I've gotten so used to just turning up at the cafe and having him be there, but soon he's going to be in an entirely different state, and instead of making the most of the time we have left, we're wasting it.

My eyes move to his lips, slow and delineate. I want to kiss him. Just for a moment, just to remember how it feels. I press my lips to the side of his neck, over his pounding pulse. His grip either side of my hips tightens, sending a jolt of electricity through me. I'm not sure how long we stay like this, but at some point I listen for the thrashing of the rain, only to realize it's quiet.

"You know, the last time this happened, we hated each other," I say.

He pulls back slightly, gently brushing my cheek with his thumb. A second passes, and then, "What about now?"

I'm suddenly glad that I can't see his face. These kinds of conversations are better in the dark. "Now I just mildly dislike you."

"Liar."

I smile a little. It's getting harder and harder to remember why I'm stopping this. Why I'm so afraid of being with Jordan once he leaves. It's like whenever I'm around him, I get the same feeling I get at the beach, this relieving warmth that spreads through my body and pools in the tip of my toes. The sense that I'm home.

"What about you?" I ask lightly.

He drops his hands from my waist to my thighs. "I'd have thought it was obvious by now."

This conversation is bordering uncharted territory. Heart pounding, I lean in closer. Our lips are about a centimeter apart, but neither of us takes that next step. I'm so desperate to kiss him that if he doesn't do it soon, it's going to be me.

Maybe it's stupid, but right now, I don't care that he's moving back to Chicago. I don't care that he's selling the cafe. I don't care that in two or three months, this moment will feel like a distant dream. That's how much I want to kiss him.

His fingers slip beneath my hoodie, warm and gentle. My back arches slightly, my body screaming yes as his mouth edges closer. I think he's going to kiss me, but his lips take a detour to my ear. In a quiet voice, he says, "I can't do this."

Thinking he means the storm, I say, "It'll be over soon."

"No."  When he speaks, the warmth of his breath on my skin makes me shudder. "I can't keep going back and forth with you." His voice is low, serious. Another side effect of the dark: it's easier to be honest. "You either want this or you don't, Evvy, and if you don't, well then I guess there's nothing I can do about that. But if you do–" he pauses, his hands gently sliding up my thighs. There's this look in his eyes that's hard to read, but it's giving me goosebumps.

A loud rumble breaks through the moment, as though the heavens themselves have intervened. He clenches his jaw and falls still again. Either mother nature doesn't want us to have this conversation, or she has the worst timing.

I don't say anything for a good three seconds. I can't. When I finally manage to gather my words, he's already setting me on my feet.

"Night," he says, and he heads for the door.

"Jordan."

He turns now, his jaw a hard line. Between the storm and this conversation, he's not in a mood for pleasantries. "Unless the next words out of your mouth are some kind of declaration, I don't want to hear it."

My blood is starting to boil again in the way only he can invoke. "Why are you so annoying?"

He takes a step closer. "Why are you?"

I glance at his lips. Wanting to kiss someone who is able to get under my skin like this cannot be a good thing. I'm about to reply when rain batters the windows, and he flinches. "I don't think now is a good time to talk about this," I say. "I'll get the generator."

He nods then apparently changes his mind. "No." He grabs my hand, pulling me closer, and spins me into his chest. "Every time we start this conversation, you find a way to bail on me, but I'm done playing games, Evvy." My breath hitches, and when I finally look up, his eyes are as stormy as outside. "You know I like you. I know I like you. The only thing we don't know is how you feel."

Quietly, I say, "You know how I feel."

"I want to hear you say it."

Jaw clenched, I glare at him. "Fine, I like you, but it doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything." He pulls me in again until there's no more space left. "Long-distance sucks, but if you want this we can make it work. If you don't, if you want to give up before we've even tried, then tell me now and I'll leave you alone, because I'm not going to spend the next week pretending everything's fine. You're either all in or I'm out."

My heart stops. This is it, the moment I've been dreading, the moment of truth. Maybe it would have been easier to make this decision once he'd already left, once we'd faced the inevitable. But making this decision while he's standing in front of me is all but impossible.

Because I like him. Because the thought of never seeing him again leaves me with this cold, empty feeling. Because even though it's stupid and the chance of failure is high, I want to try; I want to let him in.

"Jordan, I–"

My voice is drowned out by an abrupt, panicked noise. I move to the back door, terrified that someone might be trapped out there, and open it a crack. The storm has taken a turn for the worse. Rain pounds the patio like bullets, and several of the small trees lining the fence have been ripped out by the roots. A cluster of debris swirls the air and lands in different directions. When something hard hits the doorframe, I duck and rush to close it.

"Wait." Jordan moves behind me, his body so tense it's like standing in front of a wall. "Look."

He points to a quick flash of movement through the rain, and a quiet bark rings out. It's so dark and wet that anything much further than the patio is hazy, but I'm just about able to make out the shape of a dog as it darts across the lawn.

In the seconds that follow, the yard is lit up by a flash of lightning so bright, I have to look away. Instead, I look at Jordan, whose skin looks translucent, almost ghost-like, under the brilliant white glare.

Darkness follows. The dog disappears, and quick as a flash, Jordan moves past me, dodging my efforts to pull him inside, and runs into the backyard after it.