Shimmy Bang Sparkle(54)

I thought of all the things I wanted to say, but none of it was enough. It was all just words, and words were just talk. The way she made me feel wasn’t just talk, so instead of saying anything, I took her face in my hands, got lost in that deep blue lagoon . . .

And kissed her. I kissed her to say yes, I kissed her to say of course, and I kissed her to say yeah, this was fucking nuts, and yeah, I was her man. The kiss started out serious, but by the time I had her flat on her back on the countertop, she was giggling as we kissed.

When I came up for air, the edges of her lips were red from my stubble scratching her, and her cheeks were flushed too. I knew I’d thought it before, and I knew I’d think it again. But she really was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, and getting more so every minute. With her in my arms, I felt hope. And I wanted to protect that. No matter what. “If it goes to shit, I take the fall.”

Her eyes searched my face. She pressed her hand against my chest—more like she was supporting me than pushing me away. “No. If we go down, we go down together.”

There was no fucking way I would let that happen. But she was too full of heat and fire for me to douse her flames right then. “We’ll see.”

“So,” she said, “is that a yes?”

“Yeah. That’s a resounding fucking yes.”

In reply, she let out a delighted little, “Yaaaaaaay!” and pulled me in to shower me with a battery of fast, sweet kisses. It was so fucking nice, so goddamned sweet, I almost didn’t know how to handle it. I turned my face away, laughing. She just kept on kissing me. “I say we go in as a couple. Newlyweds. I’ll get back down on my knee if you want.”

Her eyes were shining, and her face was glowing. I wanted her so much, it made my bones ache. “As newlyweds, we could stay there. Like cuckoos in the nest. Fancy.”

I held her hair back from her face with my palm and let her bangs slip through my fingers. “Yeah. We go in disguised—we do some recon, but otherwise stay away from the cameras.”

Her eyes flashed. “Room service.”

“Every meal in bed.”

“What about this?” She gripped my left forearm and my left biceps. “And this?” Then did the same to the other side. “You’re not exactly part of the wallpaper.”

“And you are? With that face and that body? They won’t even see me standing next to you.”

She let out a wonderful laugh, an embarrassed back-of-her-throat giggle. “You know what I mean.”

I got serious again. She was right, of course. “I do. We’ll figure it out. First, though . . .” I reached into the takeout and pulled out the only fortune cookie they’d given us. Last night, I’d been ticked off that there weren’t two, but now I wasn’t. We only needed one. Because from that moment on, our luck was linked together. And together, we cracked the cookie open, wishbone-style.

The fortune came out on her side, and she read it first. Her eyes flashed, and she tucked the half cookie into her mouth as she held the fortune out for me to read.

Fortune cookies are like palm readers. When they’re wrong, it doesn’t matter. But when they’re right . . .

The one you love is closer than you think.

. . . they’re on the motherfucking money.





25

STELLA

We were alone together in a log cabin, made of knotty pine. Nick was bare-chested, wearing black-and-red flannel pajama pants, putting wood into a fireplace. Outside, the snow was in big drifts, so pretty that it didn’t look real at all, but like something from a made-for-TV Christmas special. Snowflakes the size of grapefruits fell in perfectly spaced patterns outside the window. In my hands was a mug of mulled wine, with a cinnamon stick. Nick stoked the fireplace, and a handful of sparks shot from one of the logs. As he bent down to put the poker back in its place, I admired the curves of his muscular buns. Flannel. God bless it. He made his way across the cabin, keeping his eyes on me. He took my mug of wine from my hands and put it on the bedside table. I placed my hand on his abs and slid my palm down, down, down. I hooked my finger over his waistband, inched it down his lower abdomen, and said, in my sultriest, most sex-kitteny voice, “I have to pee like a racehorse.”

I shot straight up from my pillow and looked around my darkened room. We weren’t in a cabin. We were in my apartment, and I could hear the garbage trucks outside. He was asleep next to me, on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, like he was sunbathing.

At that moment, I was sure of only two things:

There had never been a sexier man on earth.

And my bladder was about to explode.

Rubbing my eyes with my knuckles, I stumbled off toward the bathroom. It was strange, not having Roxie and Ruth in the house. No soothing wave machine noise from Ruth’s room, no snoring from Roxie’s. Then I remembered through my sleep haze all that had happened, and my heart hurt from missing them, which made me especially grateful that Nick was staying the night.

Sitting on the toilet, I stared at the moonlight rippling through the bathroom window, making a distorted rectangle on the bath towels. As often happened, my midnight thoughts spiraled into worry. About the job, about the girls, about Mr. Bozeman. About whether or not the Big Wide Open would still be for sale when I woke up in the morning. About whether I was really and truly bananas for taking this huge chance hand in hand with Nick.