He Told Me to Stay Away, So I Left and He Followed novel · Chapter 26 of 32

Chapter 26: Thirteen Days and a Few Hours

He crossed the yard in the dark without once looking at the ground.

I came around the corner of the building, and we stopped four feet apart.

At four feet, with my glasses on, I could see all of him.

He needed a shave. He had a pencil behind his ear and dirt on both knees.

"That's the word," he said.

"That's the word."

"You said you didn't need anything."

"I don't." My voice shook, and I let it. "I wanted you anyway. That's different."

He closed the distance in two steps and stopped just short of touching me.

"I'm not allowed to ask," he said. "It's day thirteen."

"Ask."

"Can I?"

I pulled him down by the front of his jacket.

He kissed me slowly at first. Then I bit his lip, and he stopped being careful.

His hands came up into my hair. My recorder swung against my hip and knocked into his.

We laughed into each other's mouths and kept going.

When we broke apart, my glasses were crooked and he was breathing as hard as I was.

"Wait," I said. "Before anything else. Tell me what you decided."

He took a long breath and looked at the string rectangle on the dirt.

"I didn't reapply to Lakeshore."

My stomach dropped, and I kept my face still.

"Don't do the quiet thing," he said. "Let me say it. I sat in that cafe on Fremont Avenue for nine days with the application open."

"The cellist saw you."

"Of course she did." He almost smiled. "I wrote the essay twice. And both times, I got to the part where it asks why Chicago, and I had no answer that wasn't a lie."

"What's your answer for Seattle?"

"The firm gave me a design lead on a library branch. A real one. Forty thousand square feet, glass, a reading room facing the water."

"Miles."

"I want it. I want it so badly I've been dreaming in section drawings." He looked at me. "You asked me to find out if I could stand up here without you."

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