Jesse’s train was supposed to be in by now, and I stood on my tiptoes and tried to see if he was off the train yet. He had insisted he would just meet me later, that I didn’t have come all the way to the station, but it had been two weeks and I missed him. A lot. More than I thought I could ever miss someone. My parents and I had moved dozens of times all around the world, but I had never really made friends and I had definitely never had a boyfriend before.
Leaving doesn’t matter when there’s no one to leave behind.
I thought of my mom’s words as I jumped up again to see over the crowd. “Home is where your family is,” she had said. I had thought she was just talking about our family, but now I knew what she meant. My family had grown over the past year with Roux and Jesse, and now I knew why spies never made friends.
“Hey!” said a voice behind me, and I turned around to see Jesse standing there, his bag slung over his shoulder, his curly hair in his eyes just like it always was, and his face lit up with the smile that shined only for me. I had looked at him so many times over the past year and yet it never got old. When he smiled, I smiled back. That’s how we were.
So it was probably a little weird for him when I flung my arms around him and hung on like a starving python.
“Mags!” he cried, dropping his bag on the ground as I squeezed him tighter. “Mags, um, you’re a little—okay, ow.”
“I missed you!” I said. “I just missed you, that’s all!”
“Yeah, right.” Jesse wasn’t fooled for a minute. “That’s why you’re trying to crush me. Here, come here.” He managed to extract himself from me, then drew me into a hug, right under the constellations painted onto the ceiling. “What’s the matter? Did something happen?”
I shook my head. “I’m just glad you’re here. I told you, I missed you.”
Jesse kissed the top of my head and I hugged his waist so hard that I could feel his ribs. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m all right.”
“I don’t think this kind of kung fu grip in the middle of a train station counts as ‘all right,’” he pointed out. “But maybe that’s just me.”
“I’m the worst girlfriend ever!” I said. “I was supposed to be all happy to see you and instead you got a clingy person.”
“I happen to like clingy people,” he replied, hugging me a bit tighter. “Especially when they’re named Maggie and look as cute as you. C’mon, what happened? Did you and Roux get into a fight or something?”
Roux! I hadn’t even thought about leaving Roux behind!
“Maggie?”
“I just really love you!” I cried, my voice muffled against his shoulder. “Like, a whole lot!”
I could feel his laughter vibrating in his chest even as he stroked my hair. “I love you, too, weirdo,” he murmured. “No need to strangle me over it.”
We stood tangled together for a few minutes, tourists and commuters bumping into us, but Jesse didn’t move and I certainly had no plans to stop hugging the hell out of him. He smelled like shampoo and detergent (a different one than when he was at his dad’s house) and trains, and I wondered if I was committing him to memory, if I was hanging on so tight because one day soon I wouldn’t have anything to hang on to at all.
“C’mon, turn around,” Jesse said once my hug started to loosen up a little. “Look at this awesome ceiling with me.” He turned me around in his arms and hugged me from behind while pointing toward the blue-and-gold ceiling. “Look, isn’t it beautiful? Does that make you feel better?”
It wasn’t the ceiling that was making me feel better, it was Jesse, but I nodded anyway. “It’s really pretty,” I admitted while trying to wipe at my nose without looking disgusting about it.
Jesse kissed the side of my head and held me tighter. “Did you know,” he said quietly, “that the ceiling is actually reversed? It’s supposed to look like it should if you were standing under the stars, but instead it looks like you’re above them. It was this big screw-up, but the designer just said that that’s how God sees the sky.”
“The God excuse is pretty hard to argue,” I allowed.
“Right?” Jesse rested his chin on top of my head and pointed again. “Look. Orion is the only one that’s in the right place.”
“The hunter,” I said softly.
“Just like you and how you used to hunt down the bad guys. Always in the right place at the right time.”
I took a deep breath and turned around to face Jesse. “Kind of,” I said. “I don’t think I’m quite as badass as Orion.”
“Well, he was actually killed by a scorpion, so you know.” Jesse shrugged. “I don’t think that’s really badass.” He smiled down at me. “Better now?”
I nodded and tried to wipe at my nose again. “I’m snotty. Sorry.”
“You’re disgusting, frankly,” he teased. “It almost makes me want to not do this.” He bent his head and kissed me and I could taste him on my lips. Coffee and spearmint gum and just him. “Missed you,” he whispered against my mouth. “A lot.”
“Missed you, too.” I reached up to kiss him again, harder this time. “You know I love you, Jesse, right?”
He nodded and pushed my hair out of my face. “Of course you do. I’m amazing. Apparently, I’m a catch. That’s what my grandmother told me last weekend. I don’t want to go on about it.” He pretended to brush invisible dirt off his shoulder.