Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(76)
He sat down on the mattress beside me, cupping a hand to the side of my face and looking at me with a sobriety at odds with his usual merriment. “Pretty sure I’m falling for you,” he murmured, completely matter-of-fact. “Just so you know.”
Suddenly laughter was nowhere to be found. I felt such tenderness toward him, such yearning for him, it ached, physically ached. My heart raced inside my chest, terrified and ecstatic all at once.
“Okay,” I whispered. I wanted to say it back. It wouldn’t be a lie or meaningless reciprocation if I did. But the terror was still too big and I didn’t even know what the terror was about. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be.” His thumb caressed my cheekbone. “I’m not going to make any demands. Not yet. Just let me be with you, as much as I can be with me living here and you up in Michigan. Give us a chance to see what this could turn into, okay?”
I closed my eyes and nodded against his warm palm, swallowing hard. “Okay.”
He leaned down and kissed me then with an intimacy that seemed inappropriate for this place. I lingered in it for a moment, then drew away. I didn’t want to be here anymore.
“Take me home, Jace,” I said softly, meeting his eyes. A few heartbeats of silent communion passed, communion where we said everything we needed to say, and then he stood and opened our locker to pass me my clothes.
I wasn’t certain of anything then
I didn’t know who I was just yet
Still a tiny light shone inside
It would lead me to what I had to find
—Casey Stratton, “Rising Sun”
Geoff texted again and said I didn’t have to work until Wednesday, so Jace and I spent Monday doing a walking tour of downtown Chicago, and spent the evening clubbing in Boystown. It was amazing to get to dance with Jace again, his body moving against mine with the beat of the music. It felt different than it had that first night at the Dunes, when we’d been unfamiliar, learning each other, vibrating with anticipation and drawing out the tension to just revel in it. Now that edge was gone, and yet it was still perfect. We moved together like our bodies knew each other, like we shared the same pulse. We were comfortable, but no less hot. Intimate, I guess, and a little needy, too. Tomorrow he’d be taking me back to Saugatuck and returning to his life in Chicago, and I think we were both grappling with that upcoming separation. I was pretty certain we’d see each other again, but there was an element of uncertainty to it, and not just because we’d miss each other until the next time. If this became a relationship, could we make the long-distance thing work? Would it even become a relationship in the first place, or would we discover that whatever we’d felt during these incredible few days had disappeared and things weren’t the same anymore?
What if this was as good as it got?
We stayed up way too late after we got back to Jace’s place, talking and making love. I had to admit, however much I would miss Jace, that my body might actually be glad for a day or two of reprieve, because keeping our hands off each other just wasn’t an option.
The next day, after a late breakfast, we loaded my things into Jace’s car and left for Michigan. We were uncharacteristically subdued; there was no talking or flirting or tantalizing caresses. I spent almost the first hour of the trip staring out the passenger-side window, and when I glanced at Jace he was shaking his head violently, blinking. “You okay?”
He smiled over at me. “Lack of sleep and highway hypnosis make for a bad combination.”
“Want me to drive a while?”
“You’ve got to be pretty tired, too.”
“Nah. Give me a cup of coffee and my music and I can go for hours.”
He chuckled softly. “Okay then.”
We pulled off at the next exit, hit a McDonald’s drive-thru for coffee (desperate times and all), and traded off. Jace immediately reclined his seat, which made me pout jealously; I got carsick whenever I tried that. Then I scanned through my iPod, finally deciding on Casey Stratton again before merging back onto the interstate.
After a few minutes, Jace’s hand settled on my thigh and I smiled. Even now, that compulsion to touch remained. We drove in silence, the music surrounding us, until I relaxed and added my voice to it, singing along.
When I glanced over at Jace, he’d fallen asleep with a smile on his face.
We spent the afternoon catching up with Robin, Geoff, and Ling—interspersed, of course, with heaps of admiration and praise for baby Zhen. As the day wore on, though, I began to worry for Jace. He hadn’t been able to get a room at the Dunes for the night, and all the B&Bs were booked up. If he had to drive home, he was going to have to leave soon, and even if he did, I still worried that he might be too tired. As Jace, Geoff, and Robin threw together dinner and Ling nursed Zhen in the glider-rocker, I hauled out my laptop, trying to find the nearest motel with a vacancy.
“What are you working on?” Ling asked, murmuring softly as Zhen suckled with weird, snorting little breaths and clicks.
“Just trying to find Jace a room somewhere so he doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel on his way back home,” I muttered, frowning at the search results.
She hummed thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking. Why don’t you stay at my apartment until you go back to school? I’m not going to need it for a few more months, so it’s just sitting there. I didn’t offer before because I didn’t know you, but you’ve been around a while now and I think it would be all right. Just keep it clean is all I ask.”