Pod kůží Under the Skin

IX.

I arrived at the pub a little later than usual.

He was there. In the same place as last time. In front of him sat an unfinished beer, and across from him was a glass of white wine. Already poured. Waiting there as naturally as if, from the beginning, he had known I would sit down opposite him in a moment.

For a moment, I stopped.

Adam looked up, and as soon as he saw me, he smiled.

No.

That smile was too small a word.

He lit up completely.

As if something had just happened that he had been waiting for all evening.

For a split second I forgot to take another step. A strange ache pricked in my stomach, and my feet carried me to the table on their own.

To the glass of wine.

To Adam.

I stayed standing there. My gaze was fixed on the glass in front of me. It was completely ordinary, and yet I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.

I took a breath.

“Hi.”

Only when I said it did I realize I was smiling.

Not a little.

Completely.

Adam walked around the table. For a moment I thought he was only going to sit closer. Instead, he stopped in front of me, leaned in slightly, and kissed me on the cheek.

I stopped breathing.

Heat spread through my whole body.

Not sharply.

Slowly.

From my neck all the way to my ears.

Shit.

This must be visible.

I must be red.

Completely red.

“Hi, Elias.”

His voice sounded as calm as always. As if nothing at all had just happened.

But I couldn’t look at him. I sat down quickly, didn’t even take off my jacket, reached for the glass, and drank deeply.

The wine was still cold.

This time, I didn’t care at all.

We both fell silent for a while. Not because we didn’t know what to say. Just because there was no rush.

Adam took a sip of his beer.

I took a sip of the wine.

“So, how’s work?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“We were shooting meat.”

He laughed.

“That sounds interesting.”

“It wasn’t.”

I told him about the client who wanted to retouch the cover photo. About how there wasn’t time to find models. And also about how, in the end, they shot my hands.

“Wait.”

He looked at me.

“Your hands?”

I nodded.

“They said they were nice.”

For a moment he stared at my fingers resting on the table.

Then he said, perfectly calmly:

“They are.”

For a second I didn’t know what to say.

“Yours too?”

He just shrugged.

“Yeah.”

He took a sip of his beer.

As if he had just said nothing unusual.

“I still don’t understand why meat of all things.”

“Me neither.”

“At least you didn’t end up as a ham model.”

For the first time that evening, I laughed out loud. So loudly that the waitress looked over at us.

I don’t know when we finished the first drinks. Then the second. Time suddenly started moving differently. Somewhere in between, the waitress brought a candle to the table because it had gone completely dark outside. The pub filled up around us, laughter drifted in from neighboring tables, and someone put on Christmas songs.

Adam rolled his eyes.

“If I hear ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ one more time, I’m leaving.”

I laughed.

“But it’s only the beginning of December.”

“Exactly.”

“You don’t like Christmas?”

He was quiet for a while.

“I do.”

He looked down into his glass.

“I just think people make it unnecessarily complicated.”

“And you?”

He looked up.

“What?”

“What do you like at Christmas?”

He smiled.

This time differently.

More calmly.

“The smell of pine.”

He thought for a moment.

“And mornings.”

“Mornings?”

“When everyone is still asleep.”

“That’s strange.”

“I know.”

“I like evenings.”

Adam smiled.

“I noticed.”

I looked at him, confused.

“What do you mean?”

He took a sip of his beer.

“You always text me in the evening.”

I was thrown off.

He was right.

I’d never noticed.

The waitress passed by us several times. Each time she took away a few empty glasses and another one appeared on our table. By then it was completely dark outside. Warm light from the pub reflected in the windows, and beyond them all I could see were only dark streets and the occasional passerby wrapped in scarves.

“Anything else?” she asked.

We looked at each other.

Adam shrugged.

“I’d have one more.”

Then he looked at me.

“You?”

I didn’t even need to think.

“Yeah.”

He smiled.

“Then one more round.”

The waitress just nodded.

“You two aren’t in a rush tonight.”

We waited until she left.

Then we looked at each other.

And we both laughed.

I don’t know what we talked about that evening. About school. About work. About how Filip had forgotten his keys somewhere again. About how Matěj can fall asleep anywhere in five minutes. About how Adam hates raisins and how I hate dill.

Several times we laughed so hard that people at the neighboring table looked over at us.

I didn’t mind.

Not for the first time.

Time stopped mattering all at once. I didn’t have to wonder what I was saying. Whether I was talking too much or too little. Whether I was looking too long or looking away too quickly. We just sat there, drinking wine and beer, talking as if we had been doing it for years.

When I finally looked around, the pub was almost empty. I hadn’t even noticed that most people had left long ago.

Adam took out his phone.

“Damn.”

“What?”

He showed me the screen.

“Night bus.”

We both stood up almost at the same time.

We walked outside.

The cold air woke me up at once.

We almost ran to the stop.

The bus was already pulling away.

Adam picked up the pace even more.

To no avail.

The tail lights disappeared around the corner.

We stood there for a while.

Then he checked the timetable.

“Next one in an hour.”

He sighed and turned to me.

“Does that bother you?”

I looked at the timetable, then at my watch, then back at him.

“No.”

We were both quiet for a moment.

The cold air stung my cheeks, and somewhere in the distance a tram rattled by.

“So we’ll freeze for an hour.”

Adam smiled.

“We can.”

I looked around.

The streets were almost empty. Under the lamps, the first snowflakes drifted down slowly and dissolved on the wet pavement.

“Or we could walk.”

The words slipped out before I had a chance to think if I actually wanted to say them.

Adam looked at me, surprised.

“Yeah?”

I nodded.

“It’s a shame to just stand at the stop anyway.”

He was silent for a moment.

Then he smiled.

“All right.”

We set off.

Neither of us knew where we were going. We just walked down the street. Snow drifted lightly and, under the streetlamps, looked almost silver.

We walked in silence for a while.

This time the quiet was not uncomfortable. Beside Adam it felt perfectly normal. Like another part of the conversation, only without words.

I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets.

“It’s cold,” I muttered.

Adam smiled.

“A little.”

I looked at him.

“A little? My ears are freezing.”

He gave a short laugh.

“I noticed.”

I touched them instinctively.

“Are they red again?”

He nodded.

“Yeah.”

I sighed.

“Fantastic.”

“I like it.”

He said it so naturally that he didn’t even look at me. Like he had merely remarked that it was going to snow.

I chose not to reply.

The city around us slowly emptied out. Every so often a car passed, somewhere in the distance a tram rang, and for a moment the smell of fresh bread spilled out from the bakery. Otherwise it was almost silent. Snow crunched softly beneath our feet, and I suddenly realized that I wasn’t thinking at all about what time it was.

There was no rush.

No one was waiting for me.

No one missed me anywhere.

There were only the two of us.

And that extra hour.

A thin layer of thawing snow slid beneath my foot.

I lurched.

Before I could steady myself, I felt his hand on my wrist. He gripped me firmly.

“You okay?”

I nodded.

“Yeah.”

He kept holding me for a moment longer, just to be sure. Then the grip loosened a little. I straightened up and we took a few more steps.

After a while, his hand slid from my wrist down to my palm. For a moment it only brushed against mine, as if he wasn’t completely sure he was allowed to. Then he simply took it in his.

I looked ahead—at the snow, the lamplight, my shoes. It took several seconds before I understood why my right hand was suddenly not cold anymore.

I looked down.

He was still holding it.

I said nothing.

Neither did he.

We just kept walking.

We made our way slowly to the next stop.

Adam checked the timetable, then looked at his phone.

“Three minutes.”

I nodded.

It was strange. For the whole hour, we had felt like we weren’t in any hurry, and now only three minutes remained.

We stood side by side. Still holding hands. No one said anything.

Adam looked at me.

Not just briefly.

He looked straight into my eyes. As if searching for something there. Or as if silently asking whether he could do what he was about to do.

He took a deep breath.

Then he took the final step.

He kissed me.

Slowly and carefully, as if giving me time to pull away.

I didn’t.

For a moment I went completely rigid. My heart raced, and I didn’t know what to do with all the feeling suddenly coursing through me.

Then I closed my eyes.

And kissed him back.

I felt his arm around my waist. He pulled me closer, and for the first time I didn’t think. I didn’t compare. I didn’t look for a reason why it shouldn’t be right.

I simply pressed myself against him.

And hid in his embrace.

For a moment, the cold disappeared.

I stopped noticing the street, the lamps, the stop.

All that remained was the muffled sound of falling snow.