Page 26 of Happiness for Beginners

“On the boob?” He shrugged, like he knew this was wrong.

“Incorrect! Anywhere but there! The back of her neck. Or in her hair. Or against her back.” I pointed at him. “Not on the boob! You’ve got to earn the right to go there.”

He jotted it down in his Harvard-trained mind. Then he put his hands, one by one, on my hips.

“I didn’t say ‘hips,’” I said then, just to scold him.

He tilted his head. “I’m not kissing you yet.”

“Pop quiz!” I said then. “How long is too long for kissing?”

He turned those puppy eyes to the ceiling and really thought about it. “Thirty minutes?”

“Wrong!” I said. “There is notoo longfor kissing.”

“But eventually she might want to move on to other things.”

“If you’re doing it right, she certainly will.”

“I don’t want her to be frustrated.”

“Frustrated is good!” I said. “Within reason.”

Strangest conversation ever. We were talking about some hypothetical woman in the third person when we both knew we were actually talking about me. Or, at least, me a few minutes from now.Iwas the one I was telling him to frustrate. And explore. And bite. And what’s more, my voice was talking, but my body waslistening. And really, really paying attention. And turning out to be something of an A student, as well.

Somehow, we’d closed the small distance between us. He was right there. Inches away. I could feel the warmth of his body and the slight stir of the air his breaths made.

“Frustration iswanting,” I said, trying to remain teacherly. “And wanting is always better than having.”

“Always?”

I hated to break the awful truth. “Always,” I said.

“Sounds like torture.”

“No, no, no,” I said. “Wanting without hope is torture. Wantingwithhope is anticipation.”

He was staring at my mouth. “So kissing is anticipation?”

I nodded, so aware of how close he was. His T-shirt was a little nubby, as if he’d washed it a thousand times. He smelled like soap and peppermint. “Kissing is pure anticipation.”

“What does that make the anticipation of kissing?”

But my talking voice was succumbing to my listening body. Feeling was crowding out thinking. I felt woozy from his gaze. Too woozy to formulate an answer. “I have a lot more to say,” I said, “but I can’t seem to remember what it is.”

“Me neither.”

There was a pause, and with it, we passed the point where words could go. That was it. After all the frustration and wanting and torture, anticipation gave way to more anticipation.

Jake leaned in until his mouth was barely an inch away, but just when I expected him to press in and kiss me, he paused, as if he were trying to stop and savor the moment. I could feel his toothpaste-y breath against my lips, as I stood there right on the precipice. And then, at last, he lifted a hand to the back of my neck and pressed his mouth against mine. It was just as warm and firm and certain as I would have guessed. He turned out to be great at following directions. He pushed in and then pulled back. He brushed his tongue and then pulled away. He pulled tight and then relaxed. There was a great rhythm to it, like being tugged by ocean waves.

“Oh my God,” I said. “You do get straight A’s.”

“Told ya,” he said. “I’ve wanted to do this since the first second I saw you, by the way. All I wanted was to walk up to you and do exactly this.”

“You mean, as I was walking down the aisle? To get married?”

He nodded.

---