Page 101 of The Seven Year Slip

He laughed again, bright and golden, and kissed me on the cheek. “Okay.” And he pulled me into the immaculate kitchen and made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from some leftover ends of a loaf of freshly baked bread, grape compote, and natural peanut butter. The bread was soft, and when I kissed him, he tasted like grape jelly, and he told me about the new chefs in his kitchen, and asked me, “What are you going to do with the rest of your life now, Lemon?”

I cocked my head and debated while he leaned over and took a bite of my sandwich. “I don’t know, but I think I should make sure my passport is good.”

“You’re going to travel?”

“I think I might. And, I don’t know, maybe chase the moon.”

He leaned over, since we were both sitting on the countertop, and kissed me gently on the lips. “I think that’s a great idea.”

I put the rest of my sandwich down, and curled my fingersaround his collar, feeling the heat from his skin on my cold fingers. In all honesty, I was hungry for something else entirely. “Do you want to come back to my apartment?”

“Only,” he replied, as a crooked grin curved his lips, “if you can guess my favorite color.”

“Well, that’s easy,” I said, and leaned in close to whisper the answer in his ear.

He barked a laugh, his eyes glittering.

“Am I right, James Iwan Ashton?” I asked, already knowing that I was. At first, I hadn’t been all that sure what his favorite color was, but it turned out that he’d been saying it this entire time, repeating it, over and over, every time he called my name.

Because his favorite color was the same as mine.

The monroe was quietthat evening. The sky was bright with the last dredges of sunlight, throwing pinks and blues across the horizon, as I led Iwan into the twelve-story building where stone creatures held up the eaves and neighbors played musicals on their violins. Earl was at the front desk, reading Agatha Christie, and he perked up with a wave, and returned to it as we hurried to the elevator.

“You have no idea how many times I walked past this building hoping I’d catch a glimpse of you,” he said as we slipped inside. “I was half afraid that man would recognize me eventually.”

“It’s a wonder we never bumped into each other after the taxi,” I agreed. “What would you have done?”

He bit his bottom lip. “Plenty of things that are probably frowned upon in polite society.”

“Oh, now I’mveryinterested—Look up,” I added, and when he did, I whispered to him, and my mirror-self whispered to his a halfsecond later, and his eyes widened at the words. He gave me a lookas color crept up his collar and tinged his cheeks, making his freckles almost glow. I watched him run his tongue along his bottom teeth, mouth slightly parted.

“Really,” he mumbled.

I gave a shrug. The elevator door opened onto the fourth floor. “Maybe,” I said, smiling a secret sort of smile, and pulled him out of the elevator and down the hall. We passed rows and rows of crimson doors with lion-head door knockers. In front of the door to apartment B4, he pulled me close and wrapped me in his arms and pressed my back against it, and snagged my mouth with his. He kissed fervently, as if he’d been waiting for a drink for years.

“I never got over that,” he murmured, breaking away just long enough for a breath.

I slid my hands up his chest. “What?”

“How well you kiss. Over the last seven years,” he went on, resting his forehead against mine, “I went on so many dates, I kissed so many people, I tried to fall in love again and again, and all I could think about was you.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. “All seven years?”

“Two thousand five hundred and fifty-five days. Not that I was counting,” he added, because clearly he had been, and that made the butterflies in my stomach awfully happy. Seven years—sevenwhole years.

I whispered, “At least you don’t have to wait a day more.”

He smiled, wide and crooked. And he pressed his lips to mine again. Softly, savoring. “No,” he murmured against my lips, planting another kiss on the corner of my mouth. “But the wait was worth it, Lemon.”

“Say it again?” I murmured, because I still loved the way he said my nickname in his soft Southern drawl.

I felt him smile against my mouth, as his hand came up tocradle my face, and he kissed me again, as if he couldn’t get enough of it, and quite honestly I could spend the rest of my life being kissedbyhim. His mouth lingered against mine, deeper this time, hungrier. He leaned in, his hands traveling to my hips. I ran my fingers down the line of buttons on his shirt before I slipped them between two of them near his stomach, brushing my fingertips along his skin. I could get lost here in this moment, no travel guides, no itineraries.

Until I remembered—“We’re still in the hallway.”

“Are we?” He kissed my cheek.

“We are.”

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