In a New York Minute(77)

“What about work? And six-mile runs?” I asked, feeling self-conscious that maybe he had better things to do.

“Those things can wait. Nothing could possibly be better than spending time with you.”

He bit his lip, smiling at me. Was he always this romantic? This soft and kind, this intimate with his feelings? Something about him had shifted. Overnight? Or over months? Had romantic Hayes secretly been there all along?

“When did you get so smooth?” I asked with a whack on his arm. He grabbed at my hand and tugged me toward a table full of fiddleheads.

I went overboard, per usual, but still managed to stay on budget, grabbing raspberries and three pounds of peaches, and a container of fresh cavatelli from the pasta guy I loved so much. As badly as I was trying to save my money, this is where I liked to let it all go out the window. Hayes offered to help me lug the bags to my place, and we headed back down Montague Street, window-shopping along the way.

I felt the first drop as we turned onto Hicks Street.

“Uh-oh,” Hayes muttered just as I looked to him to ask him if he’d felt it too.

“Rain?”

“I think we’re about to get dumped on.”

“Should we make a run for it?” I asked, and thunder rumbled overhead in reply. We still had about six more blocks to go.

“Can you run with bags of groceries in your hands?” he asked.

“I mean, I can try!” But the second I said that, they felt ten pounds heavier.

“Let’s just commit to it, then,” Hayes said, returning to that unnaturally calm and collected person I knew him to be, unfazed by everything. “We’re going to get wet whether we run or walk. It’s inevitable. It’s already happening. I think we just have to embrace it.”

His words hung there between us as we crossed Pierrepont, until our silence was split by another rumble of thunder. The skies opened upon us and covered us whole.

I shrieked with laughter, and Hayes lifted his arms, bags in hand. Embracing it. It was moments like this that I wish actually went viral, when joy is so pure and unadulterated that it just comes out of us without thinking.

There was no point in racing home, and so we marveled in it: the utter drenching of the world around us, the crackling of the sky, the way everyone else seemed to race by in an attempt to get cover. But he was right. There was no point in trying to avoid the inevitable. You could seek shelter, but you could never really avoid the downpour. Eventually, you have to surrender to the rain.

Back in front of my apartment, I grabbed my keys out of my canvas purse—sopping like a used rag—and unlocked the door, kicking off my shoes. “Holy shit!” I said, dumping the bags on the floor.

“I mean, at least I don’t need to shower today,” he said as he gingerly set down the three bags he was holding and shut the door behind him.

“No, that was like a week’s worth of bathing,” I said, smiling.

He stared back at me, also smiling, his eyes examining my face. “You’re soaked,” he said, his voice gravelly and low. I nodded, grabbed a dry dish towel from the counter, and stepped toward him. It felt like the space between us was going to explode: another downpour, endless thunder, the fiery crackling of light.

I reached for his face with my hands, grabbing his chin in one and wiping his wet brow with the other. He leaned forward, grasping my waist, his hands firm over my hip bones. I sighed, and all the sensation in my body rushed to where his hands held me, so secure, like if I went limp he could still prop me up. It was everything I’d grown to like about Hayes in one simple gesture—his constant desire to fix things, help, hold things together. No matter what.

There were a million words I could say in this moment. I could make a funny quip about the weather, or thank him for carrying all those groceries, or comment on his clothes—but before I could open my mouth, he was there, his lips on mine. Hayes Montgomery was kissing me, hard.

I threw the dish towel over my shoulder, not caring where it landed. My brain went to the groceries for a hot second—Should I put them away? Are they perishable?—before I scolded myself for even thinking of doing anything but this, right now. This felt urgent, important, and, god, his wet hair felt good against my hands. Last night had felt timid and exploratory, a tentative introduction to what might come. But this was frantic, needy, desperate. I pushed him forward with my body.

“We should take off these wet clothes,” I murmured in between kisses.

“I don’t have anything to change into.”

His lips pressed against my jaw, his teeth grazing my neck, my shoulder blade.

“I don’t want you to change into anything.” I felt his teeth nip harder into my neck in response, followed by the softest of kisses. He led me toward the kitchen, guiding me until my body was up against the counter. His hands moved from my hips to the back of my thighs, and he lifted me in one fell swoop onto the edge. I wrapped my legs around his hips, and he ground into me, responding to the pressure of my body against his.

“Is this okay, Francesca?” he asked, and I almost imploded right there at the way my full name rolled out of his mouth.

“It is very okay. It would be even more okay if we went to my bed.”

That was all he needed to hear. He lifted me off the counter, my arms around his neck, my mouth on it too, his body stumbling forward. “Watch your head,” he said protectively as he moved us down the short hallway.