“No, that’s okay,” I’d said, giving both my parents a kiss on the cheek. “I can stay here, clean this up, and then polish up my application essays.”
That had mollified them — any mention of my college applications did. From my first day of junior year, they’d acted like college admissions was my full-time job.
Which makes it even worse that I’m not planning on sending in a single one.
I turn, planning to run the espresso machine through its cleaning cycle, when there’s a sharp noise from the window that nearly makes me jump out of my skin. My mind scatters, and I try to remember what my mom said to do in the event of an intruder, until I turn around and see a familiar face peering in through the fog in the glass.
“Jake?” I ask, unlocking the door and watching as he walks quickly over from the window, pulling off his hat and running a hand hastily through his hair.
He’s smiling his contagious smile, the one that he can’t seem to keep off his face. I saw it on him after his last hockey game, when he scored to win it in the final period.
When he’d dropped down onto one knee, raising his stick up over his head and hollering, I had realized that there was nothing I cared about in the way that Jake cared about hockey. He was real, electrifying, soaliveon the ice that it made everything about my life feel bland.
“Lara,” he breathes, and I can’t stop staring at him, smiling back at him now.
Snow falls around him, catching in his hair and on his eyelashes. His amber eyes shine, practically sparkling, like something out of a Christmas movie. There’s some stubble over his cheek and jaw, and again I resist the urge to reach out and touch it, to brush my thumb over it to see what it feels like.
“Can I come in?”
“Oh!” I burst out a breath and laugh at myself, realizing I’m just standing in the doorway staring at him, forcing him to continue standing on the sidewalk in the snow.
Stepping back, I gesture for him to come inside the café, take his coat and hang it on the rack like I’ve seen my parents do for a million of their guests - writers from the city, artists from NYC, important people who call the café ‘quaint’ and ‘cute’ and a ‘perfect little retreat’.
“Wow,” Jake says, looking around. “I’ve never really been in here before.”
“Never?”
He turns to face me, and I notice the snow melting on his shoulders, the scent of his shampoo and cologne. That smile is still on his face, and it makes me feel giddy, like bubbles are rising inside me, straight to the top of my head.
“Might have been in with the crew.” He runs his hand through his hair again. ‘The crew’ is what he says when he’s talking about his construction job. It always makes me feel like he’s in a boy band. “But I don’t really like coffee.”
“If you’d just let me make you a mocha, I could change that.” I glance over my shoulder, back at the machine. My mom says coffee after noon is a bad idea, but it’s Christmas.
Thinking about that, I look back at him, catch him watching me, and feel a blush rush over my cheeks.
“What are you… I mean, it’s Christmas, Jake. What are you doing here?”
“What areyoudoing here?” he asks, glancing around. “Where are your parents?”
This would be the part in a thriller where I realize I’m all alone in here with him, but I’ve never felt safer with anyone than I do with Jake. “They went to the city for a party.”
“And you didn’t go?”
“Someone else said they might want to chat tonight,” I say, thinking about his text earlier and how giddy I’d felt at the thought of talking to him on the phone. “So I stayed home.”
“Huh,” he says, and for a long moment, we stand still, staring at one another, something heavy and certain hanging in the air between us. I feel like I’m teetering at the top of a roller coaster, heart held aloft, waiting for the moment that we’ll go plummeting over the edge.
Clearing his throat, Jake breaks the moment. “Well. There was something I wanted to tell you.”
My heart flips, and my traitorous brain runs through all the worst possible things he could tell me - he’s started dating someone, asked someone to prom and they said yes, is bored of hanging out with me.
Instead, what he says takes a solid five seconds to register in my head.
“I got into Michigan.”
For a moment, I stand stupidly, staring blankly at him. It’s partially because I always knew that he would, and partially because I’m still dealing with the physical overload of being alone in this space with him, seeing him among the green chairs and winding ivy of my mom’s café.
“Youdid?” I finally answer, and before I know what I’m doing, I launch myself at him.
