There's this thing, like how I keep forgetting my tuner at his apartment, or how I never remember to get new ink for my printer. Things that necessitate a trip to his place to print out my term paper or whatever, while he sits on the couch and watches Seinfeld, or alternately stands over my shoulder with my tuner, Ahhh ahh ahhhh, eee gimme an eeee, oh you're flat. Maybe my grade point average has taken a slight dip this semester.

*

Something about Kate Nash, there's something we're both drawn to. I think it's something to do with how she manages to say so much. It's pretty and poetic in a way that isn't, there's a few too many syllables all crushed into one verse, but it still sounds right. I guess we like the idea of songs that aren't quite meant to be songs.

*

It isn't summer, but it kind of feels like it. It's kind of warm in here. We're in the kitchen, by the floor-to-almost-ceiling glass doors that go out to his tiny balcony. Sitting on the floor in pyjama pants and sock feet, his hair messy and my makeup smeared. I can't recall the sun setting, but one look out the window tells me it has. He tells me he feels like a beer, and I say, I don't think you have any, and he says no listen. I don't feel like drinking one, I just feel like one. I nod and do my best to look existential, and then say, elaborate. He splits his face with this sleepy, crooked grin. Golden, and fizzy, and warm. And I say, beer isn't supposed to be warm, and he says I know what he means.

*

There's a certain charm to the messy prose of romance-stricken teenagers, you know? A sort of sad brilliance to its honesty, and the reluctance of that honesty, while still understanding its necessity.

*

We liked to watch the planes take off from his balcony. He lives near the airport, and we watched them come and go. We would wave and raise our glasses to them, wish them well on their trips, whatever. I remember this well, I didn't recall the sun setting but now it was rising. It was summer, but it was kind of cold, and his arm around me rested with his hand at my collarbone, making me shiver from the warmth. I started to extract myself, to say I have to get home, and he pulled me close, his lips and breath dangerously close to my earlobe, if you lived here you'd be home already.

*

And maybe it's an okay idea, most of my stuff has migrated here anyway, and I'm here all the time. I like it here. He likes me here.

*

The best kisses, I think, are the ones lacking pretext. The ones where you're at a bus stop, and it's all slushy out, like when it snows then rains. Your hood is up, well, mine is, and I say, when is the bus coming? And he says, soon? and adjusts his hat. What little sun is coming through the clouds today has caught itself in his hair. It's safe to say the subtext of our conversations has all but entirely become regular text, our double entendres are blindingly obvious. I'm taking out my phone to check the time and starting to say something. And then the breaking/boiling point is reached, or something, and then he does it. He kisses me. And at first it's like, my mouth was open when he did this, and as I'm wondering how we're fixing that I smile, and he smiles too, and then it's barely even a kiss, just smiling up close, but that's good too. And he says, the bus is here, and I say, really? And he says, see for yourself. And I say, no, I mean like...(insert some flailing gesture, punctuated by a confused but inexorably happy grin) this? He pulls me onto the bus and drops in enough fare for the both of us. We lurch as the bus moves and sink into our seats. And he says, yeah. I smile to myself. It's about time.