Save the Date(59)

“I meant where in the building,” Jesse said, a laugh in his voice, and I realized that he was still here—he hadn’t left yet. And he wanted to see me.

“Oh,” I said, spinning in a circle, my heart starting to beat hard, trying to figure out how best to describe where I was. “I’m kind of like off to the side of the main lobby, over by the checkin counter? And—”

A hand snaked around my waist and I jumped, then turned and saw Jesse, phone to his ear, giving me a half smile. “Hey, gorgeous.”

“Hi,” I said. I smiled wide, then tried to tone it down a little as I lowered my phone and pressed the button to end the call. “I didn’t see you—or Mike—so I wasn’t sure if you’d left.”

“Without seeing you?” he asked, taking a step closer and giving me an easy smile. “Never.” He glanced around. “I’m not sure where Mike went to. I saw him talking to your dad earlier, and it looked like kind of an intense conversation, so I thought I’d give him some space.”

“Ah,” I said, glancing around the lobby, like Mike might suddenly reappear. But this didn’t sound great—if Mike had been arguing with our dad too, that meant he’d fought with both our parents in a very short time, which meant he was doing just what I’d thought he would do—bring drama into Linnie’s wedding. I could feel my frustration with him start to bubble up again.

“So,” Jesse said, moving a step closer to me. “Want to get out of here?” I’d taken a breath to respond, when I noticed, across the lobby, my parents and Rodney’s sitting together in a cluster of armchairs, talking and laughing.

Jesse seemed to notice this as well and took a step away, tipping his head to the right. I glanced around, making sure nobody was watching—nobody seemed to be—and followed a few steps behind him, down the hallway. Jesse headed into a room I hadn’t ever noticed before, and I followed him in. He shut the door behind me and I looked around.

“Wow,” I said. It was a games room, with a pool table in the center, pool cues in holders all along one wall, and a series of dartboards along another. There were whiskey-colored leather sofas—the kind that had round feet and looked almost tufted—and what looked like a very stocked bar cart in the corner. “How did you know about this?”

“I went to a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs here.”

“I did too,” I said immediately. “Do you remember Ariel Franken’s? She had the early-Hollywood theme?” Jesse and I hadn’t gone to many social events together, but I remembered every one in blinding detail.

Jesse frowned, looking up slightly, like he was trying to bring something to mind. “I think I went to that one. . . .”

“You did,” I said immediately. “You, me, and Mike ended up in the photo booth together. Don’t you remember? You were—”

“Wow,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “You’ve got a good memory.”

I smiled. I didn’t want to tell him that, when it came to him, I had a perfect memory. “I just remember that you—”

“Charlie.” Jesse took a step closer to me. “We don’t need to talk about kid stuff.”

“Right,” I said quickly, suddenly feeling the gap in our ages. He was in college, after all. Why was I trying to talk about things that happened years ago? But it was right there in my mind, so vivid I couldn’t believe he hadn’t remembered. He’d worn a black tie with white stripes, and during the last song, we’d danced together. It was one of the Jesse memories I had turned over and over in my mind so often that the edges had all been worn smooth, like sea glass. We’d been dancing in a group, but for one perfect moment, he’d reached out, taken my hand, and spun me around twice before letting me go, leaving me dizzy from more than the dancing.

“And after all,” he said, bringing me back into the present as he came even closer. “We’ve got more important things to talk about.” But Jesse didn’t say anything else. He just he took my head in his hands, leaned in, and kissed me.

And just like that, it was as though no time had passed. It was like we were pressing play again on a song that had been paused right before the beat drop—that easily, we were back in it. In the months that had passed, I would sometimes wonder if I’d remembered it correctly, or if time and far too much going over the events of that night had clouded my memory. That maybe Jesse really hadn’t been that good a kisser. That I’d let my imagination run away with me.

But all it took was one kiss for me to remember that I hadn’t gotten it wrong. If anything, I hadn’t remembered just how good it was. We were falling into a rhythm together right away. In a matter of seconds, I was breathless, my heart beating hard and my hands twining in Jesse’s hair.

He walked me backward toward one of the leather couches, then somehow managed to ease me down onto it, all without stopping kissing me. “Did I mention,” he said, in between kisses, “just how nice it is to see you again?”

I laughed at that and kissed him back as he ran his hand along the side of my silk dress. “So,” he said, just as there was a loud, electronic-sounding beep. It wasn’t my phone, and Jesse paused for a moment before leaning in again—just as it beeped four more times, in quick succession.

“I’ll turn that off,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and then frowning down at the screen.