In the movies, clothes just melt away when the couple is ready to make love. They’re all golden and backlit with the soundtrack soaring. In real life, it just isn’t like that. Jase has to take off his shirt and fumbles with his belt buckle and I hop around the room pulling off my socks, wondering just how unsexy that is. People in movies don’t even have socks. When Jase pulls off his jeans, change he has in his pocket slips out and clatters and rolls across the floor.

“Sorry!” he says, and we both freeze, even though no one’s home to hear the sound.

In movies, no one ever gets self-conscious at this point, thinking they should have brushed their teeth. In movies, it’s all beautifully choreographed, set to an increasingly dramatic soundtrack.

In movies, when the boy pulls the girl to him when they are both finally undressed, they never bump their teeth together and get embarrassed and have to laugh and try again.

But here’s the truth: In movies, it’s never half so lovely as it is here and now with Jase.

I take a deep breath as his hand skims down, down, to the back of my thigh. The feeling of his skin, all his skin, against mine gives me goose bumps. Then he pulls me closer and we plunge into a kiss that is like deep, deep water. When we finally stop for air, I wrap both legs around his hips. The corners of his eyes crinkle. His hands tighten on my bottom as he walks over to the bed. I slide off and am lying on my side, looking up at him. Jase bends down, crouching beside the bed, and stretches out his hand to put it on my heart. I do the same, feel his heart pounding, fast, fast.

“Are you nervous?” I whisper. “You don’t seem it.”

“I’m worried it’ll hurt for you, at first. I’m thinking it’s not fair that it’s like that.”

“It’s okay. I’m not worried about that. Come closer.”

Jase straightens up, slowly, then goes over to his jeans to pull out one of the condoms we bought together. He holds his palm out, flat. “Not nervous at all.” He ducks his head to indicate his fingers, which are trembling, slightly.

“What’s that one called?” I ask.

“I don’t even know. I just grabbed a bunch before I came over.” We lean over the little square of foil. “Ramses.”

“What’s with these names?” I inquire as Jase gently begins to open the packet. “I mean, were the Egyptians known for their effective birth control or what? And why Trojans? Aren’t they mostly remembered as the guys who lost? You’d think they’d use Macedonians, weren’t they the winners? I mean, I know it doesn’t sound as manly, but—”

Jase puts two fingers on my lips. “Samantha? It’s okay. Shhh. We don’t have to…We can just…”

“But I want to,” I whisper. “I want to.” I take a deep breath and reach out for the condom. “Do you want me to help, um, put it on?”

Jase blushes. “Yeah, okay.”

When we’re both lying on the bed, entirely naked, for the first time, just looking at him in the moonlight makes my throat ache. “Wow,” I say.

“I think that’s my line,” Jase whispers back. He puts his hand against my cheek and looks at me intently. My hand moves to cover his and I nod. Then his body is moving over me, and mine is opening to welcome him.

Okay. It does, after all, hurt a bit. I thought it might not, just because it’s Jase. There’s pain, but not wrenching or stabbing, more like a sting as something gives way, then aches a little as he fills me.

I bite down hard on my lower lip, opening my eyes to find Jase biting his, looking at me so anxiously that something in my heart yields even more completely.

“You okay? This okay?”

I nod, pulling his hips more tightly to my own.

“Now we’ll make it better,” Jase vows, and begins to kiss me again as he starts to move in a rhythm. My body follows, unwilling to let him go, already glad to have him come back.

Chapter Thirty-five

As you might imagine, I’m useless at Breakfast Ahoy the next day. Thank God I’m not lifeguarding. If I can’t remember how some people who come in every single day like their eggs, if I stare aimlessly at the coffeemaker, unable to stop smiling, at least no one’s life is threatened.

When Jase climbed out my window at four this morning, he got halfway down the trellis, then came back up. “Stop by the store after work,” he whispered after one last kiss.

So that’s where I head the minute I clock out, fast enough that I’m almost running. When I get to Main Street I try to slow down, but can’t. I fling the store door open, forgetting that the hinges are broken and it slams loudly against the wall.

Mr. Garrett glances up from his post behind the register, reading glasses perched on nose, pile of papers in lap. “Well. Hullo, Samantha.”

I didn’t even change out of my uniform, which no one could call empowering and confidence-building. I feel completely embarrassed and remember the lock on the door and think: He knows, he knows, it shows, shows completely.

“He’s out back,” Mr. Garrett tells me mildly, “unpacking shipments.” Then he returns to the papers.

I feel compelled to explain myself. “I just thought I’d come by. Before babysitting. You, know, at your house. Just to say hi. So…I’m going to do that now. Jase’s in back, then? I’ll just say hi.”

I’m so suave.

I can hear the ripping sound of the box cutter before I even open the rear door to find Jase with a huge stack of cardboard boxes. His back’s to me and suddenly I’m as shy with him as I was with his father.

This is silly.

Brushing through my embarrassment, I walk up, put my hand on his shoulder.

He straightens up with a wide grin. “Am I glad to see you!”

“Oh, really?”

“Really. I thought you were Dad telling me I was messing up again. I’ve been a disaster all day. Kept knocking things over. Paint cans, our garden display. He finally sent me out here when I knocked over a ladder. I think I’m a little preoccupied.”

“Maybe you should have gotten more sleep,” I offer.

“No way,” he says. Then we just gaze at each other for a long moment.

For some reason, I expect him to look different, the way I expected I would myself in the mirror this morning…I thought I would come across richer, fuller, as happy outside as I was inside, but the only thing that showed was my lips puffy from kisses. Jase is the same as ever also.