Watching for Comets

Sunday

In the morning, I lay in bed listening to my subconscious repeatedly tell me what a terrible person I was. Selfishly, I just wanted to hear Jason's voice again. If his other band mates were like the one who had blocked me, he had great, protective friends and I was happy for him because of it. There was nothing more I could offer him.

It was Sunday morning. Had he gone to church? I briefly fantasized about storming into each and every church in town until I found him, upon which we would magically embrace and make up. But that kind of stuff only happened in romance novels. Besides, there were a lot of churches in the vicinity. I didn't even know which denomination he belonged to.

However, as I turned over on the bed and my eyeline fell on the computer sitting on my desk, I realized there was a way I could listen to his voice. Duh, he was a professional singer. I climbed into my desk chair and did a YouTube search for the band name. The limited results confirmed what he had told me about not being too popular yet, but they had a couple music videos out. As his image filled the screen and that beautiful voice fell out of his mouth, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Man, he was out of my league after all.

After the video finished, I went searching for the song that had stood out to me during their performance – "Julia." In retrospect, I wished I had paid more attention to him on stage when I had the chance. This particular song didn't have a video. As I put on the audio, the nostalgia came rushing back to me. Soon I found myself singing along, my own voice a poor imitation of the original.

At some point after I had fallen down the rabbit hole, a knock at the door startled me back to earth. No one ever came to my room. Mentally cycling through possibilities, each one worse than the last, panic seeped into my veins. Finally I got to the end of the list and stood to face the inevitable.

The door opened to an option that hadn't even occurred to me.

"Oh, god," I muttered, my face falling into my hands.

"No relation," he said casually, like nothing had happened. "May I come in?"

I stepped back into the room. He followed, shutting the door behind him.

"I'm so sorry, Jason," I pleaded. "That was really shitty of me, to make assumptions about you." I felt his hands on my arms.

"I understand, Lonny. I forgive you."

When I leaned into him, he wrapped his arms fully around me, pulling me against his chest. Peeling my hands from my face, I fitted my arms around his back as well. It had been a long time since I had hugged someone. This one felt completely natural.

"Do you have any questions?" For once, his tone wasn't completely confident.

I considered. "Was that the medical problem you mentioned?"

"Yes."

A sense of relief flooded through me. So there wasn't something terribly wrong with him. After several moments, when I didn't go on, he pulled back. I followed his gaze over to my computer.

"Miss me that much already?" he teased, seeing his own face on the screen. I wasn't able to respond with more than a blush. Grinning, he lifted his hands to cup my face, fingertips sending sparks through my chin. "Do you still want me to kiss you?"

"Yes, of course," I confirmed, hoping that meant he would—

—and he did. I shivered as his lips caressed my snake bites before pressing solidly against my mouth.

He pulled back to check my face. When I gave an encouraging smile, he captured my lips again, this time with a little more force. For once, my internal monologue was silenced, my whole body and mind focused on every inch of our skin that made contact. Even my fingers tingled as they clutched at the back of his shirt.