Kiss Her Once for Me (108)

I roll my eyes. “I was about to say—yes, Jack. You’re in it.” It’s the hope that makes me feel as reckless and wild as she was our first day together. “I don’t think I could stop drawing you if I tried. You… you’re the best parts of every character I create.”

She exhales. Her breath is white like the snow.

“I sold the Airstream,” she blurts. Then she looks down at her feet. Or my feet. Or maybe she’s looking at both of our feet, toes pointed toward each other in the snow. “And I made a ton of money from the sale, because it turns out Airstreams are ridiculously expensive, which I didn’t know, because it also turns out that Patty’s brother sold it to me at a huge discount out of pity.”

“Not quite the embodiment of financial independence you thought?”

She shakes her head. “No, but I was able to use the money I made selling it to give myself a nice safety net until the Butch Oven starts making money. And now I’m living in the spare bedroom at my mom’s new condo. She’s…” Jack inhales a rattled breath. “She’s helping me get on my feet, at least for a little bit.”

“Jack, that’s. Wow.” Selling the shiny symbol of her freedom, letting her mom help her… “That’s just wow.”

“Yeah.” She looks up from our feet, and her face is half attempted apathy, half unadulterated hope. “You wore the blue scarf tonight.”

My fingers graze the well-loved yarn around my throat. “I did.”

“And we’re”—she glances around us, at the snow and the dark water below—“on the Burnside Bridge again.”

“We are.”

She grinds the toe of her boot into the snow. “And you humiliated yourself for me tonight.”

No point in pretending now, not when she can probably see the snot crusted onto my face. “I would humiliate myself a thousand times for you, Jack.”

There it is—her half-moon smile, right there, on this bridge, just the two of us. “Maybe one more time. Since you did get fake-engaged to my brother…”

“One more time,” I say, and I hope, hope, hope. “Jack. I’m in love with you. It took less than fifteen hours for me to fall in love with every damn thing about you. In particular, your hair, and the stupid way you flick your chin to get it out of your face.”

“The stupid way I what—?”

“And your thighs, which are thick and magnificent, and the way you either stand solid like an oak tree or have to lean against every available surface, there’s no in-between.”

“An oak tree? Are these supposed to be compliments?”

“Yes. You are a sexy oak tree. And you’re brave and you’re outspoken, and I love your heavy gait and the fact that you always shout, even though you’re really far too loud to take to any museum or formal restaurant, and you’re the smartest slacker I’ve ever met—probably because you’re not a slacker at all, you’re just a kinesthetic learner who’s been bombarded with really negative messages about the way your brain works.”

“You’re in love with my learning style now?”

“You’re not getting it,” I say impatiently, plainly. “I’m in love with every single thing about you, Jack Kim-Prescott.”

She takes one hand out of her pocket and reaches for mine. As she knits our fingers together, I fall apart. Jack doesn’t move. She just stands there with a mocking half-moon smile. I want to grab her by her indifferent shoulders. I want to dig my nails into her skin and kiss her collarbone, memorizing the musculature that allows her to be so relaxed while my entire body riots. “Go on. Surely there is more to the humiliating speech.”

“I love you.” I shrug. “And I don’t have a plan for what happens next. I live in a closet, and I work in an art-supply store, and hopefully maybe someday, I’ll also get to tell stories with my art. But maybe not. Maybe I’ll have to figure out a different dream instead. I… I know I hurt you. I know I betrayed your trust. But if you give me a third chance, I will never do that again.”

“You’ll never get engaged to my brother in exchange for money and lie to me about it again?”

I shake my head. “That’s a mistake you only make once, I promise.”

Jack shakes her head, too, dislodging a few snowflakes. There’s almost three inches on the ground now. The sidewalk and our jeans are both covered in white. I want to draw Jack like this. I want to spend the rest of my life drawing Jack, in the snow and everywhere.

I think, Maybe I’m not getting my heart broken on a bridge right now. I’m really not sure.

“So I think the Claire thing kind of messed me up more than I realized,” she says, puffing out her cheeks. “Just, like, in terms of making me feel like a fuck-up at relationships, too. And I definitely haven’t reconciled all the issues I have with my family not believing in me. And my parents’ divorce is sort of messing me up more than I expected, considering I’ve been actively rooting for it since I was ten. And then there’s all this stuff with my grandpa writing me out of his will. It’s just—”

“You’ve got a lot on your plate, sure.” Never mind, I am getting my heart broken. In the gentle way, where she’s going to tell me she’s too “busy” to date me. Which everyone knows is just something you say when you’re not very into a person but you don’t have a good reason why.