Page 50 of Cocky Nerd
“Right. It’sjust…”
“What?”
“You really didn’t think I should be a professionaldancer.”
“I was wrong.”That may be the first time I’ve ever said those three little words in my life, and I meanit.
She is even more stunned by my utterance than I am. Her lower lip quivers, but she manages to hide it with a small smile that reaches inside me, grips my heart, and then plucks it from my chest when she forms the quiet words, “Thank you,Johnny.”
My fingers reach out to touch her mouth. I don’t know why, until she kisses them. My fingers understand her so much more than my brain does, I guess. I cradle her face in my hand. Her eyes are wet. I don’t understand. “What?”
“Are you acting rightnow?”
“What? No.” Why would she ask me that? “No.”
She unbuckles her seatbelt and leans over to kiss me, almost frantic, like it’s a kiss goodbye, like we might never see each otheragain.
I run my fingers over her hair. “Hey. Hey. Are youokay?”
She nods, kisses me one more time, then settles back down into her seat, straightening herself out, just as the captain turns off the seatbelt sign and all the other passengers on the plane standup.
I don’t know if I can stand. I feel queasy. I don’t ever want to be kissed like that again, like it’s the last time. I don’t understand what just happened. This plane ride has been a roller coaster of emotions for me. I don’t do roller coasters. Oremotions.
When we’rein the back of the car, being driven to the hotel, once I finally get off the phone with Sanjay, I ask her what she wants to dotonight.
“I want to order room service, eat it in bed, and watch dumb movies with you. Watch you squirm until we fallasleep.”
“How do you know I’llsquirm?”
She laughs. Is it possible she knows me better than I think shedoes?
She’s right.I squirm. We order pretty much everything off the room service menu and she makes me watchHot Tub Time Machine 2.I had actually liked the first one, but the sequel just makes me angry, because where the fuck is John Cusack? But mostly I squirm because her arm is around me and one hand is resting on my abs. I promised myself I would refrain from having sex tonight, because we cannot afford to have sex hangovers tomorrow. I have three meetings tomorrow and a plan to check out a potential investment in midtown, then the gala event tomorrow night where we will have to pose forpictures.
I keep telling myself this while she’s clearing the dishes off of the bed, while she casually removes her sleep shirt and climbs under the covers beside me, totally naked, when she turns away from me and says, “good night,” with her husky voice and a tone that says: “good luck with that no sex thing, buddy.” And then I drink a bottle of water, take a double dose of Vitamin C, and have New York-style sex with her—hot and dirty like Times Square in the 1970’s—because she’s here and I’m here, and I may be a nerd but I’m not an idiot, and whatever power or resolve I once had to resist her got lost somewhere over thePacific.
I can’t believehow much this scares me, but fuckit.
I’m a genius.
I’ll figure it out.
