Funny Story

by Emily Henry

With that, I turn and power walk across the brilliantly sunlit parking lot to the guy slouched against the truck, the driver’s-side door hanging open, waiting for him. “You okay?” Miles asks, right as I pitch myself into his arms, wrapping mine around his neck. His brows shoot up in amused surprise. “Is he looking?” I whisper. Miles nods. “Can I kiss you?” A half-amused, half-scandalized smile overtakes his face. “Okay.” So I lean into him and lift my chin, and he ducks his forehead, and we have one of the top five worst kisses of my life, junior high included. The problem is, I go in way too hot, whereas he’s aiming for a chaste teenage-actors-doing-a-high-school-play kind of thing, so basically I end up biting his entire mouth, which makes him laugh into mine, which in turn makes me laugh, only by then, he’s adjusted his approach to match mine, and the laugh dies in the back of my throat as he grips my hip in one hand, my jaw in the other, and kisses me for real. Rough, impatient, but not clumsy

His mouth is still cool from the lemonade, his breath tinged with hints of lavender, and his hand slides around to the small of my back, fisting into my shirt. His other moves into my hair as he pulls me tight against him, my spine curving up until we’re flush with each other. His tongue slips into my mouth, experimentally, and then a little deeper, tangling with mine. A thrill shoots down the front of my rib cage as he turns us one hundred and eighty degrees, backing me into the side of the driver’s seat, settling his hips in against mine. I’ve read interviews with actors, about how filming sex scenes isn’t sexy, how the performance of it is mechanical. A little awkward, but overall professional. But that’s not what’s happening to me. What’s happening is biological, not cursory. My nipples are tightening against his chest, and heat is sinking lower in my stomach until it drops between my thighs, and when I feel him hardening against me, the shock of it almost instantly gives way to a frazzled, confusing want. I don’t remember moving my hands into his hair, but I feel it slip betwee...

“So if that’s the mild amusement laugh,” he says, “then the low chortle is reserved for…” “When you’re actually funny,” I say. Without warning, he grabs my ankles and yanks me down the couch, draping my legs across his lap, my butt resting against the side of his thigh so that his face hangs over me.

At the sarcasm, his grin spreads. He takes hold of my wrists. “No, don’t be self-conscious,” he says. “It’s so fucking cute.”

“Should be fun either way,” Julia says. “So should we all head to Cherry Hill, throw tiny pretzels at Miles while he’s working?” “We don’t serve pretzels,” Miles says, audibly offended.

No, I argue with myself. It’s because I want to wear a skirt to work tomorrow. I’m not buying it, though: the last time I wore a skirt at work, Handsy Stanley told me I was going to give him a heart attack. The hem reached midcalf.

“Or get three cats and name all of them The Goddess,” he adds. “Really? That was actually my favorite thing about Keith.”

Yesterday I had to ask a guy to stop leading wild pigeons inside with a breadcrumb trail.” “Again?” I say. “Not Larry,” she replies. “Different guy.”

“No,” I say firmly, turning in to Miles. I loop my own arms around his waist, basically propping my boobs up on his chest, and gazing into his eyes as I say, “But the roommate thing is pretty hot.” Miles’s pupils flare as he takes the cue, one hand cupping my jaw, and kisses me.

and in a second, I’m going to turn you ninety degrees and kiss you again, and when I stop, I want you to look to your left and see his face. Then you can tell me if he thinks his new life, without you, is something better.”

And as soon as he says the last word, he does it. Moves us in a half-turn, drops his nose along mine, and it’s like we picked up where that last kiss left off, everything already more urgent, intense from the jump. And I’m not wondering what Peter thinks of all this when Miles parts my lips with his tongue, his hand sliding firmly down to the curve of my ass. And when Miles’s other hand winds itself into my hair, and my spine arches up into him of its own accord, I’m thinking only of the spicy scent of ginger, the taste of espresso macaron in his mouth, the feeling of his erection between us. For a few seconds, I’m nothing but a body seeking more of his.

Miles’s gaze drops on a hoarse laugh, a shake of his head. He steps in closer, our hips brushing. Then he looks back up, takes my face in both hands, and kisses me again. Rough, deep, messy, breathless. With no one to see it. Nothing to stop us. His hips pin mine back to the side of the passenger seat. His hands move around to my back, spreading out over my bare spine, our chests pressing together, his heat cutting through the cold night. “I want to kiss you,” he murmurs, drawing back a mere inch, “every time you take a sip of something and make that sound.” I pull him back to me, that sound slipping from my mouth into his. My hands climb into his hair. His scrape down over my sides, his thigh pushing in between mine. “I want to kiss you every time I walk past your bedroom and hear your laugh through the door,” he says, and his hands steal beneath the hem of my dress, all the way up to cradle my hips, my skin prickling like every cell wants to be a little bit closer to him. I untuck his shirt from his waistband. My hands skim up over his back, greedily touching every warm curve I can get to.

“I want to kiss you every time I hear the shower turn on and know that you’re in there,” he rasps. I touch his stomach, his chest, the muscles tightening as my fingertips brush over them, and he takes hold of my hips, lifting me up into the truck. “I want to kiss you all the time, Daphne,” he says. “Sometimes it’s just easier to find an excuse.” I pull him closer by the belt loops, his hands grazing over my thighs as he pushes in between them. The curves of our bodies melt together. His parted lips run along my neckline. I scoot deeper into the truck, drawing him in after me, then climbing across his lap. His hands trace down my sides, his eyes dark. “Daphne,” he says, a throaty rumble.

He nods. “Any grievances to air?” “Well.” I think for a beat. “I’m not a huge fan of global warming.” The corners of his eyes crinkle, my heart leaping in response. “I hear the Great Barrier Reef is in trouble,” he says.

“Do you have any ChapStick?” he asks. “Can your mouth moisturization wait a minute?” I cry. “Nah, not really—it’s for the zipper, Daphne.” “In the medicine cabinet,” I tell him. We shuffle together into the cramped bathroom, him holding up the back of my dress as we go. I hand the tube to him and he does whatever it is he thinks he’s going to do with it, then goes back to wrestling the zipper. He loses purchase and smacks an elbow into the wall behind me with a grunt of pain. “It’s too cramped in here.” We shuffle-step back into the hall. He tries again, his frustrated huff turning into a laugh. “What?” I ask over my shoulder.

“Now I can’t see anything.” He drags me by the skirt through his bedroom door, bumping the lights on. “Can you lean over the dresser?” he asks. “Seriously?” I say. “I need more leverage,” he says, “and every time I pull, you come with me.” Dear god, what did I do to deserve this?

“I’m feeling unbearably stupid right now, Miles, so you’re going to have to do better than that. Tell me something awful.” He laughs. “Okay. What about this: when Petra and I got your save-the-date in the mail, she told me she didn’t want to get married, and I was like, Cool, no worries. Because I thought she meant in general, not specifically that she didn’t want to marry me.” I drop my face toward the dresser. My pained groan gives way to something more forceful, the emotion shaking through my shoulders.

“And Starfire?” he asks. “The missing sixth member of the Spice Girls,” I say.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Julia walking into the room, with the flowers in a vase. She, very smartly, turns and heads right back into the kitchen.

“She’s very smart,” he says. “And hot, if that’s relevant.”

“You’d be doing me a favor,” he says. “Julia and I have never shared a room in our lives, and for all I know, she yodels in her sleep.”

So I respond, very naturally, “Starfire told me I could call her ‘Mom.’ ” Miles chokes over a laugh. “Does it make you feel better or worse that she said the same thing to me?”

Miles stands at the water’s edge, shielding his eyes against the light. “Are you coming?” I shout back over the water’s roar. I see him laugh but can’t hear it, and I feel robbed of the sound. He takes off his shirt and pants, and comes toward me in easy, lazy strides. He picks up speed as he reaches me, water splashing up to my thighs and stomach as he catches me around the waist, hoists me off my feet. I shriek with surprised laughter, and he carries me deeper, my arms locked over his.

In the night I get up to pee, and when I come back, Miles is splayed out in the middle of the bed, arm outstretched like he’d been reaching for me in his sleep. Seeing him there, lit by the moon, sends a crushing tenderness through me. I tiptoe through the chilly room, climb into bed as gracefully as I can, but he still wakes enough to sleepily drape an arm around my waist and haul me into the warm nook of his body. “You were gone,” he murmurs. “Now I’m back,” I whisper. With a low, drowsy hum, he kisses my shoulder, and drifts back to sleep.

“Good!” he half shouts. “Expect something! You want to put me on a hook? Put me on the hook. I freaked out, Daphne, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

“No,” I stammer. “No?” Miles gives a hoarse laugh. “How is that a response to what I just said? I just told you I love you, Daphne.”

“Thank you.” I chance a look her way, but her eyes are glued to her monitor, nails clacking against her keyboard. “A few of us went in on it,” she deadpans. “Give them my regards,” I say.

“Maybe I should get a dog.” She looks to me for feedback. “I think you should do exactly what you want to do,” I tell her. “Let’s rob a bank,” she says. “I think you should get a dog.”

She asks about his day, and he confirms it was “so boring he almost died” and also that “Ricky Landis puked in first period, and Tinsley G”—there are two Tinsleys in his first period—“was so grossed out, she threw up too.”

A minute later, he adds, “Aren’t you guys a little old for sleepovers?”

My shoulders loosen. “I can do that.” “Of course you can,” she says. “You’re Daphne Fucking Vincent.” “Aww.” I touch my chest. “You know my last name and my middle name.”