If Only (3 page)

My face is buried in his neck and, despite his exiting the tiniest closet of a public loo, he smells good. Like, really good. Like, running-through-a-field-of-just-cut-grass, laundry-fresh-out-of-the-dryer good.

He pushes back, his hands resting on the door on either side of me, a small laugh mingling with his exhale. “Sorry,” he says, his Midwestern accent unmistakable. Another American. “Turbulence, I guess.” His voice is deep with the slightest rasp, and I can hear his smile. When I look up, my stomach does this flippy thing that makes me think I should get into the closet loo stat. Glinting blue eyes stare back at me, and I see my dazed reflection in his irises. I should say something, right? I should stop staring and say something.

A tremble of a laugh precedes my words. “I thought that only happened on airplanes.”

His brown hair is long enough that it’s starting to curl up at his temples and above his ears. I stifle the urge to run my hands through it and silently berate myself for said urge. Something is wrong with me.

He smiles and shrugs. “It’s all yours,” he says, stepping aside. “Watch your step on the dismount.” He looks back at me, nodding toward the door with a hesitant smile.

I regain my composure, ready for my wittiest retort. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Or, maybe I’ll opt for not even close to witty.

I rush into the body-sized compartment and lock the door. My breathing steadies, and my stomach stops doing acrobatics.
What the hell was that?

When I exit the loo, I make sure to
watch my step on the dismount
. What I’m not expecting is to see loo boy examining the compartment door, running his fingers along the seam.

“So, here’s the thing,” he says, his brows knitted together. “The door is kind of jammed.”

He looks down, avoiding my eyes.

I should respond to what he said, but my only thought right now is how my stomach contracts again at the sound of his voice.

“Hey.” He’s talking again. “Did you hear me?” His gazelifts to meet mine, and this time I see it, the glassy panic in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” I ask, somehow regaining composure. His eyes plead for something, and I want to help him. But I don’t know what he needs.

I grab the handle of the pocket door and try to slide it open, just to be sure he’s right. It doesn’t budge.

As if God, or the universe, or L. Ron Hubbard has it in for me, the train jostles again, thrusting me straight back into loo boy.

Seriously?

My hands splay against his chest, his hard chest that I can feel beneath his thin T-shirt. The pulse of his heartbeat echoes into my hand, and I don’t want to break the connection. It would be weird, though, and a little creepy on my part, not to.

Come
on
, Jordan. Get your shit together.

He grabs me by the shoulders, and I suck in a breath. But he pushes me from him so I regain my footing and straighten, leaning on the closed door of the loo. He lets go as quickly as he grabbed me, but my shoulders hold on to the memory of his touch.

Whatever that something was in his eyes, it slowly dissipates.

“You’re a good distraction,” he says, a small smile blooming on his face.

“Distraction?” I ask.

“Sorry. Did I say that out loud?” He scratches the back of his head. “I think I better get your name if we’re going to keep bumping into each other like this.” Much like his smile, his voice is tentative, the statement coming off more as a question. He glances once through the door that has us trapped and then back at me, like he’s expecting someone to free us at any moment.

“No pun intended?” I ask.

“Actually,” he says, “pun absolutely intended. I’m Noah.” His features relax, calming me in the process.

“I’m Jordan,” I reply, my nervous hands releasing the hem of my shirt. “Jordan Brooks.”

He didn’t ask for my last name. Filling the silence with useless information, though, seems to be one of my many talents.

“Nice to meet you, Jordan Brooks,” he says, his mouth parting in a grin, his unease morphing into assurance.

“What are we supposed to do?” I ask.

He slides down the door that has us in our predicament, extending his legs as far as they’ll go before hitting the wall of the loo. With no other options, I move next to him and do the same.

“I guess we wait.” He looks around the vestibule. “Not such a small space, is it?”

He says it like he’s convincing himself. Because the space
is
small, a pocket meant only for one or two people to stand.

He leans back, knocking his knee into mine the way I imagine a big brother would do, but I don’t have a brother, and Noah’s knee against mine doesn’t give the brotherly vibe as a pulse of excitement rushes through me.

His hand reaches to his back pocket and pulls out a small paperback.

“Come on,” I say when I see the cover. “You do not walk around with a copy of
The Great Gatsby
in your back pocket.”

He opens the book and feigns reading, but it doesn’t hide the flush of color that fills his cheeks. Noah turns toward me, his blue eyes peering over those of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, and though the rest of his face is covered, I can tell he’s smiling. He lowers the novel and starts to speak.

“You’re judging me for being prepared for a lock-in beside a public restroom? I think you’re just sorry you didn’t think of it first.”

I stare at him hard, trying to figure him out. He lets out a small, raspy chuckle, the sound filling the tiny space where we sit. Minutes ago he looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here, but now we’re knocking knees, about to have story time with Fitzgerald.

“I’m an English major, secondary education, actually. I student teach next fall at my old high school, and this”—he brandishes the book—“is one of the units I need to prepare.” He thumbs through the pages but keeps talking. “Plus, having something familiar, something comfortable in a potentially uncomfortable situation helps.”

I knock my knee back against his. “Is this an uncomfortable situation?” I don’t know where my forwardness comes from.
I
should be uncomfortable with this strange guy who gets my heart racing just being near him. But instead I’m less nervous the more we talk.

I grab Fitzgerald’s masterpiece from his hand and appraise its worn edges and spine. The pages are dog-eared and filled with highlighted lines and annotations. I read a few of his handwritten notes, which illustrate passionate understanding of the characters and an undisguised zeal for the story.

“This is not the work of a guy who is preparing, a year in advance I might say, to teach this book. You
love
this book.”

His grin widens, and I struggle for air at the sight of it, not just because of its beauty but because of what put it there in the first place—a book.

“You caught me.”

What about this, Sam? What am I supposed to do with a guy who beams at me noticing his love for a book?

I do the only thing I can do and hop on the nerd train. “
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
” British literature is my passion, but I’ll never forget reading
The Great Gatsby
, nor will I ever apologize for memorizing and reciting my favorite lines of books.

“Impressive,” he remarks, and all signs of Noah’s unease dissolve with that one word. He holds my gaze, and his smile meets his eyes. I want to look away now not because of our bumbling introduction but because it’s too much. But I can’t do it. I’m trapped.

“It’s the only book I remember from high school, the only one that moved me to tears. That last line? The futility of all Gatsby tried to do to prove himself to the woman he loved? He was never able to escape his past or the boy he was when he first met Daisy. What he tried to do, it was ridiculous, insane, and at the same time altogether lovely. But it was for nothing.”

My voice catches at the memory of finishing the book for the first time, of realizing that no matter how hard you try, life doesn’t always have a happy ending.

Something shifts in his gaze, and Noah pulls the book from my hand, laying it on the floor between us. His hand returns to rest on my cheek, and before I have time to process what he’s doing, his lips sweep against mine. For a few seconds I rationalize that I imagined it because things like this don’t happen to me. Guys don’t ask me to inscribe my number on their hands, and they certainly don’t kiss me minutes after we meet. But the train coasts smoothly on the tracks, so his palm on my face, drawing me to him, is no act of turbulence. I freeze, unable to kiss him back yet not daring to pull away. Thoughts of Griffin, of a fairy-tale year, disintegrate into this moment. For the first time I believe it. Now
is
all that matters. And right now, Noah’s lips cover mine again.

The first kiss was a question, but now he possesses a sureness betraying his initial reticence. And that scent, the reason I could have stayed buried in his chest on our first meeting, intoxicates me. My shock quickly melts, and so do I, falling against him in a kiss so gentle, so delicious.
This
kiss is an answer. I think of Daisy and Gatsby before the book started, what they must have been like when they had hope, and I savor the taste of their hope as my hands find their way to the hair I wanted to touch the moment Noah fell out of that bathroom door.

In a fluid movement, we both rise to our knees. His teeth graze my bottom lip, and I open my mouth, inviting him in. The only thought in my head is
More. Whatever this is, I want more.

Our tongues tangle and dance. My hands slide down the back of his neck to his hard, lean shoulders. His hands find their way to the small of my back, and his fingertips meet my skin where my shirt rides up above my jeans.

He breathes hard as he pulls me in, closing the distance between us.

“I’ve always wanted to try something ridiculous and insane.” Our lips part only enough for him to speak, and I inhale his words because they are mine, because as small as our tiny compartment is, I wish it was smaller just so we could be closer.

“You
are
insane,” I say, my voice breathless with need, and I don’t know who I am because I’m not
this
girl, one who clings to a stranger just because of a book. No, it’s more than the book. It’s what the book means to him, what it meant to me the first time I read it. I don’t want to beat against the current, so I let it take me away. I let
him
take me away as his warm hands travel up my sides, tickling my neck before resting on my cheeks.

“More,” I whisper, and he smiles a sweet kiss softly against me. But it’s not enough, and I lick his bottom lip, consume the sweetness, trying to somehow engrave the memory of this moment onto every single one of my senses.

He hums a soft moan against me, and I already know—all five senses know—I’ve never been kissed like this before. Soft kisses grow urgent, both of us aware we’re on borrowed time. Whether the door opens or not, at some point we will reach our destinations. He will go his way. I will go mine. Only now belongs to us, so I kiss him harder, hold my breath, and hope for what Gatsby and Daisy never got, an infinite now, a single moment stretched far beyond its limits.

But the universe has other plans. First we hear the suction and then the
whoosh
of the door as it slides open.

Noah and I separate with a start as a preteen boy almost trips over Noah’s feet. He waggles his eyes at us. Normally I would shrink with embarrassment. But my pulse thrums beneath my skin while the ache of defeat carves a hollow in my stomach. The moment had to end eventually, but not like this, not without warning, and not to the pleasure of some deviant adolescent.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says with a perverted smile. He steps into the loo, shutting the door too slowly, peeking at us the entire time.

“Ew,” I say. “Just close it, buddy.”

Two clicks later, the door closes and locks, the sign safely revealing that the tiny compartment is occupied.

Noah stands and tries the compartment door. It opens easily.

When I stand, I’m flushed with the need to finish what we started, to have a final say in how that kiss would end.

“What was that?” I ask, catching my breath.

He fixes his gaze on me, his blue eyes dark and intent. “Was it
altogether lovely
?” he asks, his breathing not quite regular, either. Again he uses my words, and the hollow forming in my gut fills just a little. I’ve never doubted the power of other people’s words. That’s why I’m a literature major. But I’ve never felt that way about my own words, not until Noah speaks them back to me.

“Um…” Apparently I’m much wittier in thought than in speech.

“Good um or bad um?” he asks, as if I’m describing a recent movie I saw.

“Well,” I say, bringing my fingers to my kiss-swollen lips. “You definitely earned
insane
.” I don’t tell him it was lovely. Lovely is too weak a word for what just happened. I don’t tell him this, either.

“I’ll consider that a success, then.”

He slides the door all the way open and gestures for me to walk out first. From here I can see Griffin sleeping against the window, so my eyes shift to the car in front of us where a sign reads B
UFFET
.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later.” I have no idea how to say good-bye after what we did. “I’m going to head to the next car for a snack.”

“That’s my car,” Noah says. “My seat’s at the opposite end.” His smile falters for a second, letting his earlier restraint peek through. But he regains his footing as soon as I notice. “Can I walk with you?”

“Uh, sure.”

He holds the door open for me. “Thanks,” he says as I walk through.

I look at him to ask what he means, but he answers before I speak.

“For talking in there, occupying my mind when it could have been elsewhere.”

I don’t know what he means, but there’s no hint of teasing in his voice. Some sort of war wages inside of him, evident in his hard gaze.