Page 5 of Exit Lane
“Please, Teddy. It has to be the least sexy song in the American songbook.”
I jump off my stool and dig in my pocket for change. “Is that so?” I grin at her and head for the jukebox, actively ignoring the hundreds of ways I’m picturing this night ending, hoping instead to allow it to unfold as it will.
I play it six times. Every time, she boos, and the leather-skinned motorcyclists on the other end of the bar cheer. We’re two, maybe three whiskeys in, and it’s a little past eleven.
Marin’s flush is back. Our stools are closer, and her gestures are more animated. She laughs into my shoulder, doing the thing where she pushes her hair back, and now it is making my stomach drop in a way that reaches all the way to my dick. Emilie gave me an objectively hot sexual send-off this morning, and here I am losing my bearings over Marin’s collarbones, tracing my eyes across her shoulders, shuddering at the thought of compressing the space between us.
“Loose opinions strongly held,” she says, dropping two waters in front of us after chatting up a group of truckers near the pitcher at the end of the bar. I shake my head for her to go on. “It’s this game Sloane and I always play when we go out. Tell me something inconsequential or abstract you believe in one hundred percent.” She taps my chest for emphasis on every syllable of “One. Hun. Dred. Per. Cent.” I want to grab her hands, turn them over in my own, and bring them to my lips. Instead, I’m a good sport, though it’s becoming harder to determine what that means when it comes to the two of us.
I lean back on my stool, never at a loss for opinions. “Breakups should never happen in person.” Marin feigns confusion, leaning her elbow against the bar. She gets this look in her eyes right before she’s about to say something cutting. It scares me shitless and also turns me on.
“Ok, that’s a strong start. I want to ask why, but I get the vague sense that childhood trauma or a secretly gay high school sweetheart might be to blame.”
I laugh. “Your turn.”
“Being able to pull off bangs is genetic. Some people are born with it. I am not.” Having a younger sister has taught me to never weigh in on the loaded topic of bangs. I nod respectfully and try framing her forehead with the front pieces of her hair. “It kind of works, unfortunately.” She’s laughing, and I’m a few inches from her face. I wish I could smell her. I wish we were in a place where the scents of fry grease and booze weren’t drowning everything else out.
We go back and forth, draining our whiskeys, trading the bartender our bills for quarters so we can keep tormenting each other with the jukebox. Now it’s Marin’s turn again, and our stools are basically conjoined, and her knee is between my legs.
“You can’t get mad at this one. Teddy, please don’t take it personally.” She holds my shoulders, facing me straight on, her mouth a few inches from mine once again. “Men,” her mouth opens slowly in an attempt to prevent a smile, “and women,” she’s suddenly serious and I get the sick feeling she might not be joking, “can’t be friends.”
“No, no, no. Objection. Absolutely not. This is surprisingly old-fashioned for a woman like you, Marin.”
“I mean it. Take it from someone who’s tried friends to lovers and lovers to friends: It’s impossible. That’s why I have zero male friends.”I guess this answers my question.The blue of her eyes was a fact in the car, but here in the pub, it’s a challenge.
“We’re friends.” I sigh, taking her hands from my shoulders and holding them in my own. These are sparks—undeniable, storybook sparks—but I mutter, “This is friendship.”
She pulls closer, palms on my knees now, close enough for me to smell the smoky perfume on her neck. Close enough to know I’m standing at the cliff of pre-Marin and post-Marin. It’s not too early to say this woman could ruin my life. And I’m pretty certain that’s exactly what I’m hoping for. “Prove it,” she whispers.
I swallow, eyes drifting from the blue of her irises to the muted red of her lips. “I’m going to kiss you right now, and it’s not going to change anything,” I whisper back, leaving any rational thought behind as I lean in, my mouth grazing hers tentatively, politely. The second the contact registers, everything around us goes blurry. The gleam of the Old Style clock disappears, and the sound of the patrons playing pool mutes. Her hand moves to the soft spot behind my ear, and my heartbeat is in my throat. Her tongue teases mine, and I am instantly hard. I stand, releasing some of the tension in my jeans, and hover over her as I grab the fabric of her button-up in my fist. This is not the feeling of making out with someone at a bar, drunk and desperate. This ishard-earned, the kind of kiss that’s trying to say what a thousand words cannot.
Someone cheers from the trucker side of the room. We pull apart.
“Game on,” she says, flushed with an impossible lightness in her eyes. “Just friends.” She slips off her seat, and I wonder for a second if she’s going to lean in and press her lips against mine again. But she turns toward the bathroom.
I smooth my pants, confused, dizzy, and enchanted all at once. Tomorrow we’ll be in New York. Tonight I’ll think about the words “just friends” coming from Marin’s mouth and imagine what else those lips are capable of.
IV
Marin
I climb into bed at the Best Inn and Suites across the street from the pub. I am actively trying to stop fixating on images of Teddy. His deep-green eyes. They never left me from the second we parked to the moment we started to kiss. The movie projector in my head keeps rolling on the way his pupils dilated as he leaned in with parted lips and pressed them against mine. How he rocked on his back foot, pretending to pick any song other than “Hotel California” at the jukebox, trying not to smile. His jawline. I try tirelessly to think of anything else—this morning with Georgie, my first camp counselor, Tom Selleck in the eighties—but Teddy’s the only thing on my brain. I toss and turn on the worn mattress, weighing whether the vibrator somewhere in my bag will help conjure sleep or delay it further. The reality of the situation sinks in the same way it does when I’m fighting a cold or a UTI and attempting to convince myself it’s notreallyhappening: I have a crush. It is undeniable. I sigh as I pull the scratchy comforter over my head.
When I wake up, the sun illuminates the dust in a hotel room that seemed much nicer at midnight after four whiskeys. I turn off my alarm, ignoring a text from Sloane asking how it’s going. The question’s a little too nuanced for pre-coffee Marin. Today’s a Levi’s 505day, plus a massive button-down I rescued from a Salvation Army and the loafers that remind me of where I’m headed—my new life. Despite a laughable attempt at a four-minute meditation, all I can conjure as I pack up my toiletries is the kiss—over and over on a loop. I’d barely had time to imagine what Teddy’s mouth would feel like. His gentleness surprised me. It wasn’t shyness. It was restraint. A kiss that revealed he’d thought about a lot more than making out at the bar. My hips hollow out at the memory, but I ignore the feeling and sling my duffle over my shoulder. Today’s the day I move to New York and leave everything, including last night, behind.Imagine going to New York and fucking an Iowa boy.
Pulling the door shut, my emotions a jumble of live wires, I roll my shoulders back, determined to play it as cool as possible. I’m about to start the rest of my life. That’s overwhelming enough. As the elevator descends, I find myself attempting to organize my feelings into tidy compartments in my mind and tuck them away. One box for my grief. Another for my anxiety about being so far from Sloane. A third for this sudden tug toward Teddy.
Now he’s within my line of sight, standing in the lobby by the coffee station, freshly showered. “Hi,” I mutter, trying to avoid eye contact. He looks up, sincere, and gestures as I approach.
“Milk? Or these weird flavored creamers? How’d you sleep?”
“Black,” I respond.I slept like my whole body knew you were just down the hall.
“Of course.” He passes me a cup and reaches for my bag without making it a thing, and we head to the car, me trailing a few steps behind.
The fact of the matter, the ten-hour fact of the matter ahead of us, lingers. Last night happened. But I don’t want to talk about it. I buckle myself in and pull on my sunglasses. “Chicago traffic is going to be awful. I’ll help navigate.”
Indiana’s out the windows. Suburban sprawl and cornfields alternate under billboards advertising lawyers and salvation. I glance at Teddy as I snack on pistachios. He’s tough to read. Almost like he’s been media trained, but it could just be emotional repression—or maybe that’s me projecting. His Wayfarers fit his face like a presidential hopeful. I notice his arms—how many times can I notice his arms?—muscular under a white T-shirt, and the way his grip is loose but steady on the wheel. His hands make my stomach flip.Imagining them tracing my body is fair play, I tell myself.The second we get to the city, it’s over.
