“Well, I just have to work it, don’t I? And then he’ll think it’s all his idea anyway.” She grins at me.
I laugh. “Right.”
“You don’t have any condoms on you, do you?” she asks.
“Um, no. Sorry.” Not that I have any need for them.
“They probably sell them in the ladies. I’ll go and get some in a minute.”
“Where are you going to go?” I ask. Amelia’s not allowed to have guys in her room, and I’m pretty sure Akihiro’s grandmother would take exception at a houseguest.
“Oh, hell, I don’t care. Love hotel. A dark corner. Does it matter?”
I’m not a prude. At all. Finn and I fool around plenty, even though we aren’t officially doing the deed, and I’d definitely consider a dark corner if the opportunity came up. Still, I can’t imagine the situation in reverse, me asking Amelia if she’s got a condom I could have.
“I guess not,” I answer.
“I should probably go find him if I’m going to make this happen. You coming?” she asks.
I nod and follow, weaving through the swaying bodies on the edge of the dance floor. It’s been over an hour since I’ve last seen Finn, and when I can’t find him, I wonder if he’s gone. I’m looking off to the left when Amelia yanks me to the right and I nearly smack into him, stopping just short. She goes and puts her hand on Akihiro’s arm, leaving me looking at Finn’s chest.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.”
“Having fun?” I ask.
“What’s going on, Zosia?”
I look up at him. It’s impossible to hear his tone with the music, but he doesn’t look mad. Uncertain, but not mad. “Nothing.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I look down at my shoes and tilt back on my heel.
Finn takes my wrist, leading me away from the bar through a maze of tables I haven’t even seen yet, back to a wall of doors, one of which he pushes open and locks behind us. It’s a bathroom. One of those black marble bathrooms you see in swanky clubs that’s so dark you wonder how people even find the toilet once they’re inside. The only light is coming from three white candles along a ledge jutting out from the wall.
I jerk my hand away and back into the sink. “What are you doing? Why are we in the bathroom?”
“What’s going on with you?”
“I told you. Nothing.”
“You haven’t talked to me since we got here. And you’re drunk.”
I would argue I’m not, but what I say next would just prove me a liar. “You don’t go out with girls like me. Even without all the shit from my dad. So why are you?”
“What’s this about, Zosia?” The candlelight flickering over his face doesn’t give me a good read on him, but his tone is careful.
“You didn’t answer my question. Finn.” My tone, on the other hand, is confrontational. One hundred percent.
“I like you. I think that’s fairly obvious.” Now his voice is hard.
“You can do better. You said it yourself…”
He cuts me off. “When?”
“Out front. When we got here. We were talking about Amelia. Who, by the way, is asking me for condoms because she wants to hook up with Akihiro.”
He ignores my I-told-you-so tone. “I’m sure I didn’t say I could do better.”
“You did, but that’s not the point.” Even though that’s the thing that annoyed me to begin with. “I asked you why you’re going out with me.”
“And I told you. Because I like you. Is there something else you want me to say?”
“Not if that sums it up.”
“It doesn’t sum it up.” He spits out the words. “I have a long history of bad choices.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“But you’re not one of them.” He takes half a step closer. “Are we done with this?”
“Sure.” I don’t mean it. I cross my arms over my chest and refuse to look at him, which is too bad because I think he was going to kiss me and that might have helped.
Instead he gets frustrated. “Jesus, Zosia.”
“I’m not your type, Finn. I know I’m not. Even the bartender can see that.” My voice is heated.
His is even but cold by comparison. “Fine. You’re not. Is that what you want me to say?”
No. Nonononono.
He continues, “My type are girls who want nothing from me. You want everything.”
If he’d said it differently, I could maybe take that as a compliment. As it is, it makes me feel harsh and demanding. “Sorry. My mistake.”
I reach for the doorknob, and he grabs my hand. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t let me ask too much of you.”
He drops my hand and slams his flat against the door. “Jesus. I am not having this conversation with you when you’re drunk. I’m not doing it.”
“Then let me out of here.” I hold his eyes this time. I’m not sure how I manage to do it without tearing up, but I think it’s why he doesn’t stop me when I open the door. Never mind that I want him to.
I go straight to the bar. Amelia and Akihiro stand close to each other, and I slide in between them. “I’m leaving, okay? I’ll see you back at yours,” I say to Amelia.
“Wait. What? You’re leaving?” she says, putting her glass down on the bar.
“No, really. Stay. Hook up.” I glance at Akihiro, but he can’t hear us over the music. “I need something to eat.”
“I can’t just let you leave by yourself,” Amelia says. “We’ll all go. We can go to the Hard Rock and get a real hamburger. It’s right down the street.”
That actually sounds amazing, and for a minute I’m tempted to take her up on it.
Until I see Finn.
His eyes are dark and detached, his mouth set in a thin line. He stands close to me, but keeps a deliberate distance. “Do you want to go?” he asks me.
“We were just talking about going to the Hard Rock, maybe,” Amelia says. “We could all…”
Her voice fades. Finn doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s spoken.
“I was just leaving,” I say. I start for the door without looking back. I’m going to owe Amelia an explanation and an apology tomorrow, but I have a feeling she gets it. She’s been there, done that. Maybe exactly this.
But it’s uncharted territory for me. I walk as quickly as I can from the club in my three-inch heels, but Finn catches up easily. He falls into step with me without saying a word. We still don’t touch. Or talk.
In fact, all the way to the train and back to Kannai, he says nothing. The train is empty, and he leaves a seat between us that at first makes me angry and then makes me sad. By the time we leave the station, I’m afraid I might start crying. It’s been over an hour since we argued in the bathroom at the club, and Finn’s silence feels way worse than anything he actually said.
He finally speaks when I start to turn down my street. “I think my mom is staying at your place tonight.”
I stop. She is? I try to remember if my dad told me that, but come up blank. Why would he if he thinks I’m staying at Amelia’s? But, good Lord, I can’t walk in on them. Even if they are in the bedroom with the door closed, the apartment is tiny. I walked in one night when they were there together, Eloise laughing, my dad’s voice low. Her skirt was on the couch next to his tie, and I thanked my lucky stars I saw that before I went any further and turned back around, closing the door before I’d even set a foot inside.
Finn continues, “If you want to come back with me…”
“I’m mad at you,” I say. I sound like a petulant child.
“Well, I’m not mad at you.” His voice is soft, and I’m on the brink of asking what he is, if not mad.
Instead I nod and follow him. We still don’t touch, and I feel way more like a guest than I did the first night, with the exception that I borrow his toothbrush without asking. Even when we’re both in bed wearing just T-shirts and underwear, we keep a space between us that I don’t know how to close.
It feels like a waste. We don’t usually get to spend the night together. Since that first night, the times we’ve ended up in bed together have been lazy afternoons when our parents were both at work, but the night is more intimate. More full of possibility.
If only we would touch.
Or speak.
It’s 4:40 in the morning when we finally do speak. I wake up to use the bathroom and get a drink, and even though I try to be quiet, I accidentally knock the toothpaste off the sink, clattering onto the tile floor. When I tiptoe back to bed, Finn’s arm goes around my waist.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” I whisper.
He pulls me closer. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just…”
“After earlier, our conversation in the bar?”
I twist around so I’m facing him. My knee goes between his legs. Funny how it feels automatic. “I meant what I said. You don’t go out with girls like me.”
Finn’s hand finds my skin under the T-shirt I’m wearing. “And I meant what I said. I wasn’t having that conversation when you were drunk.”
I inch closer to him and let my fingers wander up his thigh. “I’m not drunk now.”
Finn cups my breast, caressing my nipple ever so slightly between his finger and his thumb. “I don’t go out with girls like you. You’re right.”
“I know. You made that perfectly clear.” I pull away and bite the inside of my cheek. Dammit.
He continues like I haven’t spoken. “I don’t have relationships and I sure as hell don’t fall in love.” He pulls me closer, his mouth next to my ear. His breath is warm on my skin. “But I’m falling for you.”
Falling.
In. Love.
Oh my God.
A balloon filled with light and air expands in my chest. I wouldn’t be surprised if I looked down and I was glowing from the inside out.
I kiss the corner of his mouth. “I’m falling for you, too.”
Falling. Have fallen.
Landed.
I
paw through the pile of laundry on the floor in an attempt to find my swimsuit when Dad appears in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I’m supposed to meet Amelia at the gym at noon, but I can’t find my stuff.” I start folding as I sort. Maybe that will help.
“I thought you were going out with Finn?”
I nod. It still feels strange to talk to Dad about Finn, although to his credit, he hasn’t freaked since the night of our big fight. “He’s meeting me there, which reminds me, I need my swim bag, too.”
“Where are you two going?”
“He won’t tell me. It’s this thing he’s got.” A date means he plans, he pays, and he won’t tell me what we’re doing. The first couple of times I protested, but now I like it—the anticipation and the not knowing.
Dad steps into my room and clears his throat. “I, um, I’m glad things seem to be going well.”
I falter in my folding. “Yeah, it’s good. He’s great.”
“I know you spend a lot of time together and I just hope…I know you’re a sensible girl, but sometimes it’s easy to get caught up…”
Oh my God. After everything he’s said about Finn, now he’s going to launch into the sex talk? We’ve had variations of this through my teen years but always in theory, and he clearly thinks this is something very different. “Dad!”
He plows through my protest. “I can arrange an appointment for you with a doctor if you need birth control. I know condoms are available, but it’s easy to think you don’t need one just once and, well, once is all it takes.”
He takes a deep breath to continue, and I dive in. “Dad, Finn and I aren’t having sex.”
“You’re not?” He seems thrown by this bit of information.
“No, we’re not. He won’t.” This sounds bad, and I trip over myself trying to explain. “He thinks I’d never date him if we weren’t here, and he says he doesn’t want to be my biggest regret.”
“But you’re in love.” The way Dad says this is so sure it takes me a second to realize I’ve never told him.
“Dad, I…” I stop. I was about to apologize, but I won’t do that. “Yeah. We are. But we’re not. Having sex, I mean.”
“Okay, well, good. Good, then.” He looks so relieved I almost laugh. But then the lines come back to his forehead. “You know Eloise and I are going to that ball tonight?”
Speaking of having sex…
“Yeah. It should be fun.” I’m not sure about that, but it’s meant to kick off the
obon
, summer festival season, and it
could
be fun. It’s just that this includes all the higher-ups from the bank. Dad’s been practicing his polite Japanese nonstop. I even heard him in the bathroom the other day, practicing the inflection on his
hajimemashite
, the most formal way of saying
nice to meet you
.
“We’re staying in Ginza, at the hotel,” he continues. I nod. He’s told me all this before. “I know you’re going out with Finn, but I’d still like you to come home tonight.”
“Dad…” Forty-seven thoughts race through my head. We’re in love. He knows it. We’re not sleeping together. He knows it. I’d give my left arm to wake up with Finn because even though I slept over the night we went to Roppongi, that was already a week ago. A week that feels ten times longer. Dad doesn’t know I stayed over that night. He still thinks I crashed with Amelia. I wonder for a second if I should tell him and level with him that I plan to spend the night at Finn’s anyway. Technically, I’ll come home first for a change of clothes, so I could do both without having to lie, even if is stretching the truth by a mile. “Yeah, sure, Dad. It’s fine.”
Dad nods, and I go back to my folding. Conversation over. Except he’s still standing there and his voice is soft when he says, “Do you want one more opportunity to tell me the truth?”
My voice rises as I twirl around to face him again. “I did tell you the truth, Dad.”
“Are you going to spend the night with him?”
I think about my answer for a good thirty-five seconds before I nod. “Probably.”
“Eloise thinks I should relax. She says it’s better to be straightforward than to make you feel like you have to sneak around.”
I swallow hard. “What do you think?”
“I agree in theory, but it’s harder in practice.” I bite my cheek as he continues. “I understand it. He’s your first love. It never feels like enough.”
“No.” He’s right about that.
“So what’s your real plan for tonight?”
I take a deep breath and let my words spill over each other. “We’re going out and then I was going to stay at his place. Not for that. That’s the truth. I just…I want to wake up with him. Dad, I’ve never felt this way before. About anything. Definitely not anyone. And…he makes me feel happy. He…makes me feel.”