Happily Ever Afters

by Elise Bryant

  “Breathe,” he says, and then he models a long, deep one for me. I should be annoyed, but the reminder is everything I need. We do a few of them together, breathing slowly in unison until I feel my heart rate slow down and I’m taking in air steadily instead of in frantic gulps.

  Sam reaches down with his other hand and squeezes mine. It’s unexpected but not unwanted. It feels good.

  “You know what?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “We should . . . Let’s get out of here.”

  “Okay.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  We drive down Second Street until it hits PCH, and I try not to think about what my parents would do if they knew I was skipping school. It would probably just add to the narrative they’re building in their heads about what a messed-up teenager I’m becoming. But today was traumatic, and I can’t imagine going back into that school and dealing with the whispers and stares for the rest of the day. I’m just glad Sam was there to save me. And hold my hand. I wish I could reach over and take his hand again.

  “Uh . . . it’s just . . . I—ugh!” I choke out, trying to make sense of the garbled mess in my head. My voice is scratchy and hoarse like I’ve been screaming for hours.

  Sam doesn’t push. He drives down a long street with cute shops and cafés and then pulls into a parking lot facing a beach I haven’t been to yet. Seal Beach. When he finally clicks the car off, though, he turns to face me, a sympathetic smile on his face.

  “It’s just what?”

  I take one more deep breath. “It’s just that I think I can get over what she’s trying to say about Nico and me . . . being obsessed or whatever.”

  He makes a face that I can’t decipher. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, I wrote that story before I ever met him. I know that. And he can know that if we ever talk again. . . . I don’t care if we do,” I say, even though I’m not sure if that’s true. “And maybe I deserve it.”

  “You didn’t deserve that.”

  I wave that thought away. “The part I can’t get over, what’s making me so upset, is that it was all the worst of my writing. That everyone is going to see that and realize what a terrible writer I am.”

  “That won’t happen,” he says, smiling at me. His hand goes to my shoulder again. It feels like it’s full of electricity, charging my whole body. “How do you think she even got it?”

  “It was probably in my portfolio. And I mean, who knows how she got her hands on that? I guess her parents are on the board, so she has access—and of course she chose the worst stuff! But who am I kidding . . . it was probably all crap. I made this easy for her—”

  “Tessa,” he cuts me off. His voice is stern, so out of character it makes me look up, and I see that his face matches. “I really need you to stop talking shit about my friend.”

  “Since when is Poppy your friend?”

  “No, you!” He laughs, the face breaking. He leans in closer to me. “You’re always so down on yourself and your writing. But let’s look at the straight facts. Those were the writing samples that were sent in. And the creative writing department read them and accepted you into the school, so I think we can conclude that the writing was, is good.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I don’t want your buts!” He blushes and says quickly, “You know what I mean. It’s just . . . you need to get out of this mindset that you don’t deserve to be here. You’re here for a reason. As a writer, an artist, you belong here. And nothing, not some mean girl, or even your own inner critic, can take that away from you.”

  His words envelop me, warming up my entire body. How can he feel this way when . . .

  “You’ve never even read my writing.”

  “I haven’t. But I want to, and I hope you’ll let me someday.” I’m not sure how it happened, but we’re only inches away from each other. I can see every one of the freckles below his eyes. “I do know that you’re incredible, though, so your writing must be too. If you’ll believe in yourself as much as I believe in you.”

  Something unlocks between us with those words, and then he’s closing the remaining space, brushing his nose against mine. There’s that question in his eyes again, and I nod. I want this. He brings his hands to the sides of my face, holding me delicately like I’m something precious and important, and my eyes flutter close as our lips press together.

  And I realize I’ve been describing kissing all wrong. In all my years of writing—kisses with Harry and Edward and Thad and Thomas—I never got it right. That was mechanics, logistics . . . and this, this is completely different. This is intuitive, this is urgent. This involves everything, my whole body, even though the only parts of us touching are our lips and his hands on the back of my neck, fingers woven in my curls. My heart has left my chest and is beating in my ears and my stomach is doing triple backflips. I think I’ve reached my limit. That I can’t possibly feel any more. But then his hand trails down the side of my body, his lips move to my cheek, my neck, the side of my mouth, and it all gets dialed up to a hundred.

  This is what kissing is.

  And I get the urge to take out my laptop, write down every last detail. I could write entire novels just about kissing Sam.

  He pulls away and stares at me, eyes wide.

  I can’t find any words, except: “Whoa.”

  Redness is creeping up his neck and to his cheeks. “I don’t know what I . . . I know you like Nico—”

  I grab his face and kiss him again.

  And we keep kissing.

  Eventually, after our lips are swollen and the car windows are starting to fog, Sam suggests, sheepishly, that maybe we get out of the car before someone calls a security guard or something. And I laugh way too much at the idea of that happening and the phone call my parents could get because now I’m ditching school AND making out in a car with a boy. It’s hilarious what a turn my PG life has taken.

  We walk down Main Street to a tiny bakery and order cinnamon rolls as big as our heads, taking them down to the beach. As we walk barefoot in the cold sand to the murky blue water, my hand brushes against his, and he takes it, confidently, like this is the way it always has been.

  The beach is pretty empty, most people scared away by the cloudy sky, so it still feels like we’re in our own little bubble. Just me and him, and all the other worries—like my words floating around the hallways or whether or not the school will call my mom or what everyone at school will think about me and Sam—they all just float away.

  We sit and watch the waves, taking gooey, sweet bites of the pastries, our legs outstretched on a blanket he had in the back of his car. And I keep catching him out of the corner of my eye, staring at me instead of the water in front of us, like I’m more deserving of his attention than the Pacific Ocean. It makes me feel like the biggest treasure.

  “What?” I finally ask, grinning and nudging him with my shoulder.

  “I just can’t believe that we’re here. Like this. You and me.” He laces his fingers through mine.

  “I know,” I say quickly. “It probably seems like it came out of nowhere—”

  “It didn’t for me,” he says solemnly. “I’ve thought you were the most beautiful girl in the world from the first day I saw you.”

  “Oh yeah? Even when you were paying for my brother’s pizza?”

  “That wasn’t the first time,” he says, and I look up at him, confused. “I saw you when your family was moving in—you were carrying in a big box of books, and your dad kept trying to help you, but you just pushed him away, even though it took you twice as long . . . sorry, this probably sounds kind of stalker-y, doesn’t it? Me watching you without you knowing?”

  “I know aaalllll about being stalker-y.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Anyway, when your brother sent that pizza to the wrong house, I was actually pretty grateful. Because it gave me a chance to meet you. Ever since then I’ve just been waiting . . . well, desperately hoping that you’d catch up.”

  I go throu
gh the past few months in my head: all the treats he brought me every morning and what a jerk I was to him in the beginning—so worried about what other people would think, when that shouldn’t have been my focus at all.

  I trace the center of Sam’s rough palm with my thumb. “I don’t know,” I say. “Sounds like just a line to me.”

  He reels back for a second but then smiles when he sees my smirking face and realizes I’m quoting him from that day with Caroline in his kitchen. “I’ve got all the lines for you, as many lines as you could possibly dream of, because you are deserving of lines from here to eternity.”

  He kisses my forehead. “Are you tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all day.” He kisses me on one cheek and then the other. “Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?” He tugs on my shirt and then kisses me on the nose. “You know what this shirt is made of? Girlfriend material.”

  “I don’t think that’s how that one’s supposed to g—”

  He kisses my chin. “There must be something wrong with my eyes because I can’t take them off you.”

  “Okay, stop,” I say, cutting him off with a kiss on the lips. I lean into it, knocking him down on the sand, and he wraps his arms around me, pulling me close to him. The kisses start slow and tentative, but then his left arm goes down to my lower back and I run my hand through his hair and we both open our mouths, taken by this frantic energy, and the kisses become more urgent, quick, and—

  Someone clears their throat, and we both spring up to see a mom in a one-piece, holding a beach chair and diaper bag in one arm and a dark-haired toddler in the other, giving us the death glare.

  “Um, uh, sorry, ma’am!” Sam calls, waving at her. She does not look amused.

  After she stomps off down the beach, Sam and I both just stare at each other, and it’s like neither of us can stop grinning.

  “Do you want to, uh, cool off?” he asks, gesturing toward the water.

  I nod quickly, my heart beating too fast.

  We stand up, and I realize he’s wearing the khaki cargo pants with the zippers at the knees. I used to think they were so embarrassingly dorky before, but I don’t care now.

  Now I just see him. This kind, funny, cute boy who I want to make out with a lot more, preferably somewhere in private. He leans down—I think to roll up his pants—but instead he zips off the bottoms, converting them into shorts. So people do do that.

  I laugh so much, I snort a little bit, and when he looks up at me, self-conscious, I meet him with a kiss. We grab hands and run off into the waves.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  We spend the weekend together, eating all his test recipes for the gala and sneaking kisses around our families and watching Enter the Dream Zone with Miles. My mom finally won an auction for it on eBay, so we show it to Sam in its full glory, and he’s appropriately impressed.

  Lenore, and even Theodore, text me a few times, checking in to make sure I’m okay. I calm their worries and ask about their Thanksgiving plans, but I don’t tell them about Sam. I want to keep this, whatever this is, between just us for now.

  On Monday night, Sam asks if I’m free, because he has something special planned.

  “Like a date?”

  “Uh . . . I don’t know, yeah? If that’s what you want it to be. I know we’ve been spending a lot of time together, and it’s okay if you need some time off—”

  “I want it to be a date.”

  “Okay.” He nods and then pulls me close, whispering in my ear. “Then that’s what it is.”

  He picks me up at seven and, successfully ignoring the questioning looks from Mom (Dad, thank god, is working late), we drive over to Signal Hill. Signal Hill is a city within a city, a little island of a town right in the middle of Long Beach, marked by cookie-cutter new houses, incongruous oil-well pumps, and—that’s right—a giant hill. Sam drives up a road that zigzags to the top of the hill and then pulls over at a deserted park.

  My phone pings, and when I take it out, I see Nico’s name. I quickly shove it back into my purse before I can read whatever he’s sent. I don’t need to know.

  “What’s this?” I ask Sam brightly, hoping he didn’t notice. “Did you bring me up here for some necking and heavy petting in your car? Is this, like, Long Beach’s make-out point?”

  His cheeks immediately flush red. “No—not at all! I’m not expecting anything.”

  “Relax,” I say, reaching over and squeezing his hand. “I’m just kidding.”

  “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s just . . . I’m so worried I’m going to mess things up. Now that you’re here with me, that I know you feel the same way . . .” He meets my eyes and laces our fingers together. “Well, I don’t know if I could handle going back to before. I really like you, Tessa.”

  “I really like you too.” I reach forward and kiss him, and then linger there, our noses touching. “And for the record, I wouldn’t mind doing some necking and heavy petting with you. You know, if that was what you had in mind. But . . . what even is necking anyway?”

  “Maybe like this,” he murmurs. He leans in to gently kiss my neck, starting from right below my ear and then trailing lower, hesitant and then bold. My whole body burns up.

  “Oh, I like necking.” I meet his lips, and we explore each other some more, until the car windows are opaque with fog.

  “Okay, I hate to end this,” he says, pulling back finally, his hands still tangled in my hair, “But I’m worried what I brought you is going to melt.”

  “So you really planned more than this?”

  “Of course I did!” he says, faking offense. “This is a date.”

  “Okay, okay,” I say, holding my hands up. “Impress me.”

  He gives me a quick kiss and then reaches into the back seat to pull out a cooler. Inside is a carton of ice cream and two spoons.

  “What’s this?”

  “I—uh, I made you your own ice cream.”

  “What?”

  He looks down sheepishly. “Yeah, it’s called Tessa’s Happily Ever After. The base is rose flavored because . . . well, that’s what your hair always smells like. Is that weird? I hope that’s not weird.” I laugh and shake my head. “And there’s brown-butter shortbread cookies mixed in, and chocolate-covered raspberries. It’s all supposed to represent—”

  “Our first car ride.” I remember those brown-butter raspberry muffins and how he helped me work in the conditioner on the back of my head. I also remember, with shame, what a jerk I was to him that day.

  “Yeah . . . so you get it.” His dimple has appeared.

  “Of course I do! You win. I’m impressed.”

  “And it’s dairy free . . . for your, uh, stomach problems.”

  “Completely and totally impressed.” I kiss him and then take a bite of the ice cream, my ice cream, both things equally delicious.

  “You like it?”

  “I love it!” The word makes both of us look away quickly. I quickly change the subject.

  “So this is ísbíltúr?” I ask him, hoping I’m getting the pronunciation right. “Like the restaurant you want to make one day—ice cream dates in cars?

  His eyebrows rise. “You remember that?”

  “Yeah! Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just . . . I’m just happy.” He reaches up and wipes something off the side of my mouth—a smudge of chocolate. He licks it off his thumb.

  “I’m happy too.”

  After we devour the rest of the carton together, we get out of the fogged-up car and walk to the edge of the park, our ankles getting wet from the dewy grass.

  “This is why I brought you to this park in particular,” he says, holding my hand with one hand and signaling out at the view with the other. “I came here all the time when I was a kid, and as soon as I got my license, I started coming here alone a lot. It’s a good place to think. I’ve come up with some of my best recipes here.”

  From the top of the tall hill, we can see all
of Long Beach, illuminated with the orange glow of streetlamps and the red and white of car lights. Beyond that, there’s the ocean, the port in San Pedro, and even the twinkling lights of LA far in the distance. It makes me feel both tiny and huge at the same time.

  “This is . . . beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  I turn and he’s looking at me all starry-eyed like I’m the amazing view. Until Sam, I’ve never been looked at this way before, only described it in my stories. And just like our first kiss, it’s better than any words I’ve ever put on a page.

  He hooks his finger into the top of my high-waisted skirt and pulls me toward him, hip to hip, his hands settling on my waist. It’s so damn sexy that my lower stomach aches and I can feel it all the way down to my toes.

  It feels different being pressed up against Sam. His soft belly is nothing like Nico’s sharp hip bones. I know I shouldn’t compare the two, but I can’t help it after imagining this with Nico for so long.

  Sam feels good, though. So good. He’s something I didn’t even know I wanted, but now I can’t imagine being without—like my own ice cream.

  How has this Sam been here all along? And how did it take me so long to see him?

  Sam and I convince our families to combine our two tiny Thanksgivings into one, which simultaneously thrills and terrifies my mom. I walk in on her Tuesday night crowd-sourcing hosting etiquette from her book club on speakerphone, as if we’re having the president over instead of just Sam and his mom. Luckily she’s too nervous to question why Sam and I are all of a sudden so close.

  I spend the evening before in Sam’s kitchen, watching him methodically press pie dough into dishes and lay out complicated lattices. Watching him work makes who he is and why I like him sharp and clear, like a camera coming into focus. He’s precise in ways that matter to him and haphazard in the ways I thought mattered but realize now maybe don’t. He’s unapologetically soft, yet strong when he needs to be—when I need him to be. I don’t know how I missed it for so long.