You and Me on Vacation

by Emily Henry

You also probably don’t imagine him dressing like some kind of teenage librarian, or barely looking you in the eyes, or always speaking just a little bit under his breath.

I would fall in love with this man.

He ducks his head, flushes. “Yep.”

Something so good about a guy whose hot but is also shy and blushes

“Hi,” he says, and I hope he heard the smile in my voice the way I hear it in his.

I really, really wasn’t, but somehow, that was enough to cool the harsh sting of all those memories. He saw me, and he loved me.

In the middle of this (otherwise perfect) studio apartment, there sits one bed.

Emily Henry you have charmed me.

Alex shakes his head, then bows it as he slathers more sunblock onto his neck. “You look better than you did back then, Poppy.”

Smash

And right then. That. That is the first moment I want to kiss Alex Nilsen. I feel it all the way to my toes for two breathless seconds. Then I pack those seconds into a tight knot, tucking them deep in my chest where I promise myself they will live in secret forever.

He shook his head and pulled me into his chest, squeezing me, lifting me up into him like he planned to absorb me. “I love you,” he said, and kissed my head. “And if you want, we can die alone together.”

I want to tell him I’ll feel terrible if I leave. I want to say, All I wanted for this trip was to be anywhere with you all day or Who cares about seeing Palm Springs when it’s one hundred degrees out or I love you so much it sometimes hurts.

He squints tipsily at me as we walk. “You make me weird. I’m not like this with anyone else.”

And I’m only meeee when Immmmmmm with youuuuu

But now, dancing to “Brown Eyed Girl,” the heat has gone out of his touch. And I’m happy, because I never want to lose this.

Very Cornelia Street of them

“I know. You asked me who I was, and—it was like the answer came out of nowhere. Sometimes it feels like I didn’t even exist before that. Like you invented me.”

Actually physically clutched my heart

I can’t wait to see you, I say, feeling suddenly like saying this very normal thing is bold, risky even. I know, he writes back, it’s all I can think about.

I give him the most chaste hug I can muster, despite the way that his lifting me against him sends that same spine-arching shiver down my back and heat pooling in all the places he’s never touched me. “I’ll miss you,” he says in a low growl against the side of my ear, and I force myself to step back a sensible distance. “You too.”

“I think about you all the time,” he says, and kisses me slowly, drags his mouth down my neck, goose bumps fluttering out in his wake. “I think about this.”

AAAGGHHHH

“I just … never get to look at you like this.” The corner of his mouth twitches into a smile. “You could have always looked,” he says in a low voice. “Just so you know.” “Well, you could’ve too,” I say. “Trust me,” he says. “I did.”

“That was amazing,” I say. “I mean, for me. It’s never been like that for me before.” He props himself up and looks down at me. “It’s never been like that for me either.”

It’s giving Normal People Marianne and Connell ‘it’s not like this with other people’ and I LOVE that line like I love this one. Soulmates.

We don’t so much as brush against each other until we hug goodbye. We never speak about what happened again. I go on loving him.

The people yearn for this kind of yearning

“I’m not a vacation from your real life,” he says. “I’m not a novelty experience. I’m someone who’s been in love with you for a decade, and you should never have kissed me if you didn’t know that you wanted this, all the way. It wasn’t fair.”

I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you.

“I never want to live without this,” he whispers, and I knot my fists into his shirt as if to keep him from slipping through my fingers.

I love him so much. I love him more than I did yesterday, and I already know tomorrow I’ll love him even more, because every piece of him he gives me is another to fall in love with.