Page 24 of The Best Worst Thing
“All my dreams are coming true,” Nicole said, taking a long sip of an ice-cold glass of whole milk. Logan’s fridge, all joking aside, was pretty fun. “I’m very pleased.”
“Good.”
He was just lying there, slumped into his sofa in a pair of gray sweatpants and an old Michigan T-shirt, watching Pride & Prejudice on purpose. Enjoying it, even, if the glimmer in his eye could be believed.
“About five minutes until the big moment, okay?” Nicole said.
Logan looked at her. And then, very quickly, her bare left hand. And then, again, at her. “How many times have you seen this movie, exactly?”
“Just, like, a really small, reasonable number.” She reached over him for an Oreo. “Like, whatever that number is in your head, it’s right around there.”
Logan smirked. “So, twice?”
“… a month?”
“Holy shit! And for years, we’ve been making fun of me? For just, like, a tiny bit of Dungeons & Dragons? A tiny, little bit of Legend of Zelda?”
“Excuse me, but only one person in this room broke their hand playing video games.”
“That was a strain! No structural damage!”
She glared at him, laughing. He caught her gaze, then glanced at the TV screen.
“This still your favorite?” he said.
Nicole bit her lip.
Logan watched her do it.
“No, actually.” She pulled some fleece Super Bowl blanket over her legs—his too.
The windows were cracked, and the summer air had turned cool and damp.
It was one of the best things about Logan’s place.
How his slider, his front door were always open, and California always seemed to creep through his screens.
How, from time to time, in the distance, a car would start, a stranger would laugh, or a dog would bark. “It’s Persuasion now.”
“Really? Since when?”
On-screen, Elizabeth was already headed to the carriage. They didn’t have much time.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s grown on me, I guess. It’s really good.”
“Should I read it?”
Nicole studied him. She wasn’t shy about it.
She scanned him, head to toe. His ungovernable, dirty-blond hair.
His scruffy, sun-kissed face. The curves of his hands, the lines in his arms, the way the seams of his shirt settled across his shoulders like he’d never felt a hint of stress his whole life. He looked really good, didn’t he?
There was no use denying it anymore.
He looked good. He did then, and he did now.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding like he hadn’t just watched her eye all six feet of him, inch by inch. “It’s hot.”
Logan laughed, then started asking his requisite questions, but Nicole shushed him.
And then they both watched Elizabeth Bennet wrap her pretty little hand around Fitzwilliam Darcy’s fingers and Lizzy looked at Darcy and Darcy looked at Lizzy and Nicole looked at Logan and then Matthew MacFadyen flexed his damn hand and Logan yelped and Nicole squealed—even though she’d watched this scene a hundred times—because she’d known Logan was going to love it and she was right. He had.
“Holy shit!”
“I know! Iconic!” Nicole said, squeezing a pillow into her chest, beaming, and that was when it happened.
Her socked foot, somewhere underneath that absurd Seahawks blanket, had found itself between his legs and she could feel the cotton of his sweatpants graze her bare shins and she could feel her legs start to want his hands to find her skin and she could feel something deep and heavy and unmistakable start to brew inside of her—a pound, it was a pound, and she wasn’t sure when or how or where it started or how to stop it or whether she even wanted to—and he was looking right at her and she was looking right at him and then she pressed the edge of her right foot into the inside of his left one and he kind of bit his lip and she kind of gasped and that was it.
They were touching.
Logan scratched his neck—eyes on her—and Nicole nodded—eyes on him—and then, without a word, they began to rearrange their limbs in brilliant, blanketed silence as the movie blurred and blue light lapped the room and blood rushed between Nicole’s legs.
And then, like magic, the seams of their socks had found each other’s and they just sat there—bodies, mirrors—and pressed their feet together and looked at each other and shook their heads and laughed.
It was happening.
They’d done it.
They continued their movie, grinning like idiots, toes tangled. They watched as Mr. Darcy barged into the Collinses’ home, they watched as rain poured down on that botched proposal, they watched as Lizzy tore Darcy a new one. Every scene, sparks.
“I want to kiss you, Nicole,” Logan said. Her whole body jolted. “You know that, right?”
She nodded. Every inch of her seized, and she just nodded.
“I had a feeling, yeah.”
She pressed her foot against his a little harder. He pressed back.
“You just tell me when, then.”
“Okay.”
He smiled at her, and she smiled back, and then they just sat there—eating junk food, making small talk, watching Mr. Darcy get the girl—with their soles intertwined.
When the movie ended, they started another.