Screwmates(42)

“Lalalalalala,” Marc was rolling the wine around on his tongue. “Melons.”

I imitated him. Right on again. Melalalalon, all right.

“Marc,” I said. “Those books were a legitimately good idea. I take back all the things I said before.”

“Books are sexy,” he said, and toasted me. In his hands, they goddamn were. Now, if only I could get him to borrow a copy of my first Transmetropolitan graphic novel, my fancy lacy undies would actually explode. Maybe I’d just casually leave it on the coffee table and see if it piqued his interest.

“Do you like cats?” I asked, running my finger around the rim of the glass.

“Um. I guess? We have a few mousers on the farm. They aren’t terribly friendly, though. More wild than not.” He seemed confused, but I appreciated his willingness to roll with my careening train of thought. “Do you?”

“No.” Cats were little fuckers who sat on your notebook while you were in the middle of sketching and stepped on the keyboard while you were in the middle of uploading. I did not cats even a little bit, and as far as I was concerned, not dealing with Scarlet’s fluffy nightmare was the best thing to come out of our roommate-breakup.

“Not like a watermelon, though,” Marc sipped again and said, seamlessly moving us back to our mission.

“No, definitely not,” I agreed. “Honeydew. Or cantaloupe. A gentler melon. Volcanic shit.”

Brandon hopped back on the mic, and lo and behold, cantaloupe was also his take on the wine we’d just had. We were on fire. We were crushing wine tasting. We were about to get our glasses picked up, so we swiftly drained them.

Boom, boom, boom, we drank and made notes and chatted. Between Marc’s excellent tastebuds and my excellent recall—we were nine out of ten by the end. Our drunkenness was probably a nine out of ten, too, I thought to myself as I emptied the crostini tray into my purse.

Go figure. It turned out Marc was right all along, learning the descriptors of different varieties actually really helped me discern what I was actually tasting. I saw Brandon heading our way with a stern look on his face, but I had prepared for this possibility earlier, when I was more clearheaded. I handed him a sketch of himself I had made on a cocktail napkin and thanked him.

Then Marc thanked him even more profusely. I used the distraction to grab a roll of crackers, as well. And then the Uber driver was calling from out front and another night had passed in Overland Park, Kansas in the bottom of a wine barrel. There were worse ways to spend an evening. This time, though, we really couldn’t return. For one thing, Brandon was probably printing Wanted posters with our faces on them even now.

On the drive home, I lay in Marc’s lap and ate crostini from my purse while he knocked out the crackers. I think both of us were feeling loads better by the time we unlocked the front door. We were for sure feeling better once the coffee was made and poured. And by the time we were in pajamas and drinking our java on The Couch That Will Never See Action Again, life was beautiful. We high fived again, and agreed that we had conquered wine.

“Truly, you impressed me tonight. And I impressed me, too,” I told him. “We work really well together.”

“We’re a good team,” he said. Which reminded me, of course, that being a team was not a sexy thing. It was a practical thing. And that I had sworn to keep the pieces of my heart intact, if a little bruised. So I scooted myself a little farther down the couch. Accidental touches would only increase the difficulty here.

There was no room for flirting. There was only the path forward, which diverged sharply from his.

“Welp. Guess we’re totally done with each other now,” I said. I looked at my coffee mug instead of Marc. “Which is good. Things are going to ramp back up at work, so I’ll need to really focus.”

Although both of those things were true, the odds of me not spending all my shifts mooning around seemed slim.

“Me too. Lots of work to finish up before France.” He was silent, and so was I.

“Totally done,” I said again. It bore repeating, to myself, at least.

“Completely done,” he repeated. “I guess I’m just going to go to bed, then.”

“Yup.” I mean, what else was there to say? We’d had a fun night. We’d had a fun month, actually. I hoped he’d look back at it as fondly as I would. At least we’d always have Screwmates. Well, me and my thousands of new fans would, anyway.

Assuming that wasn’t a mistake, of course.

We walked into our respective rooms and closed the doors. I walked over to my bed, thinking maybe I’d sketch. Or maybe just read. Or maybe—fuck it. Thirty seconds after I’d closed my door, I opened it again, and found Marc doing the same thing down the hall. There was still nothing else that needed saying as we attacked each other with breath and lips and hands.

Nothing that needed saying when he made that noise that said I’d given him a nip.

Nothing that needed saying as our pajamas started flying around the hallway.

Our bodies said it all for us. And our bodies said it better than our mouths ever could have.





Fourteen





Except, of course, that mouths can do other things that say a lot, too, and within another thirty seconds, Marc’s mouth was telling me all sorts of things. Namely, that he was an oral god. But also that he somehow found me as irresistible as I found him. Whaaaaat. Did I say life was beautiful? No. Life was transcendent.