Brandy Colbert - Pointe

“Well, nobody’s said anything to me,” he says, exhaling his smoke toward the sliver of open air at the top of the window. “Klein knows I don’t put up with that gossipy bullshit.”

I don’t want to care, but that statement lets me know I do. A part of me deflates as he says that. I know it shouldn’t matter because he’s not my boyfriend. But it makes me feel as if he’s downplaying our connection. As if I’m in this alone and imagined everything that’s happened between us.

“But it’s not bullshit. This. Us.” I spread my hands around the interior of his tiny car.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says impatiently. “Of course it’s not bullshit. It’s just . . . I’m not exactly in the habit of cheating on my girlfriend. And then you . . .”

I’m dying to know what’s on the end of that sentence, but when I look over, his eyes are flashing and I know better than to ask before he’s ready to tell me. I don’t want to push him away.

So I stare out the window as the lights of downtown Chicago twinkle around us. I remember when I’d come into the city as a kid, how I thought it was magical. The buildings seemed positively gargantuan back then, and I loved the overhead chugging of the El as we walked the crowded sidewalks, navigating our way between the patches of stores.

The car is too still. The busted radio means we’re dependent on the sounds outside to break up the silence: the uneven rumble of the engine, the hum of cars in the lanes parallel to us, the long, high wail of sirens in the distance.

Hosea exits smoothly off the expressway, makes a couple of right turns, and pulls onto a quiet residential street near the Ashland Hills train station, then turns to me, ready to finish what he started to say when we were back in the city. He takes a deep breath. “And then you came around and made me feel something . . . new. Something good. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way, Theo.”

Now the heater is blasting hot, stale air and the car is too warm. I take off my gloves, slowly lay them across my lap, one on top of the other.

“What about Ellie?” I say weakly. I didn’t expect him to be so upfront about his feelings. Does this mean he’s going to break up with her?

“Ellie is . . . Ellie.” He shrugs. “She knows about the music stuff, but she doesn’t care. That’s why I didn’t tell her about my job at the studio. She doesn’t make me want to be better, like you do. She doesn’t get that it’s scary . . . to want something so much and not be sure if you’re good enough. I guess sometimes I feel like she doesn’t know the real me, or something.”

“Then she’s missing out. Anyone should feel lucky to know the real you,” I say. Softly, because I didn’t think I would say it out loud.

“That’s, like, the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” His voice is quiet. Then he inhales from his clove one last time and smashes the butt into the crowded ashtray under the dash.

“It’s true.” I fiddle with my gloves because I don’t know what else to do with my hands. Because telling me I just said the nicest thing to him is sort of the nicest thing in itself.

He looks down at the gearshift, where his fingers tap out a quick rhythm. “Did you say something to Marisa?”

I give him a funny look. “About us? Of course not.”

“No, I mean . . . what I said about music school. She called me into her office to ask what my plans are after I graduate. She gave me some sheet music she thinks I’ll like and said she knows someone in the music program at Columbia College if I wanted to talk about applying. Why would she do something like that if you didn’t talk to her?”

“Because it’s not exactly a secret that you’re good enough to be serious about music, Hosea.” I look down at the gearshift, wish his hand was touching me instead. “Marisa likes to help people who work hard.”

“She told me to think about what I want to do next fall, and that I could practice on the piano at the studio when there are no classes. For free.” His voice is incredulous, his eyes wide. “Do you know how long it’s been since I really played a piano? Like, with my own music? I have one at home, but it’s hard to compose on that thing. It’s an old spinet and it’s shitty and . . .”

He trails off as if he’s so overwhelmed by Marisa’s kindness that he doesn’t know what to say.

“You’re going to do it, right?” I say encouragingly.

“I think so.” He leans against the headrest.

“But?”

“But . . . you don’t think she’s just being nice?”

My eyes lock on his wrist. I imagine my fingers wrapped around it, his pulse beating warm and quick against my skin. We understand each other. We like each other. This isn’t my imagination.

“No,” I say. “And your piano teacher wasn’t saying those things to be nice, either. Neither was I. You’re really, really good, Hosea.”

He looks at me, lets out a long, quiet breath. Then his lips meet mine with urgency. But it’s not demanding like Chris, or chaotic like Klein. It’s full of intense yearning that makes me pause for a moment to look at him before I return it with an urgency of my own, a kiss so steeped in need and craving, it must be radiating from me. I pull away, look at him as I wonder why I can’t seem to control myself with him.

“Hey.” He smooths a hand over the top of my head, squeezes the bun at the back. “We can stop. I should stop. I didn’t mean to break my promise.”

Too late.

“No.” My chest is rising and falling so quickly. We’re both breathing hard. Panting, almost. “Don’t stop.”

He smiles.

We remove our coats and then he’s back with me. He lowers his head to my neck, brushes his lips against the dip in my collarbone. My fingers crawl beneath the layers of his shirts until I make contact with his skin, slide my hands along the muscles in his back.

His strong piano hands trace the lines of my body and I wonder if it disappoints him. I look nothing like what he’s used to, must feel so different from Ellie’s curves. But the way he looks at me between kisses and lifts the hem of my shirt, inch by inch, slowly exploring what’s underneath—it makes me feel like I’m the only girl he’s ever wanted.

He slides his finger below the waistband of my jeans and I flinch. Only a little, but enough for him to notice, to pull back and exhale as he says, “Sorry.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just . . .”

I feel so light-headed, so happy and confused and wrong and good. But I don’t trust myself around him and I need to know if there’s any hope of a real us. An us that can be seen in public, that doesn’t have to meet up in parked cars on dark streets.

He looks at me expectantly, his face flushed, his eyes filled with the same heat.

“Are you . . .” My voice is garbled. I clear my throat. “Are you going to break up with her?”

His eyebrows shoot up before they sink low in—not exactly a frown, but whatever look that is, it isn’t good. He leans back in his seat, away from me, and I think that must be an involuntary sign. A preview of his answer, if I didn’t already know by the look on his face.

“It’s not that easy, Theo.” His eyes are trained on the dashboard, where a ribbon of cellophane curls into a corner. He sweeps it into the console with the pack of cloves it came from. “We’ve been together almost two years now.”

I pretend my throat isn’t aching. “But you make me feel something good, too.”

“What am I supposed to do?” He throws his hands in the air. “Tell her I met someone else and break things off, just like that? I can’t do that totally out of the blue and after two years. ”