Look Both Ways(48)

I spend the afternoon replaying our kisses in my head until the memories are almost worn through. When the shop head releases me that evening, I’m out the door before Russell can even ask if I want to go to Sammy’s. I haven’t eaten in the dining hall in a week and a half, but my excitement about seeing Zoe eclipses all my awkward feelings about facing the other apprentices. The room is packed, but it takes me all of six seconds to spot her; having a crush on someone gives you serious tracking radar. Her table is full of people from the Birdie cast, including Kenji and Todd and Livvy, but at least Jessa’s not here.

Everyone looks a little surprised to see me when I approach with my food, but Zoe shoots me a radiant smile and makes everyone scoot down so she can pull up a chair for me. Even though I’ve been thinking about her the entire day, I don’t know how to act now that she’s right here. Is she going to kiss me in front of all these people? I’m not even sure if I want her to or not. I’m relieved when she opts for a hug instead, but the way our breasts and hips and cheeks press together makes my face flame. I pull away much sooner than I want to.

“Thank you for the doughnut,” Zoe whispers into my ear. “You are the sweetest.”

“Of course,” I say, and then she sits down and picks up the thread of Kenji and Todd’s conversation right where she left off. I’m disappointed and relieved all at once.

I spend the whole meal trying to keep a normal, serene expression on my face while my knee presses against Zoe’s under the table. I barely understand the conversation, anyway; missing ten days’ worth of inside jokes at summer stock is like being off the grid for months back in the real world, and I know it’ll be nearly impossible for me to catch up. But maybe I don’t need anyone else, now that I have Zoe.



Time passes so slowly, I’m sure something’s wrong with the Earth’s rotation, but Livvy finally stands and gathers her trash, and everyone else follows. “My head still hurts from last night,” she says. “I’m going to go lie flat on my back and watch 30 Rock. Anyone want to join me?” She eyes me sideways, clearly torn between politeness and a strong desire not to invite me up to her room. In the end, her loyalty is to Jessa.

“We’ll come,” Kenji says.

For a second I’m afraid Zoe’s about to say she wants to watch, too, but instead she says, “I’m actually gonna go to the practice rooms for a little while.” She turns to me. “Do you have time to play for me? You don’t have to, but—”

“Of course,” I say before she’s even done. “I mean, yeah, sure, I’m not doing anything.” Going to the practice room is a brilliant strategy—if anyone caught us on the way back to our room, they’d try to talk Zoe into joining the group, and then we’d be stuck in we’re-just-friends limbo for the rest of the evening. But no actor at Allerdale would ever try to talk someone out of rehearsing. This way, we can finally be alone.

Zoe and I practically run downstairs, and the second the practice room door shuts behind us, she has me pressed up against it. Her hands slip up the back of my shirt and then she’s kissing me, fast and eager, like she can’t get enough of me. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” she murmurs against my mouth, and she doesn’t even give me time to respond before her lips are on mine again. I know I’m supposed to like this hungry urgency—I’ve been thinking about kissing her all day, too, and I love how totally focused on me she is. But this is way more intense than the slow, tentative way we touched last night, when everything was about closeness and warmth and the wonder of discovering each other for the first time. The way she’s kissing me now makes me feel totally out of control, like I’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool after one swimming lesson.



I draw back a little. “Hey, slow down,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She giggles. “Sorry. I didn’t think I’d ever get to do this, and now that I can…” She trails off and shrugs, and the vulnerable way she’s biting her lip is so adorable that it makes me want to pull her close again.

“Why did you think that?” I ask. “I haven’t been able to get enough of you since the day we got here.”

“I thought maybe we were just going to be friends, though. It seemed like you were straight, and when I kissed you at the Midsummer party, you literally ran out of the room. I thought I’d ruined everything.”

I run my fingers through her hair. “I didn’t run because I didn’t like it,” I say. “I needed a minute to figure things out, you know? I didn’t know what it meant.”

“It meant I wanted to kiss you, silly. What else could it have meant?”

“I don’t know. We were playing a game. Maybe you were doing it for attention, or to get a reaction out of everyone, or to freak them out, or—”



“Brooklyn,” she says. She touches my cheek, and I shut up. “You’re overthinking this, okay?”

“I’m just saying, I wasn’t sure—”

“Do you like it when I do this?” Zoe kisses me again, incredibly gently now. It’s barely more than a whisper against my lips.

“Yes,” I say.

“And this?” She pushes my hair aside and kisses my neck.