Today Tonight Tomorrow

Enjoy as many nights like this as possible.

3:28 a.m.

THE POWER IS still out, and Neil McNair is in my room, and that is somehow not the strangest thing that’s happened today.

After we finished our list, I asked if he wanted to come back to my house, since he never got a chance to see my room. It’s the right ending to this day: letting him into my little piece of the world, the way he let me into his.

I am extremely grateful my parents are downstairs and heavy sleepers. I’m sure they won’t be up until after noon, but I don’t want to take any chances, so we tiptoe inside, and I have to force myself to whisper.

My phone has some juice from my car charger, so I find a soft but not too mopey Smiths song and hit play.

“So this is Rowan Roth’s room,” he says, trailing a hand along my desk. I love the way he looks in my room, softly lit from a flashlight. He glances from the photo collages and academic awards on my walls to the books stacked on my nightstand to the dresses spilling out of my closet.

“Yep. All the magic happens right here.”

“I like it. It’s very you.” He turns so his back is to the desk. “What do you feel like doing?”

“Hmm… I was thinking Monopoly.”

“Monopoly?” There’s that lazy grin. “Okay, but I’m really good at Monopoly, and it’s going to be embarrassing if I beat you aga—”

My lips are already on his. This kiss feels heavier than what happened at the museum, in the gym, at Kerry Park. Like someone stuck us in an electric socket or lit us on fire. He buries his hands in my hair, propelling me backward. When the backs of my knees hit the bed, he whispers, “Sorry,” and I have to hold in a laugh as I tug him down next to me. Climb into his lap. Then we’re kissing again, and his glasses keep falling down, so he whips them off and places them on the nightstand. He is so adorable and so hot and so sweet, always so sweet.

“I want to see you,” I say, my fingers flirting with the hem of his T-shirt.

“I’m warning you, it’s a lot of freckles.” But he pulls it off, revealing, to my delight, the wonderfully freckled stomach I got a glimpse of earlier.

“I love your freckles. Really and truly.”

I leave invisible handprints all over his chest, learning exactly where he’s ticklish. He skims his hands up to my knees, my hips, beneath the dress that has suddenly become a straitjacket. I twist on his lap, trying to reach the zipper. He has to help me with it, and together we tug it off.

Once I’m in just my bra and underwear, he stares.

“I’m not unattractive, right?” I say, because teasing him will never stop being fun.

“Now you know why I was wholly incapable of paying you a compliment. You are spectacular,” he says, leaning in to kiss down my neck. “And stunning. And—sexy.” There’s a beat before he says that last one, and the word makes me shudder. God.

“You are going to destroy me,” I whisper.

Losing my dress makes me kiss him with even more urgency. I run my hand over the front of his jeans, and he sucks in a breath through his teeth. It’s maybe the best sound I’ve ever heard, at least until I unzip and unbuckle and cast his jeans aside completely, pressing him deeper into the bed, and he releases another breathy groan again. Yep, I’m destroyed.

For a while we dissolve into a blur of lips and sighs and touches. The occasional mattress squeak when we reposition, a thin layer of fabric separating us. With every new touch, he’s timid at first, and it fucking kills me.

His hand slips between my legs, stroking the inside of my thigh and up, up. “Would this… be okay?”

“Yes. Yes.” What I really mean is please.

It took me long enough to figure it out for myself, so I give him some guidance. It turns out, he is an excellent listener. He whispers my name into my ear, slowly undoing me, and then I’m at the edge and falling, falling.…

I’m still recovering when the power suddenly returns and the house flashes to life, every light in my room blinking on at once.

He does have freckles everywhere.

I absolutely love it.

We’ve spent so much of tonight in the dark that I can’t help laughing, and he joins in, squinting at the bright lights. “Shhh,” I say, but it’s no use.

“Too bright,” he groans. “There’s plenty of natural light coming in from outside.”