Page 60 of The Getaway List
There’s a finality in his tone, the kind bordering on pleading, so I drop it. I nod and clear my throat and say, “All right.” I can’t dismiss the unease in my chest, the anger still churning in my stomach on his behalf, but I can pretend for Tom’s sake.
“All right,” says Tom back, as if he’s bracketing the conversation. A neat and tidy close.
Except neither of us moves, and Tom says suddenly, “At least keep your key to this place, will you? If things ever don’t work out living with the band you can always crash here.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his mother-henning, because he’s offered this no less than five times since we finalized my knockoff-sitcom living situation. “As much as I’m going to miss the fancy trash chute and chatting up the doormen, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I assure him.
Tom’s still watching my face carefully. It feels like we’re suspended in motion here—by now all pretenses of cleaning have been abandoned between the two of us, but we’re both standing very, very still, like we know something is inevitable about this moment even if we don’t know what it is yet.
“This might be a weird question,” he says slowly. “But I guess the reason I’m wondering about you living with the band is—it seemed like maybe there was still something between you and Jesse when you got here?” I open my mouth, a laugh bubbling up my throat that stalls when Tom’s cheeks flush all the way to his hair. “What I mean is—the way he was so happy to see you, and—I don’t know. I wondered for a bit if the flowers were from him.”
“Oh.” I suppose there’s no reason to keep it a secret anymore. More than anything I’m surprised the flowers are still on Tom’s mind. “Actually, they were.”
“Oh,” says Tom back. His expression doesn’t change, but something under it goes static. Like he’s bracing himself for whatever I say next.
“It’s not like that, though. We just had some loose ends to tie up. Like, really old ones,” I say. I try to smile just to emphasize how un-big of a deal it is, but there’s something about the way Tom is watching me right now, like he’s trying to test the weight of every word I’m saying, that makes me feel unsteady. “But we had a talk about it the other day. We’re friends, is all.”
It takes a moment for Tom to consider this. “Like you and me?” he asks.
Only then do I appreciate just how close we’re standing to each other. In the heat of my anger at his mom I got right up in Tom’s face, which is still inches from mine, to a degree that suddenly makes me very aware of my own heart beating in my chest.
“Yeah,” I say. The word comes out a little choked, but I’m steadier by the time I say, “Like you and me.”
Tom’s eyes skim my face, lingering on my lips, settling on my eyes. I try not to shiver, try not to lift myself up to my toes to exactly meet his gaze.
“You know,” he says quietly, “when we were trying to determine that—you and I never actually kissed.”
“That we did not,” I say. My heart’s not beating anymore so much as slamming, because Tom doesn’t just say the words; he leans in closer so there’s barely any air between us for them.
“So is that—really ruled out?” he asks. “Without a thorough check, I mean.”
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I stare up at Tom almost as if to call his bluff, but he’s staring at me so intently that I understand at once that there isn’t one. That he’s giving me room to play it off if I want to, but this isn’t like it was last time, when it felt more like we were agreeing to a dare than a kiss.
I have to swallow hard before I say, “I guess not.”
There are a thousand reasons not to lean in and cross the distance between us right now, but one reason is louder than all of them: I want to kiss him. I want it so badly that it feels in this moment like the only thing I’ve ever wanted, like it’s such a natural impulse that it would go against the laws of nature not to.
In the end it isn’t me who leans in, but both of us. It’s different from last time, when it felt like we had something to prove. From the moment our lips touch, the noise of the whole summer goes to static—this is something that is immediately and unmistakably ours. It’s in the hitch of surprise in my throat at the honey-warm taste of him, the way I’m shaking with the satisfaction of it before it’s even fully begun. The way we’re reaching, stunned with the impact of each other, pulling each other in with rushed, needy hands and arms that only have one objective, which is to somehow, impossibly, be even closer than we already are.
This is unmitigated chaos. This is Tom and Riley, Riley and Tom.
We pull apart and we’re both breathless, both flushed and disbelieving but somehow not surprised at all. For once we’re not reading the story—we are the story. Like this was written in the pages all along, and was only just waiting for us to reach it.
Tom presses his forehead into mine, his hand just under my jaw. “Riley,” he says.
And something in me thrills just as a stone settles against my chest. He’s never said my name like that before, but I can hear everything in the tone of it so clearly that he might as well have said it out loud.
He loves me, too. Not the way we’ve always loved each other. But in another way entirely, one that binds us deeper than I thought my heart could go.
“We can’t,” I croak.
Tom doesn’t move and neither do I. We’re still pressed together, but suddenly rigid as statues. Almost like neither of us wants to go forward or back, just wants to keep being the people we were five seconds ago, when reality didn’t matter on either side of that kiss.
“You’re leaving,” I say. “And if we—if we ever—Tom. I need you to understand. You’re too important to me.”
“I’ll stay,” says Tom immediately.
I shake my head so hard that the tears I didn’t even realize were forming in my eyes spill out with it. “Fuck. No. Don’t—” I swipe at my eyes with the heel of my hand, furious with myself. “I can’t let you do that.”
