Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

The silence of the shock feels like an eternity until Nick glances over at Aunt Hildy and says, "Would you be a dear and shut the light off again on your way back out?"

It's her turn to say "Oh, my" now, but bless her heart, she does flick the light switch back off, but not before shooting me one parting look, and I swear in that last lingering second, I see that she recognizes my hunger because she's felt it at some point in her life, too, and she winks at me before they're gone and I feel confident that Auntie and Uncle have truly gotten some bang for their buck on their New York City vacation. Nick and I could become goodwill ambassadors for the city now that the porno shops on 42nd Street are gone. Must make mental note to contact mayor.

Darkness has been returned to us, but the moment, the heat, is over. Because Nick speaks in a normal voice instead of a whisper, and he says, "Maybe we're not ready for this yet?" His sentiment is serious-and right-yet somehow we're laughing, too, laughing at the absurdity of the situation, and maybe laughing with relief that the absurdity allowed the situation not to go further than it did.

Aunt Hildy must have sent my brain back into the room when she left it because I am reaching for my shirt and for Salvatore as Nick puts his shirt back on. I can't believe how grateful I am to have been caught. I want him so very much, but it's too soon. I have to figure, with this many stops and starts, surely this train will pull out of the station eventually. What's the big fucking rush?

We're dressed again except our clothes are still damp and we're still laughing except we're also kinda making out against the ice machine and he bumps me in just the wrong way and now ice is pouring from the machine onto the floor, all over us, it's like a fucking avalanche, and all we can do is laugh harder and run away.

We're kissing in the hallway again, against the wall.

We're kissing in the glass elevator again. We ride it up and down, up and down, still kissing. Outside the elevator, time is going on, but inside, it's stopped for us because we've got our own schedule: kissing, giggling, probing, breathing, taking, wanting, hoping. Liking.

I don't know this Norah, this risk-taker, this thrill-seeker. I am a nice Jewish girl from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. I may have a potty mouth, but I do not get caught in illicit sexual encounters in Marriotts, for fuck's sake. I guess I could be open to a Ritz-Carlton or a Four Seasons, but a Marriott, no fucking way! Yet here I am. And there's nowhere else I'd rather be. What spell has this boy cast on me?

I don't know this Norah, but I like her. I'm hoping she'll hang out awhile, consider permanent asylum.

The elevator door opens on the ground floor and we're greeted and escorted out by hotel security and I suppress the urge to sit them down for a good honest discussion about our country's founding principles of civil liberties because that would take away from my time with Nick.

So Nick and I head outside, and we're holding hands, and still giggling, and still wet from the earlier rain and the sweat of our earlier encounter(s)(s)(s). And we are giddy, because dawn is here, we're at the center of the world and we're the center of our own universe, and spring is here, and the air smells wet and clean. God bless Manhattan, you know, because it must be six in the morning on a Sunday yet trash collection trucks are teeming down the street and Times Square workers in their bright-orange uniforms are cleaning up the night's excesses and not even the smell of fresh spring rain can completely wash away Eau de Times Square Urine/ Trash/Vomit, but somehow this here, this now, it feels perfect.

"Where to?" Nick asks, and I say, "Home."

We've got to find Jessie the Yugo and find our way off this island.

I have so much to do. Caroline to intervene. College to plan. Nick to know. Sexual techniques to Google.