“Sure,” I said again, making myself keep looking right at him, resisting the urge to leap up and run to my purse so that I could text Siobhan and tell her what was happening and get her advice on what, exactly, I should do. I kicked off my flats and drew my legs up underneath me. “A movie sounds great.”
Jesse gave me some options, and I pretended to care about this decision, but I knew we were both just marking time. And sure enough, the movie was only a few minutes in—from what I could tell in my distracted state, it seemed to be about a by-the-book cop who switches bodies with his police dog partner—when Jesse looked away from the screen and into my eyes.
“Hey,” he said, one side of his mouth kicking up in a smile.
“Hey,” I said back, not able to keep the nervousness out of my voice this time. He reached over and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, then stroked his thumb along my jaw as he tilted his head and leaned in, eyes already closing.
And then he kissed me.
From the first moment our lips touched, it was clear Jesse knew what he was doing. These were not the shy, tentative kisses I’d had before, and I felt my breath catch in my throat as he kissed me, fast and deep. I was trying to keep up, trying to understand that this really, truly was happening. I kissed him back, hoping that my inexperience wasn’t showing. But if it was, Jesse didn’t seem to mind. My heart was galloping even as it felt like I was turning slowly to liquid, pooling into the Fosters’ worn corduroy couch. Jesse broke away for a second and looked down into my eyes, and I tried to catch my breath, tried to gather my thoughts into something beyond his name repeating over and over in my head.
“So,” he said, as he slid an arm underneath my hips and emerged a second later with the remote. He gave me a smile like we were sharing a secret and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think we need this on, do you?”
I smiled back at him. “Probably not.” Jesse pointed the remote at the TV again, as the straitlaced police captain exclaimed, “I’ve heard of a dog’s life, but this is ridiculous!” The sound cut off, and it was suddenly darker and quieter in the basement, just me and Jesse and the rain against the windows.
“Well then,” he said, smiling at me before bending his head to kiss down my neck, making me gasp and then shiver, while I silently thanked Siobhan for talking me out of wearing the turtleneck I’d been considering. Without even realizing it was happening, he was easing me back on the couch, so that my head was on the armrest. Jesse was above me, his legs tangled in between mine.
He started to kiss me again as he slipped his hands underneath the hem of my sweater, and I drew in a sharp breath. “What?” Jesse asked, straightening up and rubbing his hands together. “Are they cold?”
“No,” I said, sitting up a tiny bit more as I looked down at my bare stomach and my sweater that was gathered around my ribs. Jesse started tracing his fingers across my stomach gently, and I could feel myself start to go melty again. But the most I had ever come close to doing before this was kissing—and even then, I’d never gotten to lying-down kissing.
“Is this okay?” Jesse asked, his eyes searching mine, his hands on either side of my rib cage, his thumbs tracing slow circles on my bare skin. I looked back at him and hesitated a second before nodding. It wasn’t that I wanted him to stop—it was just that we were moving at speeds far beyond anything I’d ever experienced. It had taken Eddie a week to get up the nerve to hold my hand. I drew in a breath as his hands slipped back under my sweater, and I lost myself in what was happening, in his hands on my skin and our kisses that were growing more and more fevered, until he pulled my sweater over my head and tossed it aside and his hands went straight for the front clasp of my bra. I stiffened, and Jesse leaned back, his brow furrowed.
“You okay?”
“Just—” I glanced up the stairs. Suddenly I was all too aware that at any moment either of Jesse’s parents could come down. And I wasn’t sure that I could deal with the Fosters—both of whom had known me since I was five—seeing me half-naked on their couch, kissing their son. “Um . . . are your parents home?”
“They’re asleep upstairs,” Jesse said confidently, but I saw him look up toward the staircase as well.
I pushed myself up so that I was sitting, feeling like this—whatever it had been—was starting to slip through my fingers. Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to kissing Jesse now that all I could think about was his parents walking in on us.
“Tell you what,” he said before I could say anything. He leaned closer to me, smiling. “I know where we can go.” He nodded toward the door, and I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t going to suggest his car, when he said, “Guesthouse.”
I’d never been in the guesthouse, but I’d heard about it—it was why Jesse had always won at elementary school games of hide-and-seek until Mike had figured it out. I nodded, and Jesse held out his hand to help me off the couch. I started to reach for my sweater, but he was already pulling his off, reaching around behind his neck to yank it over his head by the collar. He held it out to me, and I put it on, trying not to be too obvious as I breathed in the smell of him that seemed to permeate the soft gray cashmere. “Won’t you be cold?” I asked as I smoothed my staticky hair down. Jesse was now just in his jeans and a white T-shirt, and it had been below freezing the last two nights.
“I’ll be fine.” He held out his hand to me, making the world tilt on its axis a little, and led me to the door that opened onto the Fosters’ backyard. But when Jesse opened it, I took a step back. The rain was coming down harder than ever, and the temperature seemed to have dropped since I arrived; I felt myself start to shiver, and I realized a little too late that I’d left my flats over by the couch.
“Ready to make a run for it?” Jesse asked, squeezing my hand.
“Wait,” I said, taking a step toward the couch. “Let me get my shoes.”
“It’s okay,” Jesse said, and he pulled me back and then closer to him. He leaned down to kiss me and then, a second later, lifted me into his arms. “I got you.”
I let out a sound that was halfway between a shriek and a laugh, and before I even had the chance to be mortified, Jesse was opening the door and carrying me outside, into the rain.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and he was kissing me as he walked. Jesse stopped for just a moment, both his arms around me tight, and we kissed as the rain poured down on us. It was like I could practically feel his heart beating against mine through his T-shirt. Then Jesse swung my legs over his arm—when had he gotten so strong? He was carrying me like I weighed nothing—and started to half run, half walk across the grass to the guesthouse.
It was a miniature version of the Fosters’ house—a peaked wooden roof and glass panes that ran the length of the house, a balcony on the second story. I thought Jesse was going to go in the main door, but he continued to carry me over to the staircase that led up the side of the house to the second floor. He set me down on the bottom step, but he did it slowly, not dropping me, his hands sliding up my legs to my waist. “After you,” he said, and I could hear that his teeth were chattering. Now that we were no longer kissing, I was starting to feel just how cold it was, that my feet especially were getting numb. I hurried up the stairs, Jesse behind me, and then he led the way across the balcony and opened the unlocked second-story door.
Jesse didn’t turn on any of the lights, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted. It was an open loft space—maybe the kitchen and living room were downstairs—just a king-size bed in the center of the room with nightstands flanking it and a bathroom off to the side, the door slightly ajar. Before I could even get my head around the implications of this—because a bed, like an actual bed, seemed somehow really different from a couch—Jesse had shut the door behind us and was in front of me again. He kissed me—this was never, I decided, not going to feel miraculous—but I could feel how cold his lips were and that his teeth were full-on chattering now.
“Maybe,” he said, pulling his T-shirt away from his skin—it was practically transparent with the rain—“we should get out of these wet clothes?” He raised an eyebrow at me as he said it, and even though I laughed, I couldn’t help thinking that it might not be the worst idea, just from a practical standpoint, all too aware of how my clothes were soaked, heavy and dripping on the beige carpeting.