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“Clearly, you’re not reading the right books.”
He slides hair away from my ear, mouth against my skin. “Thank you. For all of this, and—for not giving up on me.”
“I missed you too much,” I say, shivering as he lingers in the spot beneath my ear, because at some point on day 27 or 28, Miles developed moves. “Oh—and I really missed that.”
But of course he’s still Miles, still sweet and a little bit awkward. And I love it all. “I don’t know what just happened or why it did, but I’m very, very happy to be back.”
I’m about to yank him closer when a voice freezes us both.
“Ahem.”
Gladys the librarian is standing on the opposite side of our table.
I’m nearly on top of the table at this point, Miles half bent over me.
“Sorry, Gladys,” I whisper sheepishly, smoothing my shirt as Miles backs away.
“Just nice to see you two doing something other than argue, for a change.” And with that she turns on her heel and walks away.
Oh my god.
“Did she just—” I say, staring unblinkingly at Miles.
Miles laughs. “I think she did.”
“You think—the whole time?”
“It’s very possible,” he says, leaning forward once more to muffle his laughter against my shoulder.
Once we’ve regained control over our amusement and our libidos, we try our best to puzzle out why the hell this happened.
“I was uncertain about leaving,” he says when we sit back down, his hand linked with mine again. As though now that he remembers me, he can’t bear to stop touching me. Every so often, he grazes his forehead with his other hand, the pain of remembering so many months all at once gradually fading. “That could have been why it took me longer to remember?”
“Are you admitting it may not have been wholly scientific?”
“Maybe science is a little magical. Everything that’s now been proven scientifically—thousands of years before, it was considered magic.” There’s not resignation in the soft curve of his mouth, but a compromise. “Do you remember what happened when the elevator opened?”
“I don’t know,” I say, tightening my grip on his fingers. “We could go back and check?”
But neither of us makes a move to get up.
“I’m not sure if I want to risk it,” he says. “I think I’m okay with it—with not knowing.”
We spend some time catching each other up on the past day and a half. I tell him about my mom and the counseling appointment I made, and he tells me that in his freshman seminar, he learned how to maximize the use of UW’s libraries, which makes us start laughing again.
“And you’re coming to the birthday dinner with Max and my parents this weekend,” he says, the statement imbued with a kind of confidence I’m not sure I’ve heard from him before.
“I am?”
At my question, that confidence falters for a moment. “I think they’d want to meet my girlfriend?”
I can’t stop grinning. God, I love the way that sounds. “Your girlfriend can’t wait.”
Then we’re quiet for a long, long time. A good kind of quiet. The world is so loud sometimes, and I’ve missed slowing down, listening to breaths and heartbeats.
It’s just before sundown when we finally leave the library, our grumbling stomachs steering us toward dinner. As we step outside, it strikes me that neither of us is the person we were the first time we met here. Somehow, we were able to move forward when we were standing still.
Summer seems to have turned to autumn overnight, leaves glowing orange in the last rays of sunlight. Incredible what a difference thirty two days can make. There aren’t as many students tabling, but the swing dancers are out again. There’s a sign for a student art exhibit I haven’t seen before, and someone dressed as a husky handing out free doughnuts. And I realize I don’t actually know the names of every building in the quad.
