One More Time(46)

We’re sweat drenched and exhausted when I roll off her, but I take her with me, wrapping her tight in my arms. “I love you, my perfect girl,” I whisper, kissing her temple.

“Tell me one more time,” she says, sleepily, her eyes already closed.

I do. And then I tell her again.

I’ll tell her a thousand times. I’ll tell her every day until we die, because now that I have Jenna back, I’m never letting her go again.





17





Jenna





Opening my eyes the next morning gives me the same feeling as a child on Christmas morning—there’s something wonderful waiting for me, and nothing in the world can dampen my enthusiasm about it.

I peek over at Tanner in the bed next to me. He’s still asleep, so I slip out of the covers and go splash some water on my face. It isn’t until I glance in the mirror that I realize I’ve been grinning the entire time.

Out in the living area, I grab a room service menu. Strong tea is on my mind. But then a stray memory creeps in, this silly thing we used to do back in the day when we were a new couple and couldn’t fathom being far enough from the bed to go to the buffet.

I actually giggle out loud. We were so ridiculous. I decide to surprise him with a recreation. The guy I place our order with doesn’t quite fail to mask his concern when I tell him we only need two sets of silverware and mugs to go along with the Belgian waffles, lox, avocado scramble, corned beef hash, breakfast burrito, and one each of every side on the menu.

What can I say? We have the kind of sex that works up an appetite.

The knock on the door comes just as Tanner is ambling out in nothing but Calvin Kleins, and as the room service attendant ushers the massive amount of food in, I can’t quite decide which looks more delicious—him or it.

“Did you order one of everything on the menu?” he asks.

“Pretty much.” I pour a large mug of coffee for him and doctor it up the way he used to like it, with cream and no sugar.

“Any western omelets in there?” He hands me my tea, fixed the way I like to drink it--sugar, no milk.

“No…” I say, suddenly worried that I should have just asked him what he wanted before going on this ordering binge.

“Thank God,” he says. “I am sick to death of eating those without you.”

I’m not entirely sure what he’s talking about, but who cares, because he’s just dragged a piece of waffle through some whipped cream, and he’s holding it out for me to eat.

I lick every single bit of the whipped cream off the fork, then dab a little on him so I can lick that, too.

It’s not long before this escalates. Twenty minutes later, we’re forced to call down for more whipped cream, and I’ve just performed the tastiest blowjob of my life.

The food isn’t any less delicious for now being cold. I’ve spent so much of my time off-set sneaking around with Tanner that I’ve forgotten to work in a good room service experience during our Vancouver filming, and that used to be my favorite part of fucking in hotels.

Well, we’re more than making up for that today.

We take our time enjoying the dishes, making a mess of crumbs in the bed during the process. Finally, we’ve slowed down on our bacon intake. I take my plate back out to the living room, then return to the bed to crawl beneath the covers. Tanner meets me there, and we lie on our backs, my head on his shoulder.

Neither of us has addressed the fact that shooting will end tomorrow.

“So,” I say. I’m not avoiding this discussion. I’m really not. I’m just easing into it.

“So?” He lifts the hand of the arm I’m lying on and trails his fingers up and down my waist.

“What’s next, Tanner?” I roll over so I can look at him, but he continues to stare at the ceiling above us.

“Los Angeles. Warm weather. Press junkets. Premieres.” He’s listing our commitments to the film, not to each other. “I start filming the next Jet movie in another month. You have a zillion offers to sift through.” I roll my eyes at his exaggeration about my newly blossoming acting career. “Rinse. Repeat.”

“Yeah.” Even though he’s talking about our jobs and not us, it’s kind of the same thing. These are all things we’ll have to navigate as a couple. We might have thrown the press off our scent for now, but it’s only going to take one sighting of us in our sunglasses and sweats grabbing an early-morning bagel for TMI to realize they’ve been played. And then there we are, back in the limelight, prey for the next desperate guy with a camera who wants to make a buck off of spreading rumors about us.

It’s been heaven having all this private time with Tanner, but it’s not realistic to think that it will last. How will we weather the addition of the rest of the world into our relationship? We certainly didn’t fair well last time the outside got involved.

“Maybe we should just take things day by day,” Tanner says, finally glancing toward me and meeting my eyes.

“Yeah. Okay.” I roll onto my back again. My stomach knots.

I understand the challenges we face—the public, our past. Last time we were a couple there was a ton of attention on us. Now, it will be ten times worse. And I haven’t exactly had a chance to prove that I wouldn’t make the same exact mistakes when the articles casting doubt on us inevitably appear. It does seem like what we have is precious enough to deserve some protection. Precious enough to take our time.