Lucky Caller(57)

He opened his eyes while I was looking at him, blinked at me.

“I should’ve texted you earlier,” he said, voice croaky.

“Jamie, you had actual real-life important stuff going on. It’s seriously no big deal.”

He nodded, then shivered.

I stood, and moved over to my bed. I was going to pull up one of the blankets that had fallen on the floor and lay it over him. That was my intention. It was definitely my original plan. But I didn’t reach for the blanket. I just stood there, at the edge of the bed, until Jamie scooted over a bit and held open the covers.

I got in.





54.


I TOLD MYSELF THAT CUDDLING Jamie was a necessary accommodation to fit two people into a twin bed. Space conservation is what it was. It was efficient. If I was going to lie here next to him, actively cuddling him was just common sense.

And anyway, maybe it was making him feel better? Was that thinking too much of myself, of my, like, comforting abilities?

He was bigger than me, but he hunched down, pressing his face into my neck. I ran my fingers through his hair absently. It was really soft, way softer than anyone’s hair had a right to be.

“Feels nice,” he murmured after a while.

“Mm,” I replied, because it did; everything in this moment felt a lot nicer than it should have, given the circumstances. Maybe that whole pause-the-battle-scene-or-apocalypse trope where the protagonists drop everything to make out wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

This wasn’t a battle scene though. Jamie was upset, he was stressed, and I shouldn’t have liked the feeling of his arms wrapped around my waist so much, his breath on my skin, but I did.

He adjusted slightly after a bit, and I could feel his lips brush up against my neck, almost a kiss.

I tightened my grip in his hair unconsciously.

“Sorry,” he whispered, pulling back a little.

There was a hush to it, to everything. Like when we stood in front of Acton, the dark and unknowable and irrepressible space just beyond us.

Try it. Just reach out your hand.

I lifted my other hand to his face, traced the line of his jaw with my fingertips, feather light. His eyes flickered shut. And then he dipped his head again, pressing his mouth to my collarbone purposefully this time, lips parting with each kiss he placed there.

My skin felt too tight, like it might burst, but in the best possible way. When he shifted to kiss my neck, I thought I might combust. Just spontaneously erupt in flames. Could he feel that? Could he tell? Was he feeling it too? He moved up and we were face-to-face now, close, closer than we’d been in so long, my eyes almost blurry with it, and this was it—lips almost brushing—almost—

Then the front door opened.

Jamie startled, sat up quickly, and shifted off the bed just as Rose appeared in the doorway to our room. I was still lying in the exact same spot, now suddenly bereft as Jamie moved toward the dresser, his back turned to the door.

Rose looked between us. “Hey.”

“Hi,” I said. Jamie didn’t turn around.

“I, uh.” Rose contemplated us for just a moment. “Forgot something. In the car. I will be back in … ten minutes.” Her eyes flicked to me. “Fifteen? Fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.”

She disappeared, and the front door opened and closed again, and Jamie and I were alone. Again.

I didn’t know what I wanted. Except that’s a lie—I did. I wanted Jamie to cross back over, get in bed, kiss me everywhere and anywhere he wanted, and give me the liberty to do the same. But I didn’t know how to express that. And I knew realistically we couldn’t accomplish that in the ten to fifteen minutes before Rose returned, but I wanted it anyway. Wanted him.

He just stood there, scratched the back of his neck, rubbed at one eye.

I felt suddenly stupid, still being in bed. Still being a part of something that didn’t get far enough to actually be anything, but was definitely still … something. I stood too, leaving the warmth of the covers behind.

He looked back my way. Not at me specifically, but in my general direction.

And then, finally, he crossed back over. He was coming closer, and closer, he reached out—

And grabbed something on the shelf behind my head.

We both stared down at it: the jar packed with little tinfoil squares.

When his eyes flicked back up to me, there was an odd expression on his face. “You still save the wrappers?”

There it was, all at once. Eight-year-old Jamie, lamenting that Grammy wouldn’t let him have gum. He didn’t care about the candy; he just wanted the wrappers to “build something.”

Something like what? Rose had asked skeptically.

Like a space suit, he had replied with a grin. One of those shiny metal ones.

We were allowed to have gum (or at least, my dad let us have gum when we were with him), so I always asked for the kind with foil wrappers, so I could save them and give them to Jamie.

I kept doing it, even as we got older, even into junior high, despite the fact that the space suit never materialized. I remember presenting him with a bunch of them on the playground in fifth grade. And in sixth grade, dropping a handful of folded rectangles onto his desk in social studies, him grinning up at me. Still working on it, he said.

Seventh grade. It’s gonna be Mars-ready.

Eighth grade. Almost there.