Emergency Contact(82)

She stared at him intently while lying on her side. “I can’t deal with your ceiling,” she explained.

Sam smiled. It gave him a better view anyway.

“You know what I love about you?” she asked.

“My enormous muscles and my sun-kissed glow?”

“Yes,” she said. “The second thing I like about you”—Sam noticed that she’d switched “love” to “like”—“is that your brain goes as fast as mine,” she said.

“So you like that I remind you of you basically,” he said.

They both laughed.

“Exactly.”

“Cool.”

“No,” she tried again. “Most people don’t ever know what I’m talking about. Not ever. I don’t necessarily know why.”

“Well, you start your stories from the epilogue. Plus, none of your questions have anything to do with what’s being discussed.”

“Neither do yours.”

Sam smiled.

“But you know what I’m talking about,” she said. “You’ve known from the day we met. Even on text, where there are no inflections or nuance or tone for non sequiturs. You’ve always spoken fluent me.”

She slugged him on the arm. A meaty little thwock. Sam didn’t know what to read into it.

“I’m glad you didn’t talk about yourself in the third person just then, like ‘speaking fluent Penny,’?” he said. “That would have been so gnar. What if all I did was—”

Before he could continue, Penny kissed him square on the mouth.

He didn’t have time to close his eyes, so he knew that she hadn’t closed hers.

Sam stared at her for a moment. Then he went for it.





PENNY.


Kissing Sam was nothing like kissing Bobby or Mark. Not even close. Kissing them was pressing your face up against your own forearm compared to this. Oh man. This. ThisThisThis. When she kissed Sam, it was closing your eyes and opening them to find yourself in outer space. Kissing Sam was the universe. It was the Internet. It was a miracle. The part that was most astounding was that her brain switched off to pure white noise, and as she leaned in, she didn’t obsess about the mechanics of her tongue or where the rest of her body was in relation to his.

Penny felt the contour of his jaw under her hand and couldn’t believe she’d gone this long without touching it. Sam rolled over her, propping himself up so he wouldn’t squish her body with his. He hung for a bit and—Oh God—he was so pretty that it was unfathomable that he could even see her. It was inconceivable to Penny that his eyes served any function other than to be admired. He kissed her back with urgency. Her hands traveled around his waist. Sam was startlingly skinny. The slightness was new. His skin was warm and there was a refinement in the economy of his build. Sam’s stomach was smooth. Penny wanted to run her fingers up and down her own sides to check what she felt like. She suspected her love handles were too fleshy or lumpy in contrast, but when his hands migrated to her middle, Penny shivered. It felt so good to be this close. Sam fell onto his side, wrapped his leg around hers, and drew her in deeper. It made no difference where he started and she ended. Until it did. When his hands moved under her shirt, she stiffened. Penny didn’t have a bra on.

Responding to her hesitation, Sam changed course. He kissed her lightly and moved his hands from her front toward her back. It reminded Penny of when people tripped slightly and started running to pretend they hadn’t.

Penny pulled away to get some air. Sam’s hair had fallen in his face and his lips were swollen.

“Whoa,” he breathed, and rolled onto his back.

Penny wondered what would happen next.

He reached for her hand under the cover.

“So . . . ,” he said.

Penny rolled onto her stomach and faced him, admiring his profile. He had an elegant nose. She wished she could explore his body and inspect him. Learn him and memorize him. That way she’d know what to miss when he was gone. Sam was heartbreakingly, hauntingly beautiful. It made her heart hurt. This couldn’t end well.

“I think I should go,” she said. She didn’t know why she said it. Penny wanted to take it back, but that’s the thing about certain words. They broke spells. She searched Sam’s face for meaning, yet felt too self-conscious to keep staring. Penny wished he would text her about what was going on in his mind, tell her in some way that this made sense.

He sat up, frowned, and then nodded.

? ? ?

“Are you kidding me?” When Penny got home, Jude leapt out of bed and rushed to her. She grabbed Penny by the shoulders.

“Where the hell were you?” Jude shrieked.

Penny stared at her. She was mystified that somehow her roommate’s rage had built in her absence.

“I thought you were dead. I texted and called.” Her blond hair was tied up in a lopsided ponytail, and she was still wearing yesterday’s mascara.

Penny grabbed her phone from her back pocket and held it up feebly. “It died,” she said.

She examined Jude’s face for clues. She looked unglued but not necessarily angry.

“I thought you hated me,” Penny reasoned.

“You’re an idiot,” said Jude, scowling. “Of course I hate you. I’m furious at you. I figured you’d gone to your mom’s, but your laptop was here and your charger.”