“Never!”
“C’mon. Just a little?” he said, egging me on, but I knew that he craved the reassurance of why I liked him—and it wasn’t for the town car, because I didn’t care if he had a town car or not. I liked him for him, and not for the trappings of his job, not for the accoutrements of being a young, hot agent. I was probably the only person he interacted with on a regular basis, except maybe for his friend Matthew, who didn’t have an agenda. Or rather, it was that my agenda was the one he wanted—it was an unfettered agenda. I liked him for him, plain and simple, nothing more.
“I’d walk with you to Yankee Stadium,” I said, placing my palm on his thigh.
“All right, we’re pulling over now.”
“Okay, maybe not that much,” I said, and then fingered the edge of his khakis. “You’re wearing shorts.”
“You’ve seen me in shorts before. When I run in the morning.”
“I’m just used to you in your perfect pants and perfect shirts.”
“Then spend more time with me on weekends or at night and you’ll see what else I wear,” he said, raising his eyebrow in invitation.
“Someday.”
“Someday soon?” His voice rose the tiniest bit.
“Yes,” I whispered, making the promise I’d made to him over and over and over. That someday we’d be together for real. He was twenty-five then, and I had turned seventeen at the start of that summer. There was time for together for real. Down the road, not too far away, after I made it to college.
He sighed deeply, a relieved sigh, like I’d just given him the present he’d always wanted. I was the present, I was the gift, what he wanted was me, all of me. He ran a thumb along my jawline. “How am I going to put my hand on your cheek and kiss you without messing up your Yankees logo?”
“Were you going to be licking my cheek?”
“No, funny girl,” he said, and placed a hand on my cheek. “I just like touching your face, okay?”
“Why don’t you just try and see if you can not mess it up?”
We spent the rest of the ride kissing in the town car, our own little private world, blind to the rest of the city. I had no interest in stopping, nor did he. We barely came up for air. We couldn’t get enough of each other. We were unstoppable in our kisses, in the way our lips needed to meet again and again, over and over. His hands were in my hair, cupping my cheeks, his fingertips tracing my collarbone.
When we arrived my lips were raw, but my painted-on logo was pristine.
We watched the game, and we cheered and clapped and shouted all the players’ names when they came to bat, and he wrapped me in a huge hug, those strong arms circling me, when the shortstop hit a home run in the seventh inning to pull ahead, and I turned the hug into a kiss in the middle of Yankee Stadium. A deep, wet, hot kiss full of passion and fire, and lust for more. We were in a sea of happy strangers and the fact that we were lying to my mom didn’t matter to any of them. No one knew us. No one could know us. I didn’t live in a small town. I lived in a gigantic one. A massive one that could swallow you up, or let you swim in it. I was swimming in it and the water was nice and the current was pulling me along. New York City was my accomplice. New York City made my affair with Noah Hayes not only possible, but easy.
He took me home after the game and came inside.
“Safe and sound, like I promised,” he said to my mom.
“You darling, man,” she said. “Now tell me everything. Tell me all about the game. Wait. Don’t tell me about the game. I don’t care about baseball. Tell me a story. Tell me something interesting about the fans.”
I let him do all the talking as I walked into the kitchen to grab a Diet Coke. I opened it and leaned back against the counter, listening to him telling her stories. He’d look over at me a few times, and every time he did I thought how I was the one who finally had a secret, I was the one who knew something my mom didn’t know, and I was going to keep it that way forever and ever and then some. For the first time in my life, I had the upper hand on her.
And now I can again. Now I can with this secret. With the fact that he is Noah to me. That I am the only one who is allowed to use his first name. I roll uptown, riding to our place, twilight turning into night.
I lock up my bike near the entrance to Madison Square Park. He’s already there, sitting on a bench, earbuds in his ears, the sleeves on his orange shirt rolled up. He grins the whole time as I walk over and sit next to him. I take the earbuds out of his ears and put them in mine.
He’s listening to Broadway show tunes; this time to “Old Man River” from Show Boat. I smile at the music, then roll my eyes. “You and your show tunes.”
“Me and my show tunes,” he says and I take the earbuds out and lay them gently across his thigh, my fingertips touching the fabric of his pants.
He looks down at them, then rests his hand on the slats of the bench. I move my hand next to his, and now our hands are so close I feel warm all over, like a dark chocolate bar is melting all through my body. Somewhere, in the distance, a car squeals to a stop at a traffic light. It might as well be happening on Pluto.
“Kennedy,” he says, then shakes his head, but he doesn’t stop looking at me. His eyes, those dark-blue eyes, are like a tractor beam and I can’t let go.
I inch my hand closer, my fingertips nearly touching his. The space between us is charged, buzzing with ions, desperate for contact.