In Real Life (29 page)

He smiles at me, though, and there's not a trace of anger on his face. “Not out here,” he says. “Come with me.”

Nick takes my hand, lacing our fingers together, and leads me through the sliding glass door. As soon as we walk in the empty house, I'm struck with an overwhelming sense of familiarity. I've never been in Nick's house, obviously, but I've seen it in the background of pictures, and the first time we video-chatted, he gave me a quick tour. We pass the couch where Nick had his first kiss (in seventh grade with Alex's girlfriend's sister while watching
Happy Feet
), and without needing him to show me the way, I know the hallway is on the left, and Nick's bedroom is the first door on the left with a scratch in the paint where Younger Alex threw a drumstick at Younger Nick, narrowly missing his face.

Nick opens the paint-chipped door, and I follow him into his room. He lets go of my hand and slowly closes the door while I wander his bedroom, feeling immediately at home in the space that is so familiar even though I've never been here before. His laptop closed on top of the hand-me-down desk, where he sat for the past four years, chatting with me. His mirrored closet door, where he posed for full-length selfies when he wanted me to green-light his ensemble before he left for the night. His rumpled bed, where he lay on his single pillow and talked to me, quietly curled up against the wall. I lower myself onto the edge of his bed and run my fingers across his plaid sheets, trying to imagine him here, talking to me. I turn my gaze to his nightstand, and I imagine his phone sitting there, buzzing with a text from me, and him picking it up as quickly as I pick up my phone when he texts me.

“I can't believe you're in my room,” he says, sitting down next to me. Right next to me, so our legs touch from hip to knee.

“Nick, about outside, I didn't—”

“Stop it, Ghost.” He rests his hand gently on my thigh and shifts on the bed so he's facing me. I miss the pressure of his leg as soon as he moves it, but the weight of his hand is a pretty wonderful replacement. “I want to show you something.” He reaches across me to his nightstand, where books and notebooks sit in a haphazard pile. He slides a worn composition book out from the middle of the stack and hands it to me. “Open it.”

I don't know what I'm expecting. I use these composition books to take notes at school, but I can't imagine why he would be showing me his English homework right now. It takes only one glance at the cover, though, for me to realize this isn't a school notebook at all.

In Nick's messy boy scrawl,
Songs About Ghosts
is written in the white space on the cover.

My heart races as I turn page after page after page and see lyrics. Automatic Friday lyrics. Lines written and crossed out and written again. Words with scribbles through them, titles at the top of pages in block letters, sloppy lists of rhymes, doodles of ghosts in the corners. I run my fingers over the paper and I can feel the places where the pen formed each word, thoughtfully and purposefully.

The lyrics to every song I've loved, every song I've listened to in the dark and wished for, every word I've imagined being just for me.

In Nick's handwriting.

“They're all about you. Every single one.”

“Nick.” It's everything I've ever wanted to hear him say, but my stomach clenches up in panic. “What does this mean?” The words stick in my throat as I say them, but I know I need to force them out. “What about Frankie? I can't do this to her. I shouldn't have kissed you. I'm not that girl who—”

“Oh, Ghost.” He takes back the notebook and places it on the nightstand, then picks up my hand and brings it to his mouth, kissing each one of my fingers. My head screams at me to pull away, even though Nick's mouth brushes softly over my fingers and it somehow makes my motor skills completely shut down. I shake my hand loose from his grip and stand up to put distance between us. But I don't get too far before he grabs my hand again and pulls me back down to the bed.

“Frankie and I broke up. This morning.”

The world stops. Screeches to a halt. “What?”

Words spill from his mouth, like he is so excited to tell me, he wants me to know as quickly as possible. “I broke up with her, Ghost. I mean, it was mutual, really. We both like each other a lot, but we weren't right together, and we both knew it. I always knew it, but when you showed up last night, it was so clear.” He lets out a long sigh. “I called her this morning and we went to IHOP and broke up over pancakes. That she got for free.”

I'm pretty sure my mouth is hanging open as I stare at him. Apparently, his lips on my fingers made me forget how to speak, too.

“She said you gave her some good advice last night.” He tilts his head. “Did you really tell her the blog was more important than me?”

I pull my hand away. “What? No! That's not what I said at all! I told her she needed to figure out if the real Nick was more important than the Nick she blogged about.” I let out a short laugh, and now I hold on to his hand, rubbing circles on his palm with my thumb. “I thought the choice was pretty obvious,” I say in a whisper.

“I guess she did, too.” He closes his fingers around my hand and squeezes. “And now you're here. And we can do this over. You know it's you, right. It's always been you.”

He cups my face in his hands like I'm a fragile thing he wants to keep safe, and he softly kisses my lips. I'm pretty much melting into a Hannah-shaped puddle on his bed, because his lips are so soft and he's being so gentle and it feels like heaven. He gently parts my lips with his tongue, and I reach my hands up and run them through his hair, raking my fingers up and down the back of his head.

Something about my hands in his hair sets him off. This low moan releases from somewhere in the back of his throat, and he moves his mouth to my ear and down my neck and around to the other ear and back again, breathing hard and kissing my tingling skin and saying “Ghost” in my ear over and over. It's like being on the Desperado again; I'm free-falling in the most exhilarating way imaginable.

“What made you come here?” he breathes in my ear.

“Alex,” is all I can manage. It's hard to think straight with his hands and lips and tongue all over me, and I've never felt better about not knowing what was going to happen next.

“Well, shit,” he says. “Now I'm going to owe him.” His breath tickles my ear, and I actually giggle. I don't know what has come over me.

Then I don't even know how it happens, but suddenly I'm on my back with his body balancing over mine. We're not kissing now; we're just staring at each other, breathing hard, trying not to blink. His hair is in complete disarray, thanks to my anxious fingers, and his face is flushed and my penny on a chain is hanging from his neck and grazing my chest and oh my God I can't believe this is happening. The songs are mine and Nick is kissing me. This is more than I even thought I could ask for.

“I was going to come to you,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“I was going to drive out to California tomorrow, Ghost. I'm so sorry I let you leave last night. I shouldn't have done that.” He balances on one hand, using the other one to gently brush a stray piece of hair from my face, then trail his fingers lightly down my cheek. “I just needed some time alone to think. I had so many things I had to figure out, and there were too many people around and too many things going on.”

I smile up at him, so full of relief. I open my mouth to fill him in on what happened on my end since the last time I saw him, but somehow, instead of talking, we're kissing again. That's fine—we can talk later. Kissing is better.

Deeper now, faster, and more confident of each other. He's still over me, but he lowers himself down, so he's resting on top of my body, pinning me down. His hand slides down to my hip, where he wraps his hand and pulls me closer. I move my hips up to him, arching my back, trying to get as close as possible while his mouth is still on mine, his tongue tracing around my lips. And I'm not thinking about anything but his lips and his body and how this is everything I never knew I was missing.

“I'm so sorry,” I say in my first free opportunity, when his mouth moves from mine over to the space under my ear.

He stops and looks at me, confused. “About what?”

“About taking so long. To figure it out, I mean.”

“Don't be sorry,” he says. “It wasn't our time. This is our time.”

He moves his arms and props his elbows up on the bed, framing my head. He looks down at me, drinking in every inch of my face.

“I just want to let you know—” I reach up to pull off his glasses and place them on the bedside table. “—that this is even better than the roller coaster.”

“Ghost,” he says. “That is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.” And he smiles down at me. His gorgeous, open Nick smile, and it's right here.

In real life.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Hannah and Nick have been in my heart since I wrote the very first words of this story in 2012, and I learned so much about love, friendship, and being true to yourself as I wrote it and wrote it and rewrote it. Thank you so much for reading this book and becoming part of Hannah and Nick's journey!

This book would be nothing but some vague ideas in a disjointed e-mail if not for the brilliance of Elizabeth Briggs. Liz, thank you for being with me and this book from beginning to end.

Special love goes out to the people who turned this from a story into a book. Jill Corcoran, my agent, thank you for your patience as I dug to the core of this story and for your enthusiasm and support. Kat Brzozowski, editor of awesome, I am so lucky to work with you! I have loved, learned, and laughed through every step of this process, thanks to you. And to the entire fabulous team at St. Martin's, you are all amazing! I'm so lucky to have such a talented group of people on my side.

To all of the amazing writers and friends who helped me get to the heart of Hannah and Nick's story when I couldn't. Thank you for reading for me, laughing and crying with me, and answering all of my frantic e-mails. Jessica Cline, Dana Elmendorf, Melanie Jacobson, Emery Lord, Kelsey Macke, Ghenet Myrthil, Kristin Rae, Kathryn Rose, Robin Reul, Keiko Sanders, Rachel Searles, Shana Silver, Katy Upperman, and Tameka Young, each one of you left your handprint on the heart of this book, and neither it, nor I, would be the same without you.

Thank you to the wonderful people at Spalding University's MFA program, specifically my Paris workshop group for helping me figure out where to begin. Edie Hemingway, for your support and cheerleading, and Susan Campbell Bartoletti for both your genius and your hatred of that one particular character that helped make this book a thousand times better.

To Steve Soboslai and Punchline/Blue of Colors, thank you for your music. If I had never heard “Universe,” there would be no Hannah and Nick.

To Liz, Kat, Dana, Rachel, and Amaris, you are my people, and I would be lost without your support. It's always wine o'clock with you ladies. And to my NBC Writers, thank you for being with me and this book from the very beginning.

To all the people I have been to Vegas with, some of the things that happened there didn't necessarily stay there. Life tip: If you don't want your crazy Vegas story to end up in a novel, don't go to Vegas with a writer. (Hey, at least I didn't name names.) Erin, Claire, Tameka, Rachael, and Ashley, you will always be my favorite Vegas companions. I can't wait for our next trip.

To all of my students, past, present, and future, this one is for you. CHS class of 2014, I wrote this while I had you guys, so I will always think of you when I read it.

To my parents, thank you for always encouraging me to live a creative life, and to my grandma, thank you for being the most amazing woman I know.

And, finally, to my husband, who answered my random IM on AOL in 1998 and never stopped chatting, paging, calling, texting, and video messaging me. Thank you for being my best friend and not a catfish.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JESSICA LOVE
is a high school English teacher in Southern California, where she met her husband and her two tiny dogs online. (She didn't meet her son online, but she probably would have if it were possible.) She is the coauthor of
Push Girl
with Chelsie Hill. You can sign up for email updates
here
.