I looked down, feeling the weight of my unprofessionalism. “I think I’m going to find a different one to focus on.”
He nodded. “I thought so.”
I stalked over to my desk. I could do it all. The more I thought about the living-on-tips story, the more I liked it. I could write a kick-ass article and still get the boy. Charlotte had been sending me text after text, wanting to know the latest, and whether I was ready to send it out, and I’d been blowing her off with generic responses. I had already appeared unprofessional to Jesse, but I wasn’t ready to let Charlotte know I was giving up such a big scoop. At our shift at the Yogurt Shop, I told her I still wanted to sit on it.
And then I focused my time on trying to figure out a new story to cover while also riding the high of . . . Raf. That night, there was another party at the Spanish embassy.
I got there early, and when the door opened, there stood Raf. Behind him was his father.
I hesitated and then stepped in.
“Papa, you remember Pip?”
“Yes,” he said. He didn’t expand.
“Pip and I are together.”
My eyes went wide, but not as wide as Raf’s father’s. It was obviously unexpected news.
He recovered quickly. “Ah.” His eyes narrowed. “Enjoy your evening. Rafael, I will speak with you tonight.”
“I think we’re going to be busy most of the night. Perhaps tomorrow.”
I’d walked right into a showdown. Would his dad kick me out? Voice his disapproval to my face? Disappear me?
Raf took my hand in his and led me away. His father watched us, the disdain emanating from his face almost palpable.
“What made you do that?” I asked when we were out of earshot.
“That was the beginning of a string of choices my dad will not approve of. Might as well start somewhere. I can’t hide forever.”
That night, when the great room was packed, Raf and I danced mostly together—except for a few times I danced with Samuel and Raf danced with Giselle. Samuel didn’t bother asking why I hadn’t answered his text. I guessed it was pretty obvious. I felt a little bad. At the end, after everyone had left, I was still there.
It was just me and Raf in the great room by ourselves, facing each other across the dance floor, breathing the same air, tired and sweaty and tipsy and . . . and . . .
Raf strode toward me and took my face in his hands and turned my head up toward his and kissed me. It wasn’t a questioning kind of kiss. It was a demanding kiss.
I wasn’t sure how it happened—except to say I don’t think it was a ninja move where Raf swept my leg or anything—but soon we were both on the floor, on our sides, kissing and grabbing fistfuls of hair (okay, that was me . . . but his hair was so grabbable).
I pulled back a bit, breathless. “Sorry about the hair,” I said.
“It’s okay,” he said with a smile.
He put his index finger on my lips, traced them back and forth, drew a line to my chin, down the front of my neck, down past my collarbone to the top edge of my tank, and down a little farther.
Then he ran his finger across the top of my tank, back and forth, and he looked like he was concentrating very hard on making sure his finger didn’t go any farther south.
I was probably concentrating just as hard on not grabbing said finger and giving it more than the ten-cent tour.
To make not grabbing his finger easier, I busied my hands with the difficult task of unbuttoning his shirt. And then my fingers were busy doing their own exploring. Down his chest. Down his stomach. Tracing a line around the top of his jeans. I briefly imagined scrubbing clothes clean on his washboard abs, and I was going to mention the idea, but I still had just enough wits about me to keep the thought to myself.
Because it was quiet. Gorgeously quiet. No music. No talking. For hours, or maybe just minutes. Only the sound of our breathing, and the noise lips make when they touch other lips and shoulders and necks. And the soft echo the light from the sun makes when it first appears in the windows.
The sun. The sun.
Crap. It hadn’t been minutes. It had been hours. The sun wasn’t up yet, but dawn was definitely approaching.
I pushed him away softly. “I have to go.”
“What?”
I pointed to the window. “Do you see that?”
“The window? Yes.”
“Not the window. The light. Basically, if the bottom of the sun rises above the horizon before I get home, you won’t be seeing me for a very very long time.”
He frowned. “Understood. Fritz!”
“Fritz?” I scanned the room and saw that the guard had been sitting in the corner the entire time.
But I didn’t have time to be embarrassed. Because dawn was approaching, and I might as well have been a vampire anticipating total burnage.
With the efficiency of a travel agency he got us out of the house, into the town car, and me to my front door with seconds to spare before daylight.
As I settled into bed, I sent an email to Gramma Weeza. Subject line: “I stayed out all night.”
33
I didn’t sleep much, because . . . feelings.
The truth was, I could still feel Raf’s finger drawing lines over my face. My neck. My collarbone. And other places. My shins. My kneecaps. Connecting all the lines. Making the lines come alive.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror, but all I could see were dancing lines, twisting and twirling and entwining.
Last night (or this morning) as we were racing to get me home, he still found time to say sweet things.
“Fritz, drive faster. And see who you can call to slow down the sun.”
With eyes closed, I touched my cheek and remembered the exact feel of Raf’s cheek against mine, the way that if I moved in one direction, the hairs on his skin were rougher than if I moved in the other.
I wondered if he shaved with the grain or against it. I wondered if, when he thought back to our cheeks touching, he noticed the white-blond peach fuzz hairs I had on my skin. I wondered if he wished I didn’t have them, or if he thought they were just another thing that made me uniquely . . . me.
The way he looked at me, I could tell he wanted to know everything inside my head. He listened to me like my voice was the only sound he would need for the rest of his life. And I talked and talked and spilled my guts because I knew I was safe.
I wanted to savor every tidbit with Rafael. He was like a good book, one I’d been waiting for and anticipating, and once I’d gotten it in my hands, I couldn’t bear to read one single page because that would be one fewer page I would get to read.
My dad knocked on my door and poked his head in. “Breakfast, Pipe,” he said, and then, looking at my face, he frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to turn his pages!”
“Whose pages?”
“Never mind. Sorry. I’m fine.”
Because Raf was a person. Not a book. He didn’t have a beginning and an end. It wasn’t like I had a set number of minutes with him, and every minute spent together was a minute gone that I wouldn’t get back.
No. We had infinite minutes. And I was going to savor every one.
At breakfast, the eggs tasted like clouds and the milk tasted like heaven and the crunch of the toast reminded me of the scruff on Rafael’s face and the bacon . . . well, the bacon just reminded me of bacon because bacon is good.
Michael’s plastic hanger tapped against the wooden tabletop and the newspaper crackled in my dad’s hands, and I remembered I wasn’t alone.
“Piper? Where are you this morning?” my mom asked.
I was about to ask her what she meant, until I realized I’d been sitting there with a piece of bacon halfway to my mouth, with what must’ve been a dreamy sort of smile on my face.
“I’m . . . here. Totally paying attention. And eating. And breathing in and out. Totally breathing. Breathing like it’s never gonna go out of style.”
My phone buzzed.
>
Charlotte: I took some initiative and got you an early birthday present.
. . .
I sighed. I was going to have to come clean with Charlotte about giving up the story. But not today.
Charlotte: Aren’t you gonna ask me what it is?
I couldn’t ignore a birthday present. That would be rude.
“Do you mind if I text at the table? It’s Charlotte and it’s important.”
My mom shrugged. “Fine. We’re all reading our own stuff anyway.”
I texted back.
Me: My birthday’s not for six months.
Charlotte: Ask me what it is!
Me: What is it?
Charlotte: Check your email at one o’clock.
Me: Okay!
“Everything okay?” my dad said.
“Yeah. Charlotte with an early birthday present.”
“Wow. Six months early. That’s some present.”
I smiled and clicked my phone off and put it in my pocket. Everyone needed a friend like Charlotte. My mom scooped some more eggs onto my plate, and finally acknowledged the obvious. “You made it home by the skin of your teeth last night. I think you only got fifteen minutes of sleep. How are you even walking right now?”
I bit my lip. “I know. But the point is, I made it home in time. And yes, sometime in the near future, like this afternoon, I will crash.”
My dad folded the paper in his hands, kept reading, but I could tell he was paying attention.
He asked, all super casual, “Who were you with last night?”
I cleared my throat. “I was with Rafael Amador. There was a party at the Spanish embassy.”
“Oh?” my dad said, in a forced uninterested way that made him seem totally interested. He had not taken to the drinking calmly as my mom had. He’d wanted a strict no-drinking policy instead of her three rules.
“Yeah. I want you guys to meet him.”
This time my dad could no longer hide his interest. He put the paper down and leaned forward. “Really?”
I nodded. “I’ve told him a lot about you.”
Now my mom was leaning forward too.
“He’s met Michael. He wants to meet you.”
My dad stared at me, his mouth slightly open and slightly curved upward. They’d never heard me talk about a boy like this. They’d only ever heard me talk about the news like this.
Several moments passed us by.
Michael was the first to speak. He flicked his hanger toward my dad and said, “Rafael’s dad is Leon.”
I bit my lip and smiled. “I want you to meet him.”
“Then I can’t wait to meet him,” my dad said.
Raf texted me later that morning, after I’d had a good nap, and asked to come over and and take me for a picnic. There was a strong early-spring snowstorm outside. I texted back, It’s winter out there.
Raf: Of course it is. I was thinking a picnic in the National Arboretum.
Me: Sounds perfect.
I raced to my bathroom and brushed my hair and tried to think back to the checklist Charlotte used when she was getting ready for a date or an appearance on-camera.
Hair: clean. (And a little shiny because I added that hair oil she gave me for Christmas last year.)
Teeth: brushed. Flossed.
Tongue: scraped. (Okay, that wasn’t on Charlotte’s checklist, but my mom swore by it.)
Clothes: on. (On? I think that was part of her checklist. If it wasn’t, I was making it part of the checklist. Because I most definitely had clothes, and they were on.)
Makeup: five minutes’ worth. I remember Charlotte had told me once that makeup should take only five minutes to apply. If it took longer, it was too much.
I had just completed the checklist when my doorbell rang.
Raf.
I raced to the door and barely beat Michael, and then I put my finger on my lips and whispered to him to wait.
“Why?” Michael said.
“Because I don’t want to seem overly eager,” I whispered so softly it was barely audible.
“Why do you want Rafael to wait?” he said, in a voice that was technically totally normal but under the circumstances, totally loud.
I rolled my eyes and opened the door.
Raf stood there on my porch, with a bouquet of wildflowers and a smile that could broker a peace deal in the Middle East.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Would you like to come in?”
Jeesh, could I be any more awkward?
“Yes, I would like that very much.”
Okay, yes, I could be more awkward. Which made me even more awkward.
“Um, if you would be so kind as to follow me into the . . . sitting room. Parlor. Drawing room. The place where my parents are.”
Because they were there, waiting to meet Raf. When I brought him in, both of them smiled as if he had been the lone human responsible for bringing the sun.
My dad stood up and held out his hand. “Rafael? Robert Baird. Nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, sir.” They shook hands, and it all seemed painfully formal to me, so I broke up their hand clinging with a karate chop.
They both looked at me as if I was weird.
My dad invited Raf to sit down on the couch.
“So, Rafael. You’ve lived in DC for how long?” my dad said.
Raf put his hand on my knee and everyone in the universe looked at his hand on my knee.
“For four years. We moved from Madrid, although my extended family is from the southern region. We make wine.”
“Sangria!” I blurted out.
Raf raised his eyebrows but didn’t lose his composure. “And sangria. It’s kind of a family recipe.”
“And how do you like DC?” my mom said.
“I like it very much. It gives me a good opportunity to work on my English.”
“His English is really good,” I interjected. “Except he ends a lot of sentences with ‘yes?’ It’s taken me a bit to get used to, but if you just answer ‘yes’ when he says it, it makes it easier.”
Raf squeezed my knee, and my heart exploded.
“I really like your daughter. I would like to get to know her more. Would it be okay if I took her for a picnic today at the National Arboretum on the Mall?”
And that was it. My parents were under Rafael’s spell.
“Of course,” my dad said. “We don’t mind.”
I jumped up from my seat on the couch. “Okay! Great. Nobody objects to lunch. Let’s go. Mom, Dad, Michael. It’s been great.”
Everyone else slowly stood up.
My dad leaned over to Raf. “You know she gets like this?”
“Dad!” I said.
“Yeah. I can handle it.” He looked earnest.
I rolled my eyes and took Raf’s hand and pulled him out of my house and to the black sedan with the Spanish flags that was parked outside.
When we got in, Raf put his arm around my shoulder. “I think that went well.”
I used my hand to motion up and down Raf, from his face to his feet. “Look at you. How could you not impress parents?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. You should’ve seen it when I met the Czech ambassador. I was dating his daughter—”
I held up my hand. “I don’t want to hear it. Besides, can it be worse than the time I met your mother?”
I held my breath. Maybe it was too soon. But he smiled. “I know what you mean, right?” he said. “Awkward.” He tightened his hold on me and smiled and kissed me just above my ear. “Okay. Why don’t you tell me about your past relationships?”
“Ha!” I laughed before I realized that the fact that I’d had no past relationships might not be very attractive. “I mean, you know, there was this one guy . . .”
“Really? What was this one guy’s name?”
“Jacob.”
“Ah. Tell me about him.”
“Well, he liked the color red, and sometimes he ate chalk. And on
e day, just before the last recess bell rang, he kissed me.”
“Please tell me you were in grade school,” Raf said.
“Kindergarten.”
We were quiet for a while as Fritz signaled to turn onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
I wondered what was going through Raf’s head. I kept watching his face, looking for clues. Fritz turned at the Jefferson Memorial and then made a right and followed the Mall up to the arboretum.
“Anyone else?” Raf whispered in my hair.
I decided those were my favorite kinds of questions. The kinds that were filtered as a whisper through the strands of my hair.
“Freshman year, I had a crush on a boy named Fynn.”
“Did you ever tell him?”
“No. Because haven’t you ever noticed how safe anonymous love is?”
Raf nodded. “Oh, yeah. You get the high of being in love without the pain of losing that love. As long as the person you love doesn’t officially know you’re in love with him, there’s always the possibility that he loves you back. It’s like Schrödinger’s cat.”
“Huh?”
“Schrödinger’s cat. It’s a cat locked in a box with a vial of poison. As long as you don’t open the box, you don’t know if the cat is alive or dead. Either outcome is possible.”
“What?” I pushed away from Raf so I could face him. “Why would someone do that to a cat? I mean, I’m personally a dog person, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings for a cat in a box with poison.”
He pulled me into him and held me tight. “Shhh. It’s not a real cat.”
“Then what’s the point?”
He laughed. “It’s a thought experiment. Devised by physicists. I was only using it to illustrate the point that as long as the person you love doesn’t know you love him, you don’t know if that love would be requited or not.”
I sighed and shook my head. “You Spaniards are weird.”
“The physicist was Austrian, but that’s neither here nor there.”
We rode in silence for a little bit as Fritz made several turns to figure out the best parking place for us.
“So, who came before me?” I asked. I’d thought about asking the question for a while, and every time I imagined it, I pictured myself as this awesome Amazon woman who shoved her spear into the ground and bellowed, Who came before me?