“Colin! This is—”
“Gray Archer!”
I’m caught off guard. “How’d you know?”
“I put your name in my phone after the musical. Never know when you’ll need a tailor.”
“Oh! Right. Thank you.” I shake my head. “Um. Anyway, it’s him, isn’t it? Jude is Judah?”
“Ah. You watched.”
“Of course I watched! I always watch! I need to get over there. Can you send me his address?”
“I knew that Danny Kaye thing had to be something between you two. So mysterious. Already the interwebs are aflutter with speculation…”
“Colin. Focus. Address.”
“Calm down, Lover Girl. I’m sending it now.”
I hang up and tap on my parents’ door. “Is it okay if I take a little drive? I’ve got my hand sanitizer and mask.”
“No stores,” my mom reminds me.
“Cross my heart.”
I’m in the car and reversing out of my drive in an instant, still not entirely sure what I’m going to do. My eyes graze the clock and I realize with a start that it’s barely 8:45. American Famous is still on. Jude is still in his backyard for the live shots. I slow down, but he doesn’t live that far. I pull into his neighborhood just minutes after nine, but when Siri tells me I’ve arrived, I drive past his house. I’m too scared to pull up. It takes me twice more around the block before I pull in.
I get a text from Colin, my ultimate wingman.
Colin: His bedroom is the front, right, second story with the balcony.
Holy poop, I can’t believe I’m going to do this.
I reach into the backseat and grab a cardboard box, left over from my face mask deliveries. I pull it apart to create a square. On the board, I write a message.
For a minute, hot panic surges in my chest. What if his performance wasn’t for me? What if the whole mask–White Christmas–Danny Kaye thing was just a coincidence?
Welp. Then I guess I’ll just have to change my name and disappear forever. I don’t have time to worry about that right now.
I pull my car forward, directly under the streetlight outside his balcony. I reallllly hope Colin’s not messing with me.
I pull out my phone and scroll through all my playlists for a song. I find one I’ve had on repeat every day for a week. “Delicate” by Taylor Swift. It’s kind of dramatic to play him his own song, but so is this entire gesture that I’m attempting. Go for broke. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and it doesn’t get more desperate than a worldwide pandemic.
Plus, it’s kind of perfect for us. You must like me for me is really hitting home, now that I know his secret. And I really, really do like him.
I glance up at the window and see it’s lit. Opening my messages app, I type:
Gray: Hey Romeo, come to your balcony!
I’m staring at the curtains at his window when he pulls them aside and pokes his head out.
I open all the windows and my door, turn my stereo all the way up, and hit play.
Then I reach for my sign and stand with it raised over my head in the streetlight, my face burning but unmasked. I watch him climb out onto his balcony. In my periphery, I can see more lights turn on, probably everyone in the neighborhood wondering who’s blaring Taylor Swift, but I ignore them, singularly focused on his handsome face. His full beaming smile, dimple and sparkling eyes, all for me, as he reads my sign: I DON’T NEED DANNY, I JUST WANT YOU.
He looks so happy.
I made him that way.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and he gestures over the blaring music with his in his hand.
Jude: You have me if you want me. I’m just Jude, though. Just the guy from the texts.
Gray: That’s all I want. Just Jude.
Jude: Just Jude and Just Gray.
Jude: I wish I could kiss you.
I hold up a finger, reaching back in the car for a receipt. I write on it:
IOU One Hell of a First Kiss and I crumple it up in a ball, tossing it up to him on the balcony. He opens it, grins, and tucks it into his jacket pocket. The song ends and the silence is so loud. All these things we aren’t used to saying in person, ringing in the air between us.
“I have to go,” I say.
He nods in the soft yellow light. “Quarantine won’t last forever,” he says.
“I know. I can wait for you. You’re worth it, Jude.”
“Until then?” He holds up his phone.
“Until then.” I blow him a kiss. Then I pick up my sign, get in my car, and drive home.
And that night, before I fall asleep, I cast a thousand votes for my boyfriend, Jude MacKenzie. He’s earned every single one.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Erin A. Craig is the New York Times bestselling author of the House of Salt and Sorrows. She has always loved telling stories. After getting her BFA in theater design and production from the University of Michigan, she stage-managed tragic operas filled with hunchbacks, séances, and murderous clowns, then decided she wanted to write books that were just as spooky. An avid reader, a decent quilter, a rabid basketball fan, and a collector of typewriters, Erin makes her home in West Michigan with her husband and daughter.
erinacraig.com
@Penchant4Words on Twitter and Instagram
© Nadja Tiktinsky
Auriane Desombre is a former English teacher currently pursuing an MA in English lit at New York University and an MFA in creative writing for children at the New School in New York. I Think I Love You is her debut novel.
aurianedesombre.com
@AurianeDesombre on Twitter
© Hilary Nichols
Erin Hahn is the author of You’d Be Mine and More Than Maybe. She teaches elementary school, would rather be outside, and makes a lot of playlists. So many playlists, in fact, that she decided to write books to match them! She married her very own YA love interest, whom she met on her first day of
