The Hard Count(82)

I bite my lip and look at him while my mind searches for courage. A dozen adjectives, and as many words for feelings dart around my head, the phrases coming and going fast. After a few seconds, I feel like I’m playing a game of Scrabble, searching for the best word to score the most points.

“You’re making this hard,” he says.

“Okay, okay…just…give me a minute!” I scold him, my eyes intense on the lock in my hand, my fingers squeezing the pen hard.

There’s one thought—one thing I could write—that I keep thinking. This one sentence plays on repeat, and it scares me and tempts me to look at the other side. I feel my fingers twitch to spin the lock in my palm, but I won’t cheat. I would never. My eyes move up to Nico’s, which are waiting for me. The smirk on his lips is almost like a poker player’s bluff, and I don’t know if I should call it. I look back down to the lock, my teeth sawing at my lip, and I hold my breath as I write.

The words are short and sweet. I put the pen back in the cap when I’m done, and hold the lock between my fingers—Nico’s message on the other side.

“So do we…turn it? Or…how does this work?” I ask.

Nico takes the lock from me, then tugs it loose, like a hook. He leans his head toward the fence, and I realize he’s asking me to pick a spot. I find one that’s at both of our height, and it’s a place where the metal is melted into an odd thickness—the only place where the latticework is uneven. I like that it isn’t perfect, and if I’m tethering myself to something, I think it should look a little amiss. There’s comfort in imperfection.

“Okay then,” he says, looping the lock in place and pushing it in until it clicks, his thumb rubbing along the bottom until the combination is scrambled.

“Do you know how to take it off?” I ask.

“No idea. I threw the combination away,” he says, his eyes never once leaving mine while I continue to look from him to the lock, nervously. “Go on…read it,” he says, finally, and I practically lunge at it, twisting it upside down so I can read what Nico wrote on his side.

Me, too.

I let my thumb run over the words, the ink now dry, and my lips curve up as I do. His note…it couldn’t be any more perfect.

“What’d you say?” he says, his hand sliding around my waist and along my stomach, his chin resting on my shoulder as he holds me from behind.

“I said…” I pause, my mouth suddenly dry. My eyes fall closed and I let go of the lock, turning in his arms until my back is against the bridge’s wall, next to our lock, and Nico has me caged between his arms. “I said, ‘I’m falling for you.’”

His mouth curves as mine did, and his forehead tilts until it rests against mine.

“You are, huh?” he says, the words tickling my lips. I love it when he speaks against my mouth. I wish we could have all conversations just like this.

“I am,” I say, stopping to take his bottom lip into my mouth.

“Kiss me,” he demands. “You take charge, kissing me like you want. I want to know what you want from me, how you feel. Show me,” he says, his expression not arrogant or cocky, but rather desperate perhaps, like he needs to know what I want and feel.

Though my nerves fire up, I do as he asks, because I’ve never wanted to kiss him more. My hands slide up both sides of his face, and I step up on my tippy-toes, turning my head just enough that we fit together perfectly, my mouth opening to take his, to taste him. I kiss his top lip first, letting my teeth graze over him, then I nibble at his bottom. When he smiles against me, I do the same, letting my right hand move into his hair, feeling it soft and thick between my fingers.

I begin to kiss him harder, my tongue entering his mouth and meeting the resistance of his quickly. It’s with this touch that Nico can no longer be passive. His hands slide behind my back and he pulls me into him, turning me away from the gate and walking me backward to the large concrete pillar at the center of the bridge. My back against the coolness of it, Nico moves forward until he has one foot resting on either side of both of mine, his body pressed against me, his hands sliding down my hips, inching slowly until they finally grip my ass.

My breath hitches as his fingers clutch at the fabric of my dress, bringing it up only an inch or two with the raw hunger of his need. He lets go, sliding his hands up my sides, his thumbs running over the curves of my breasts, coming close to places I’ve never been touched, but suddenly desperately want to be. His fingers trace along my bare shoulder, and his head dips down, his mouth taking my neck, tasting my collar bone, the rough edge of his teeth scratching against my bare skin. His hands trail lower, along my arms, until he reaches my wrists, and he grabs them in his hands, lifting them and holding them above my head against the concrete as he leans into me and kisses my mouth raw. He holds me there for a few seconds before letting go and moving to cup my face again, letting me free from the wall and pulling me to him until we’re standing in the center of the bridge, the only light from the cars below and the sliver of moon above.

When he releases me, I’m dizzy and breathless, and I let my head rest against his chest.

“I have never been kissed like that,” I say.

“Me neither,” Nico says, his mouth coming down to the top of my head.

Somehow, I didn’t believe that to be true, but I let him get away with it. I let him because it makes him happy to make me happy, and that thought—the idea that I’m his girl, the girl for him? That makes me deliriously happy.