Noah sees my reaction right away. It’s not like I’m being coy about it. My chin is on the floor. I’m gripping the edge of the sink and hunched over like I’m mid-heart attack.
“You okay over there?”
I shake my head no, then yes, then no again.
Apparently enjoying the effect he has on me, he decides to set up shop at the sink right beside mine with a toiletry bag of his own.
“Clothes,” I eek out the same way a dying person begs for water or air.
“In a second.”
He’s in no rush, just going about all his little post-shower duties, getting ready for bed. He has all the time in the world to torture me.
I should get back to my duties as well. And to my credit, I do try.
“You’re holding the toothpaste upside down.”
“Really? You’re kidding,” I quip. “Guess I’ve been doing it wrong my whole life. The paste goes on the brush?”
He laughs.
I start brushing my teeth.
“How was your run?” I ask around the bristles.
“Not bad. What’d you do while I was gone?”
“Talked to my friends back home. Told them about us.”
He hums, encouraging me to go on.
I finish brushing, spit, and rinse.
“They think you’re playing me and this is all some big manipulative ruse.”
“Do you think I’m playing you?”
“Jury’s still out.”
He turns and smiles, leaning his hip against the side of the sink. “I could show you how into you I am if that’s what you want. Clear up the confusion…”
Sheesh. What’s he trying to do? Kill me?
I gulp and stare at his mouth. “I’ll probably regret telling you this, but I haven’t been with anyone in a while.”
It feels important that he know that in case we’re about to go there right here, right now in this bathroom.
He studies me carefully. He’s hanging on my every word. “How long’s a while?”
It occurs to me that I would have never dreamed of giving Noah this information a week ago. Voluntary facts about my nonexistent sex life? Not in a million years.
I mimic his stance, leaning my hip against the sink too. “Why don’t you tell me how long you think a while is…”
“Since Jeff? You broke up with him just after school started last year, right?”
God, he really does know everything.
I nod almost imperceptibly, but he still catches it. “Jeff.”
“Huh.” He says it like that’s the most interesting thing he’s heard all day.
“You?”
He shrugs. “I don’t keep track. A while.”
He crosses his arms. So do I.
All right, so we’re both a little rusty. We’ll have to get back in the saddle together.
“Are you going to kiss me then?” I ask, needing to know. It’s something I’ll want to prepare for.
He mulls it over. “Not tonight.”
Suddenly I’m distraught. “Why?”
“Remember what I told you last night? My promise?”
“Promise? About proving yourself this week? Not poking me with a stick or whatever?”
He likes how exasperated I’ve become. He’s smiling when he replies, “Exactly. I’ll be good until Saturday.”
He holds his hands up as if to prove he’s going to keep them to himself, but my brain doesn’t get the memo. All I see is potential. Big potential. I’m calculating the length of his fingers and multiplying by two. Equations are swirling. On the outside, I’m Ms. Cohen, cutesy English teacher. On the inside, I’m a sexual deviant.
I swear he can read my mind. He knows my thoughts are in the gutter.
He chuckles under his breath then comes around behind me to grab my shoulders and turn me back to the sink so I can finish getting ready for bed.
I look at us in the mirror, two people who seem to fit together like a lock and key. If we were strangers I passed on the street, I’d think we made the cutest couple.
Noah lets his hands slide off my shoulders and that’s that. We stand side by side, going through our nighttime routine like an old married couple who’s been doing it all their lives.
Chapter Nineteen
Even though Noah and I are living right across the hall from one another, over the next few days, it feels like I hardly see him.
He’s not at breakfast when I get to the dining hall on Wednesday morning, and I don’t get the chance to check if he’s in his room because Ashley and Gabriella invite me to go out shopping with them while the kids are in their Latin class. I intend on just going to have a look, but I should have known that was never going to work out. In the first shop we go to, I treat myself to a little dangly bracelet, and in the second shop, I spot a red dress I’d die to wear on my date with Noah on Saturday. I mean, I’d never actually have the courage to do it, but then Ashley and Gabriella see me holding it and they insist I try it on. Just to see if it fits.