The Chemistry of Love(89)

Maybe I can test the waters, I texted her.

Do or do not. There is no try.

Shaking my head, I responded, Okay, Yoda.

“Did you get lost?” he asked.

I yelped when Marco came into the room. He smelled faintly of woodsmoke, and it was incredibly appealing and added to the whole rugged-outdoorsman thing I was currently picturing for him.

“I couldn’t remember if you said right or left.”

“Left.” He came into the room, looking around like I had, but there was pain on his face. “I haven’t been in here in years. The last time was to hang that.” He pointed at his Harvard diploma.

That thought completely broke my heart. That Marco would come in here just to hang his diploma. Like he was trying to show that he mattered, that his accomplishments were worth paying attention to. “I thought you said your stepmom packed up your room and let Craig move in.”

“That was at the estate in Los Angeles. Not the Vermont house.” He said that like I was the strange one. Of course, at the Vermont house. How silly of me.

I picked up the lightsaber. “Lindy mentioned she had a brother who dressed up for a Star Wars convention, and I thought—”

He finished my sentence. “You automatically assumed she meant Craig.”

I had. Because I had wanted it to be Craig so that we would have at least one thing in common.

“My brother calls Star Wars the one with the big teddy bear and glowing swords. Sorry to burst your bubble.”

“Oh.”

“Speaking of, the fire’s started and I’ve got my laptop. Did you want to hate-watch The Rise of Skywalker again and tell me about how Ben Solo is alive in the World Between Worlds waiting for Rey to rescue him?”

“I do.” And I really, really did.

Marco showed me into the guest room that we were supposed to use. The room was luxurious but impersonal—like we were staying in a hotel. Which I guessed was the point. I preferred his nerded-out room to this one. It made me think about all the time we’d spent together, where he’d teased me for my obsessions, and he’d shared them all along.

I put my suitcase on the bed, and then I screwed up enough courage to ask him. “Why do you hide that part of yourself? All the fanboy stuff you used to love?”

He shrugged. “My dad thought it was a waste of time and that I needed to focus on other things.”

“You should enjoy what you enjoy, Marco,” I said, echoing the time he’d told me the same thing. “Especially with me.”

It was dark, so I might have been mistaken, but I thought there was a heated, intense look in his eyes. He swallowed hard and then said, “Come on. It’s cold up here.”

I went back downstairs with him, and along the way, I thought of how he’d apologized for bursting my bubble with regards to Craig.

Only he hadn’t. If anything, I was realizing that the Craig bubble had been burst a while ago.

Bubble was an apt term for my feelings for Craig, because they were very much like soap bubbles at the top of a mixture. Light, frothy, able to blow away with the slightest breeze. But with Marco? It was like a match striking flint—instant, combustible, roaring to life inside me with a burning hunger that I didn’t know how to respond to. A ravaging fire with an unlimited fuel source.

One could float away without even being missed, while the other would consume me, making sure I would never be the same again.

Me coming to Vermont had nothing to do with Craig at all.

I had come here for Marco, and Marco alone.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


We had paused the movie and gone into the kitchen to find something to eat because my stomach would not stop rumbling.

“Why do women like Kylo Ren so much?” he asked.

“Because we have eyeballs. I mean, obviously there’s more to it than that. He’s the Byronic hero, the morally gray character who redeems himself out of love. Women like a man who is willing to burn down the world and change himself to be with her.”

There was a picture of a boat on the wall with Ken and Tracie standing in front of it. I asked, “Is this your family’s boat?”

“Yacht,” Marco corrected me as he went into the pantry.

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes.” His voice was muffled. “That’s the Tracie.” He came back out of the pantry, hands empty. “I told my dad that if he wanted to name it after my stepmom, he should call it the Cirrhosis of the River, but he didn’t see the humor.”

“Again you’ve failed to gather,” I told him, pointing at his hands.

“The stove is gas, so it should work. I’m just not sure what you would want to eat. The staff haven’t had a chance to stock the pantry yet.”

“Poor little rich boy. Doesn’t even know how to cook because you have a staff to do it for you.”

“I don’t have a staff at my place,” he said defensively.

“No, there you have food delivery apps. Hang on.” I went into the pantry to see what I could find. All my ideas weren’t going to work because they required something like butter or milk, and given that the power was out, I didn’t think it was a good idea to rely on food in the fridge.

“Do you think I can’t cook?” he asked, leaning against the counter with his arms folded across his broad chest.