Save the Secret Date

by Ellie Cahill

  “I don’t wanna be this drunk, Jakey,” I said.

  “The only way out is through, champ.”

  In the hall, he tried to release me so we could walk side-by-side, but I grabbed on tighter to his shoulders. “No! Don’t! You’re the only thing that’s not spinning.”

  “I’m just gonna help you to bed. You’ll feel better laying down.”

  “I feel better here.” I tilted my head back to look at him, blinking slowly to keep him in focus. “I feel better with you. Please.”

  He smiled. “You are so drunk.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re still cute, though.”

  “No,” I protested. “I’m horrible. Don’t look at me like this. I’m too drunk to be cute.” I had no idea what I was saying. But if my outsides matched my insides even a little bit, I was a disaster for sure.

  “Mary…” Jake chuckled, and loosened his grip on me, as if he wanted to step away, but I clutched at him once more.

  “Please! Don’t leave me right now. I’ve got the spins.”

  He looked into my eyes, but I couldn’t concentrate. “All right,” he finally said. “I’ll hold you as long as you need me to.”

  The hall was dark except for the light from the bathroom, and I dropped my head onto his shoulder again. He shifted his weight to support me as necessary until it was like we were slow dancing at half speed. The upbeat music from below didn’t fit our rhythm at all, but I didn’t care. I felt safe with Jake. Like I might actually survive this previously undiscovered level of drunkenness.

  “I love you, Jakey,” I mumbled.

  “I love you, too, Mary.” His tone said he was humoring me. I dragged my head up to look at him again.

  “No, no. I do. I love you.”

  “Shhh,” he said.

  “No. This is important.” I put my hands on his cheeks and forced him to look at me. “You are the best guy I have ever known and I love you.”

  “As a friend,” he added.

  “Of course. But only because I don’t know about the rest.”

  There was a long pause before he answered. “How can you not know?”

  “Because we’ve never done that.”

  “Done what?”

  “The rest.”

  Jake’s laughed softly, and shook his head. “You are so drunk.”

  “But haven’t you ever wondered?” I asked.

  “Mary, please…”

  “I’ve wondered.”

  “Don’t do this…”

  “Not even as a secret?”

  The last shred of restraint in him broke. I could see it in his eyes, and then he leaned in close and kissed me. It was a slow, gentle, sweet kiss that didn’t belong on my drunk lips. It was a kiss that deserved so much more than my wobbly legs and my numb tongue. A kiss that made me wish I could pause time, sober up, and come back to it as a different version of myself.

  I don’t know if the kiss went on as long as it seemed or if I just forgot the world and didn’t notice anything anymore. Not even how drunk I’d been a second ago. But when we stopped at last, there were no longer two Jakes dancing in front of my eyes. There was one pair of green eyes fixed on me, and one sheepish smile.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “I wanted you to.”

  “Let’s get you to bed before things get out of hand.”

  I thought bed where exactly where things were likely to get out of hand, but I was willing to go with his plan for the moment.

  Jake helped me to my room, and lowered me to sit on the edge of the bed where I promptly flopped back onto the pillows.

  “You all right now?” he asked.

  “The room is still spinning.”

  “I’ll get you some water.” He took my water bottle from the night stand and disappeared out the door. I summoned the strength to get out of my pants while he was gone. Well, mostly. They were still stuck on one of my ankles when he returned, and he helped me tug them off with a laugh.

  “You should drink some of this.” He set the bottle beside me.

  “Will you lay down with me, Jake?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Please?”

  “Mary, I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”

  “I’m just asking you to stay with me. Make the world stand still.”

  After hesitating a few more minutes, he finally lay down beside me. Stiffly, on top of the blanket. I rolled into him, burrowing my face in his chest and slithering an arm around his waist.

  “You’re drunk,” he whispered, almost to himself. “You’re too drunk for this.”

  “We’re both too drunk,” I assured him. “That evens it out.”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “If we hadn’t been drinking, would you stay?”

  He hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Me too. So stay.”

  “What if you wake up tomorrow and you can’t remember you said any of this, and you’re pissed at me?”

  “Gimme your phone.”

  “What?”

  I didn’t explain, I just started feeling his hips until I found the outline of his phone. He intercepted me before I could dig into his pocket and pulled it out himself.

  “Do a video,” I said. “Of both of us.”

  He complied and soon we were looking at an unsteady version of ourselves smushed together on my bed.

  “I, Mary Elizabeth O’Brien, am exceedingly, spectacularly drunk right now. But it was completely and totally my idea to have Jacob Elizabeth Knight—”

  “That’s not my name,” he interrupted with a laugh.

  “Shush, this is very serious. Don’t interrupt.” I cleared my throat. “…To have Jacob Elizabeth Knight in my bed with me because he is the only thing making the world not go like this.” I grabbed Jake’s wrist and made his phone whirl over our heads for a few seconds. “And, even though I have already told him I love him, and we made out a little bit in the hall—”

  “Don’t say it like that.” Jake cringed.

  “Shush. This is my video.” I pointed at the camera. “Even though he kissed me in the hall before this video, I have promised not to offend his delicate sensibilities with any further hanky panky from this point forward.”

  “Just so we’re clear, I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to have my sensibilities offended by you, Mary. Just not while you’re shitfaced.”

  “You’d like that?” I turned to look at his real face instead of the camera image.

  He laughed nervously. “I’m just saying…I’m…I wouldn’t not want you to.”

  “And you wait to tell me this until right before you move across the country?” I demanded.

  “I—I, umm, uhh…” His stammering disappeared into a hard swallow.

  “This is really bad timing.”

  “Yeah, now that I hear it out loud, I’m really wishing I hadn’t said it.”

  “I would…I want…some water.” I sat up, ignoring the terrifying swoop of the walls and reached for my water bottle. I fumbled the cap open and brought to my mouth.

  And water promptly gushed down my shirt.

  I gasped, choking on what water had managed to get in my mouth and thrust the bottle away from me. An explosive cough burst out of me.

  “Oh my god, are you okay?” Jake sat up.

  I tried to nod while coughing, and finally managed to squeak out, “Leak!” between coughs.

  “Fuck, I’m sorry. I don’t know how that happened.”

  I made a gesture to indicate the cap must have cross-threaded, but I doubt he caught my meaning. It hardly mattered.

  The coughing fit eventually subsided, leaving me exhausted and dizzy.

  “I’m all wet,” I croaked.

  “Here.” Jake pulled off his yellow Peter the Anteater shirt. “Put this on.”

  Momentarily distracted by the proximity of his bare torso, I just held the shirt in my lap.

/>   “I promise I won’t look,” Jake offered, leaning back on his elbow and covering his face with his hands. “I’ll give you a twenty count. One…two…”

  Too tired and tipsy to do anything but cooperate, I’ll pulled off my wet shirt and slid his soft yellow tee over my bra. Then I did the under-the-shirt bra removal trick and just managed to get it free of the sleeve as he reached number twenty.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” Jake announced.

  I giggled and flopped back onto the pillows.

  “Found you,” he announced. “You’re really bad at hide and seek.”

  With a sigh, I curled onto my side to face him and booped him on the nose. “Tag. You’re it.”

  “Cheater,” he said.

  We both went quiet and I felt myself drifting toward sleep. Ready or not, here I come, I thought to myself and smiled. “Thanks for the shirt,” I said.

  “No problem. You can get it back to me whenever.”

  How about never? I thought to myself just before I passed out.

  * * *

  PRESENT

  And I never did give it back.

  Bringing it to Mexico where Jake would be closer to it than he had been in two years definitely upped the chances that he would remember giving it to me and want it back. But that was a risk I was willing to take. Because being in his actual, for-real, in-the-flesh presence was going to be rough. I’d need my security blanket (t-shirt) to soothe me at night.

  How on earth was I going to survive seeing him?

  5

  How to Embarrass Yourself at the Airport

  I didn’t mind flying, but I could never sleep the night before a trip. Some invisible source inside of me insisted that I was somehow going to sleep through all of the alarms I set for myself—four, on this particular occasion—and miss my flight. Knowing I was going to see Jake? It was a miracle I’d gotten any sleep at all.

  I was nervous. Excited nervous, but also I-might-throw-up nervous. Two years was such a long time. Even as much as we’d been in touch, there was no guarantee that things would be the same between us in person.

  Not that I even know what ‘the same’ would look like. We were so good at being friends before the night he’d kissed me. And that night had given me the tiniest hint that we could have been more. But who can really judge relationship potential on one kiss and passing out next to someone? It was easy to pretend things were normal with two-thousand miles between us.

  Now there would be no miles, and nothing but the threat of our trip to Mexico ending to remind me he wasn’t a possibility. Not really.

  I’d been mentally prepared to fight my way to the front of the exiting passengers when my flight touched down in Dallas-Fort Worth, but instead I found myself lingering, waiting for other people to file off the plane while I slowly repacked my headphones and triple-checked to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind. My pulse was racing like I’d just finished a workout and my hands trembled as I made my way up the jetway. I hadn’t been this nervous since the first time I had to start an IV on a patient in nursing school.

  I knew Jake’s flight had already landed. He was here in Dallas. He was waiting for me in the international terminal. Just one short tram ride away. All I had to do was go to the gate where our flight to Cancun would board. I had a plan: hit the nearest bathroom, brush my teeth, swipe on a bit of makeup, and apply fresh deodorant. I scanned the overhead signs as I came out of the jetway, looking for the bathroom when I heard my name.

  “Mary!”

  I snapped to attention and there he was. Jake. Smiling wide and trying to keep me in sight while darting around passengers going in the opposite direction.

  “Jake.” There was no way he heard me. I could barely hear myself. The sight of him had sucked the breath out of me. He was so gorgeous. If anything, he’d gotten even better looking in the last two years. Strong square jaw, nice white even teeth and a broad smile, and green eyes. Actual green eyes. They were so rare it was almost hard to believe it was true, but there they were. Green as emeralds, and sparkling like diamonds when he smiled.

  I tried to run to him, but suddenly there were a hundred people between us. I felt like a running back who’d just caught a miracle pass in heavy traffic. My backpack made my journey even harder, as it got battered by a passersby and knocked me off course. I struggled to maintain a relatively straight path.

  Finally, I pushed my way between two people and launched myself at Jake. And I do mean launched. My feet left the ground and I wrapped my arms around his neck as I burst into tears. Relief? Joy? Who knew? Jake had no choice but to grab me by the only place not covered by my backpack—my butt. I clung to him like a monkey, afraid to let go because I knew he’d see that I was crying.

  “Oh god it’s good to see you.” His voice was muffled by my shoulder.

  “You were supposed to be at the gate!” I scolded.

  “What?” He tried to ease back to look at me, but I doubled down on my hug, keeping my tear-streaked face out of sight a little longer.

  “I thought you’d be at the gate,” I said.

  He laughed. “I am at the gate.”

  “The next gate,” I amended. “I was going to meet you at the gate for Cancun.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to wait.”

  More words bubbled into my mouth, but I kept them stuffed down. He hugged me so hard I could barely breathe, but that only made me squeeze tighter. My arms and lungs ached at the strain, but I didn’t care.

  “You were supposed to be at the gate!” I repeated in a squeaky voice.

  “I’m here, Mary.”

  The pressure of his hug lessened, but I kept clinging a moment longer.

  He laughed and tapped my hip. “Can I put you down now?”

  Reluctantly, I unwound my legs and let him set me on my feet.

  As soon as he saw my face, he made a worried sound and cupped my cheeks in his hands. “Are you crying?”

  My heart fluttered at his touch. “Good tears, I promise.”

  He smiled and pulled me in for another hug. I was more than okay with that plan, wrapping my arms around his waist and burrowing into his chest. With my ear against him, I could hear the solid thumping of his heart. He was so real. So present. I could have let the tears flow harder, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

  I eased back, wiping my eyes. “God, I’m such a mess.”

  “You’re beautiful.” Jake used a fingertip to brush a tear from my cheek.

  I wanted to hug him again. Maybe climb into his embrace and let him hold me like a baby. We were still touching, with our arms loosely around each other, but it didn’t feel like enough. I found my eyes drawn to his lips as my thoughts returned to the night he’d kissed me. Did he still think about it as much as I did? What if he didn’t? Could I ever be in his presence and not think about the way his mouth felt on mine?

  “It’s so good to see you,” he said again.

  I gave in to the urge to hug him tight once more. But this time I stood on my toes and stretched up into him, rather than making myself smaller in his arms. Our cheeks pressed together and I felt him lean into me, turning just enough to kiss my jaw. I reciprocated with a soft kiss near his ear. He pulled back just slightly and kissed me again, this time on my cheek. Then again at the corner of my lips. My insides turned to liquid.

  Still holding me by the hips, Jake tilted his forehead against mine. Our breath mingled in the small space between our mouths.

  “I missed you,” I whispered, not sure he could hear me over the noise of the airport.

  He moved, and his lips brushed against mine for a millisecond before he softly kissed my forehead. It hadn’t been a kiss on the lips, but it made my knees go weak anyway.

  “I missed you, too,” he said.

  So he had heard me.

  A passerby bumped into my backpack, making me take a stumbling step. Jake steadied me.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.” Honestly, I wouldn’t have car
ed if an entire marching band had jostled into me, but the spell seemed to have broken for Jake.

  He glanced up something and announced, “We should get moving.”

  I knew my layover was going to be tight, so I didn’t question him.

  He stepped away from me to retrieve his backpack from the floor. My hands were left feeling unemployed, so I curled them around the straps of my pack. Jake didn’t look back at me as he set off in the direction of the terminal hub, but he extended his hand back to me, making the ‘gimme’ gesture. I slipped my hand into his and he gave me a squeeze.

  He’d clearly been this way before. It was easy to let him lead me to the tram station, even as he dodged and wove his way through the constant stream of people. The train was just pulling into the station as we arrived and we got right on. He let go of my hand as the car filled to capacity. A family squeezed between us, so we couldn’t even talk. I just grasped the nearest pole for balance and tried not to stare at him too intently over the head of a little girl. I wondered if his hand was tingling like mine. Then, as soon as we arrived at the international terminal, he took my hand again and kept it until we reached our gate.

  When he released my hand I felt that same sense of loss I’d felt when he finally stopped hugging me. My fingers stretched out toward him until I convinced myself to drop my hand to my side. Jake found a couple of empty seats at the edge of the seating area. We were practically at the next gate, but at least we could sit.

  With only a few minutes until boarding would begin, there wasn’t time to focus on how we were going to interact now that I’d climbed him at first sight. Instead we took turns in the bathroom and I jogged down the concourse to get an iced latte. By the time I got back, the A group was already lined up for boarding and Jake was looking anxiously in the direction I’d disappeared. He caught sight of me and smiled. Even from a distance, that smile made my heart melt.

  I hurried back to him. He was already on his feet with his backpack strapped on, and holding mine out, ready for me to slip into the straps.