Dark Wild Night

AN ALARM ON Lola’s phone goes off halfway through her first cup of coffee. I tried to keep her in bed for the agreed-upon duration, which I considered an ironclad contract, but eventually we both needed a bathroom, caffeine, and food.

“Oh, shit,” she says, reaching for it and opening the calendar app.

We’re sitting side by side at my dining room table. I’m in jeans; she’s in nothing but the shirt I wore yesterday. It’s long, but not so long that I can’t see all of her, especially with one of her legs on the ground, our ankles pressed together, and her other leg in my lap. Caffeine is slowly bringing my brain to life and I still feel warm and slow, like well-worked clay. I really don’t want her to have to leave quite yet.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I have this thing I’m supposed to do at eleven.” She frowns, and I look up at the clock. It’s nearly ten.

“ ‘Thing’?”

“It’s a chat with the UCSD Arts publication.” Steam rises up from her mug and twists in the space between us, dissolving in a beam of sun overhead. “Shit. I completely spaced it,” she says, and then more to herself, “I never forget this stuff.”

I set down my cup and lean forward, taking her free hand in mine. “Can you do it from here? The Wi-Fi can be a bit spotty, but my laptop’s in my room. You’re welcome to it.”

She’s already shaking her head. “It’s a video chat,” she explains, pointing to her hair. Lola’s hair is naturally smooth and straight. Right now it looks like it might house a family of small birds.

Laughing, I lean forward, kissing her nose. “I have to get to the shop this morning to check on Joe, anyway. Maybe we can meet up for a late lunch?”

Reading my expression, Lola pushes closer, tilting her head to my mouth, speaking between each kiss: “I’m not sure how long I’ll be.” She pulls back, rubbing her thumb over my stubble. “I have to shower and then I have a call with Benny after—but I’ll text you when I’m done?”

“Yeah. Text me.” My words are tight, and I lean back in, kisses growing more desperate. “Stay here again tonight. I need . . .”

I need to drink, and drink, and drink of her. I’ll never get my fill.

A rush of breath escapes her lungs and she pushes off her chair and onto my lap, whispering against my mouth. “I don’t want to leave,” she says, and her hand slides over my bare chest. “Let’s go back to bed.”

My jeans have slipped so they’re barely hanging on, and all I can think of is how easy it would be to push them the rest of the way down, lift my shirt up, and make her come, right here on my kitchen table.

She grinds into me, sliding wet across my button fly.

“Get up on the table,” I say into her open mouth. “Let me kiss that little cunt.”

She pulls back, blushing. Her lip is trapped between her teeth. “I like the way you say that word.”

“I can tell. It makes you get all squirmy and bashful. . . .” I lick her mouth, saying, “Not entirely sure yet—need to do a few more studies—but I believe there’s a direct correlation between me saying it and how fast I can make you come.”

I notice she hasn’t, in fact, climbed up on the table. Slipping my fingers under the shirt, I rub my hands over the warm, soft skin of her waist.

“I know you’re sore,” I tell her. “I’ll be sweet, I promise.”

Her phone goes off again and we both grow still.

“Alas: real life invades,” I murmur.

Lola pouts. “I really hate interviews.”

“And here you are, getting better at them every day.” I help her up, standing after her and holding her face, kissing her once. “Just let me know when you’re done.”

I go for a long ride after Lola leaves, taking the road that leads down to the beach and biking the trail as long as I possibly can. Although we slept in tiny bursts broken by two more rounds of frenzied, wordless fucking, I’m full of an energy that feels nearly limitless. I go from Pacific Beach to Carlsbad, legs pumping, heart propelling blood in enormous, victorious spasms.

I hurt when my mum left. I was angry and sullen, and upset with the world for a long time. I hated my dad for leaving me. I couldn’t imagine that I would ever experience true contentment or joy, but now I have both. The store is situated. My home is mostly paid for. The love of my life slept in my arms last night—in my bed, where I hope she will stay forever. I want for nothing.

THE BELL RINGS over the door to the shop as I step inside, and a strange calm settles over me. It’s barely half-past eleven and the aisles are pretty packed for a nonrelease day, people spilling off the couch in the front reading nook and crowded around the pinball machine near the back. Joe is at the register, a line of customers behind him.

He nods in my direction but everything from last night is too fresh, and I’m not sure I’m ready to put my game face on, especially with Joe. For all his flaky mannerisms, I’m often surprised by how acutely he pays attention.

I return Joe’s nod and round the counter, stepping into the back office and hanging my jacket on the hook. Only now that I’m here does it occur to me that I’m not clear what the rules are. If I’m reading things correctly, Lola and I are together—I’m just not sure who else is supposed to know that. Lola isn’t guarded in a stereotypical way; she shares things, but she does so in inches rather than miles, and not always immediately. It’s entirely possible she’ll wait to tell Harlow about this until whenever she happens to see her next. Lola isn’t exactly a close-the-door-behind-him-and-call-the-girlfriend-to-dish kind of woman.

Which puts me in a weird spot: If I tell Finn, and he tells Harlow, and Harlow hears it from Finn before she hears it from Lola, Lola will be in trouble and I may be, too. If I tell Ansel, and he mentions it to Mia, which he definitely will, there is no way Mia won’t call Harlow immediately.

So there is absolutely no way I can let on to Joe what is going on: Joe hearing about this before anyone else would make Harlow’s head explode. Not to mention the Not-Joe is Always Right Tumblr he’d probably start and fill with illustrations of every time he told us to “just bang and get it over with already.”

Luckily I have experience hiding this . . . though who am I kidding? There’s not a single person—except perhaps Lola—who didn’t realize I’m wildly in love with her.

I head out to the front of the store and begin helping customers. One of my regulars is searching for the newest issue of Hawkeye, but when I check I see we’ve sold out. There’s a man in his forties looking to sell a box of miscellaneous junk he got at a garage sale, and after poking through it, I know there’s nothing I’m interested in buying. I help a couple looking to buy their first big comic together, and I sell them Captain America 61. Released in 1947, it depicts Cap and Bucky discovering that the Red Skull, believed to be gone, is indeed still alive. Classic.

And through it all, I can feel Joe watching me.

The crowd thins a bit and I walk to the counter, reaching under for a rag to wipe down the pinball machine.

“Place has been crazy lately,” Joe says, pulling a stack of twenties out of the register to face them.

“Yeah, was thinking of bringing someone else in.”

He pauses for a moment and looks up. “Someone else to work here?”

“Sure.”

Joe perks up. “Would I train them?”

He follows me toward the back, and I look at him over my shoulder. “Sure.”

“So, I’d be in charge. Second in command, even. Wong to Doctor Strange.”

I laugh. “Absolutely. Robin to my Batman.”

“Batman? Let’s not get too far ahead of yourself. Foggy Nelson to your Daredevil. The movie.”

I stop near the back and start straightening a shelf of Choose Your Own Adventure books. “Sure,” I say again with a shrug.

Joe knocks on the counter, loudly. “Okay what is up?”

“Up?” I repeat. “Nothing’s up.”

“Ben Affleck’s Daredevil? You’re just going to let me throw that out at you?”

I move back to the front of the store. “What? It was an okay movie.”

“An oka—”

The bell over the door rings, cutting him off, and I hear one of our regulars up front call out to Lola.

My body goes tight, heart taking off in a sprint.

It’s one thing to decide I’m not telling Joe, or Finn, or Ansel, or even letting on to anything, but am I expected to act like nothing happened? Is that even possible? I feel like one look at her and all of last night will be written all over my face.

Glancing over my shoulder, I see Lola’s hair is pulled into a dark ponytail that swings behind her as she walks. When she isn’t in a hurry, her stride is even and serene and her hair rests gently down the middle of her back. But when she’s moving like this—with purpose—it swings behind her, propelled by the sway of her energy.

She’s headed straight toward me, and she’s definitely moving with intent.

I turn fully to face her. “Hey, how did the video chat go?”

Casual, calm. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

Joe watches as she breezes by him, ignores my question, and stops just at my feet before reaching for the back of my neck and pulling me down to her. With a tiny sigh, her lips meet mine and all other sound in the room is sucked out in one giant rush of air. My blood heats, and lust flashes through me, hot and dizzying.

Lola smells exactly like she always does—the sweet honey scent of her soap—and her lips are just as soft as they were when I kissed her goodbye through the open window of her car only hours ago. My brain spends so much time wondering at these things that it takes a moment for me to realize that Lola is kissing me. Now. Right here, in the middle of my shop.

Fuck it.

My hands push into her hair to tilt her head, my tongue slides against hers, and it feels like the perfect way for us to announce what’s happening. I only wish everyone was here to see it, to get it over with in one fell swoop.

A throat clears somewhere nearby, and when Lola takes a step back the rest of the world slowly comes into focus. Joe is leaning against the register, ankles crossed, with his eyebrows raised to the ceiling.

Lola smiles and looks up at me with the adoration I feel for her mirrored in her eyes. “Can we talk for a minute in your office?” she asks, breathless.

She follows me to the back, and her presence behind me feels radioactive, buzzing. I want to turn and kiss her as we walk. It’s a heady infatuation, that need I have to touch touch touch until our skin is sore and the need for food and water takes priority. I crave it, I crave her.

Inside the office, she closes the door behind her back and leans against it, grinning at me. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I’m not sure I’ve ever smiled so wide; it feels too big for my face. “Nice show out there.”

She gives a little one-shouldered shrug. “Thanks.”

“I wonder if Joe will ever move from that spot now that you’ve shocked the life out of him.”

Laughing, she says, “We’ll have to tell the others soon, I guess.”

She looks around the room, and I try to see it from her eyes. She’s been back here only a couple of times, and in the past few months the space has become my little, calming cave. Before we moved into the shop, it was a pretty fancy boutique, and some of those original fixtures remain in the back office. The walls are painted a soft cream and there are outlets where glass chandeliers used to hang from the ceiling. A row of mirrors lines the back wall but is partially covered in boxes I’ve yet to unpack. Even so, it makes the space feel larger than it is. My desk is situated along the long wall behind me, facing the door, and a small row of windows cuts a dusty sunbeam across the room.

When our eyes meet again, I know we’ve silently agreed not to talk about the hardest part of all this, that there’s new pressure there now. Ansel and Mia are married. Finn and Harlow are married. We don’t have the luxury of crashing and burning in a fiery mess.

There’s an unspoken sense among our friends that Lola and I are somehow more together—the store, her comic career—as if we’ve had it all figured out more thoroughly and for longer than they have. But looking at Lola now, I can easily tell she doesn’t trust herself at all in this. As much as I sense she does feel for me, I also know she would rather illustrate a comic for Frank Miller with him looking over her shoulder than navigate emotional territory when a group of friends is involved.

I move to her, giving her a soft kiss. “What brings you to my office today, young lady?”

Wincing, she tells me, “I’m headed to L.A.”

My heart trips over her words. “Today?”

“Yeah. The car is coming for me at five.”

“They sent a car?”

“I think that’s mostly because Austin isn’t sure mine will survive the drive there.”

“You’re still hot shit,” I tease, and then look over my shoulder at the wall clock. It’s three seventeen. “When are you home?”

“I’m staying tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday, back sometime Friday night.”

Well, that blows. “Can we plan for dinner Friday?”

“I’m supposed to go over to Greg’s. Come with me?”

I bend, kissing her again. “Sure.”

There’s tension in her eyes, and I lean back, studying it.

“You okay?”

She swallows, shaking her head quickly as if to clear it. “I’m fine. I have a book due next week and I’ve barely started. We’re supposed to finalize the script this week, but I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know how I’m going to get everything done.”

“You take it one step at a time.”

She leans into me, resting her chin on my chest as she looks up at my face. “I’m a little distracted.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

She pushes her lips out in a sweet pout. “And I don’t feel like going to L.A. for a few days.”

“I don’t feel like having a girlfriend in L.A. for a few days.”

Biting the side of her lip, she repeats, “ ‘Girlfriend’?”

“Fuck buddy of whom I am rather fond?” I offer instead.

Lola smacks my chest, laughing.

I put my hand over hers to keep it in place, right over my breastbone. “Girlfriend is certainly my preference.”

She stares up at me, quiet, unreadable.

“Want to go to your place for the next hour?” I ask, and I know my meaning is obvious when Lola flushes.

“London is there.”

“London is going to have to get used to me staying over,” I remind her.

Leaning back, Lola levels me with an amused look. “We’re not quiet.”

“She’ll have to get used to the noise then, too.”

“Especially you.”

I shrug, lifting her hand to kiss the center of her palm and still trying to wrap my head around the fact this is a thing I’m allowed to do now. Lola watches with wide, blue eyes as I kiss up her wrist, to the inside of her elbow, sucking lightly at the delicate skin there. “So, we won’t go to your apartment. . . .”

“London doesn’t date much,” she blurts, and I recognize it for what it is: nervous babble now that it’s becoming clear we’re going to fool around back here. It’s so un-Lola to ramble, it makes me smile in surprise. “Like, she gets asked out all the time and always turns them down.”

“Why’s that?” I ask before biting her gently, though to be honest, I’m not really all that concerned with London’s dating life right now. I’m pretty sure we both know this.

Lola blows out a breath. “I don’t know, really. She had a boyfriend for most of college. Not sure what happened.” She pauses. “Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about her right now,” she says, a hint of a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh?”

She watches me kiss her arm again. “No.”

“What would you prefer to do?”

She pulls away gently before walking to my desk, and I follow. Reaching for my belt loop, Lola pulls me closer. “I don’t know. . . .”

My fingers graze her sides and toy with the hem of her shirt. I wait for her to stop me, to give me some sort of sign that she wants to take things slower today. But before I can ask, the fabric is pulled from my hands and her shirt is gone, a blur of blue that lands somewhere in a pile behind my desk.

Her bra is black and covered in white polka dots, her tits pushed up so the swells are full and round. She pulls my shirt up over my head and then stretches, brushing her chest against mine, and even though I know what’s about to happen, I could never anticipate the way it feels when her hands move down to the front of my pants, gripping me over the denim. Her thumb moves back and forth along the tip and my head falls forward, forehead resting on hers as I force myself to hold still, not to rock into her palm or rush this.

Lola pulls my head back down to hers, her warm lips opening against mine. I want to figure out how to go faster and slow down all at once, how to spend an eternity feeling everything. We kiss, lips and the slippery slide of tongues, vibrations of noise, and tiny explosions of realization that seem to pop like flashbulbs in my mind over and over again. I’m an amnesiac: I still can’t believe this is happening. Twenty-four hours ago we didn’t kiss or touch—we definitely didn’t see each other naked—but here we are.

My heart is racing, and when I pull back for breath, I see that Lola’s mouth is red and swollen from the drag of my day-old beard. She looks up at me as her fingers move to the fly of my jeans and unbuttons them one by one. I can feel each teasing pop. I bite down on my lip and try to stay quiet, knowing that if I let myself make even a sound it will be the tiny crack that shatters my control. I’ll throw her down and fuck her, unprotected, messy, half-dressed.

She stretches to suck on my neck and then steps back, bunching her skirt in her hands and pulling it up her thighs. I watch the slow reveal: milky skin, soft curved hips . . . She’s not wearing underwear. Still, she’s fresh-faced, eyes carrying a clear innocence I’m sure she has no sense of whatsoever. Never in my life have I felt more like I’m doing something very naughty with someone very, very sweet. Sliding onto my desk, she spreads her legs and leans back, giving me a rather perfect view of her pussy.

Heat slides through my veins and I step between her thighs, desperation licking at my skin. I slide my hand up the inside of her legs, wondering idly about how many men she’s been with. It could be one or one hundred and I wouldn’t begrudge her any of them, but something tells me this type of relationship is new for her. I know from overhearing her with her friends the past few months that she has no compunction about sex, no sense that it should be held off for some larger declaration, no issue with one-night stands. But I also get the sense that for Lola, it takes more than a momentary desire to let someone into this secret, honest place.

She shivers as my fingers trace the shape of one breast, the pad of my thumb brushing over the taught peak of her nipple until she arches, wordlessly begging for the pinch I know she wants. I lean down and run my tongue over the sheer fabric before I take her between my teeth. Her back bows, pushing her chest to my mouth, and I use the opportunity to reach around, slipping the hook free. I pull the fabric away and watch as she’s unwrapped like a fucking present.

With my gaze locked to hers I drag the tip of my tongue over her skin. She sucks in a breath, reaching to part the denim of my jeans and pulling my boxers down just enough to take me in her palm. I almost bite through my lip when she swipes her thumb across the head, and then reaches up, sliding her fingertip into her mouth.

Her hand returns, thumb even wetter now, and I blink down to where she holds me between our bodies. There’s the flat plane of my stomach and the soft curve of hers, and my cock, hard and swollen at the tip, jutting straight up between us.

I’m almost too warm, and feel the prickle of sweat at the back of my neck as Lola leans in, lips brushing over the shell of my ear. “Do you have a condom in here?”

“Yeah. Middle top desk drawer. Brought some in today.”

She gives me a triumphant you’re-a-genius grin and then lies back, stretching an arm over her head to reach to the other side of the desk and open the drawer. It would be easier for me to do this, but there’s no fucking way I’m missing the chance to look at her stretched out and almost naked on my desk.

When she sits up, I step forward, taking her face in my hands to press my mouth to hers.

“I want you to put it on,” she says against my lips.

“Yeah?”

“Watching you roll that thing on in the middle of the night might have been one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.”

With my cock in one hand and the condom in the other, I pause with the latex poised just over the tip, and look up to make sure she’s watching.

She is. In fact, I’m not sure she blinks or even breathes the entire time, her eyes glued to me while I slowly roll it down. I love the way she looks at my cock: eyes a little wide, lips parted.

I reach up, cupping her breast. “You look surprised.”

“I think I’ll be surprised every time you take your pants off,” she says absently. “Your cock is unreal.”

Hearing Lola say my cock is unreal will never get old. Never.

She slides her fingers between her legs, slipping them back and forth along either side of her clit. I both see and hear what this does to her, in the way the muscles of her stomach flex and her thighs squeeze my hips, in the soft sounds she makes.

“Wet enough for me?”

Lola nods, bringing her hands from between her legs to my mouth, where she slips them between my lips. I can feel for myself how wet she is, can taste it. My eyes nearly roll out of my head with how good this is, how dirty I want to be with her and all the things I want us to do. I moan and Lola pulls her fingers away with a quiet pop, staring up at me with a hunger I’ve never seen in her before.

I wish I could pinpoint why her expression tugs at a tender part of me, what feels off.

It isn’t the way our hands trip over each other in their quest to touch every inch of skin, or the way she digs her fingers into my hair, exhaling in relief when she feels me slip barely inside her. It isn’t the way her head falls back, the way she pushes her breast into my hand, or how her legs spread wide to take more.

But maybe it is in the way she won’t let her eyes hold mine for too long, the way it feels like she’s holding her breath. It’s the same thing I do before I tilt my bike over a steep hill and barrel down.

I ease into her—in, out, in deeper, out a bit more—and she’s with me, fuck I know she is, I can feel it in the rocking of her hips, the curl of her fists in my hair—but the hot film of protectiveness won’t leave me. Every move she makes screams that she’s new to this, that this type of intimacy is different, blissful, and terrifying.

I’ve had sex with many women, and have had loving, intimate sex with some of them, but I’ve never felt for them what I feel for Lola. Still, the depth of the emotion is a relief, not at all disorienting. Last night was the perfect combination of making love and fucking, but here I wouldn’t dare be so rough with her as I’d been. She feels like blown glass in my hands, looking up at me almost as if she needs to know what to do.

So I give her a task. My lips press to her cheek, teeth bared. “Don’t make a sound.”

I feel her exhale in relief against me, and she nods, turning, seeking my mouth, but I pull away.

“Stay quiet, be good, and I’ll kiss you.”

She nods again, quickly, urgently, and it can’t be that simple, but it is. The drifting tension in her eyes is replaced by focus. But now that I’ve said it, there isn’t a thing on this planet or any other I want as much as I want her mouth, open and wet against mine while we fuck.

I fill my hands with her tits, suck at her neck, and grind my body into hers until I feel her sweat under my lips, and she’s tight everywhere.

Growing tighter, still quiet, breaths shallow and sharp.

“That’s it,” I tell her. “I can’t hear you. I can only hear the fucking.”

I love her sounds, but right now her silence means so much more. Her silence and the begging in her eyes is the admission that she needs me to ground her, to help her focus down on this and only this. Not L.A. Not the book she needs to write. I always suspected she looked to me to center her, but to know it so surely right now, when we’re making love, pulls at a tight band in my chest.

Lola’s skin is creamy and pale, even paler against the dark of her hair. Her ponytail has come undone and now strands fall forward over her shoulders, brushing along her nipples, the ends curling over her breasts. A sheen of sweat breaks out on her chest, her upper lip, and around me her cunt squeezes tight . . . she’s close. Her breaths come quicker when I thrust up with just a little more force and I bare my teeth on her jaw, feeling my own control fraying, growling, “Not a sound. Not one fucking sound.”

I find her wrists, draw them behind her back, and plunge so deep, grinding where she likes it. Her mouth goes wide, expression nearly pained, and then it’s like tapping the first domino down and watching in wonder: She squeezes her eyes closed, head back and teeth clenched with the effort it takes to hold in her cries. Around me, her body comes with a series of wild, tight spasms. Lola flushes red and her pulse is a wild animal in her throat—but my girl doesn’t even let free a tiny gasp of air.

Pride swells so fast in my chest I’m covering her mouth with mine, fucking her fast and shallow, and she’s wrestling free, finally crying out at the feel of my tongue on hers. Her hands dig into my hair, eyes open so she can watch me.

“It’s so fucking good.” I hear myself grunt on every shove, the sounds of sex making me harder—the wet slide, skin slapping, the creaking of my desk.

“Fuck!” I can’t help but yell. “Fuck!”

I’m grateful to the traffic on Fifth, the constant bustle of the shop for muting the noise we must be making.

Harder, faster, she’s gasping and clutching me at my neck, nails digging into my skin. Her legs are wrapped around me, sweat making us slippery, and I grip her ass to pull her onto me at the same time I shove as deep as I can, going off with a hoarse yell, in a flurry of wild thrusts. Light bursts behind my closed lids, bliss racing down my spine, tiny explosions of pleasure spreading across the map of my entire body.

I slump against her, pressing my teeth to her neck as my hips slow and eventually stop. It’s a miracle my desk is still in one piece.

Lola catches her breath against me, holding me tight. Her legs don’t let up; she doesn’t want to let me go, and, fuck, I don’t ever want to leave the warmth of her body.

The room is suddenly so quiet, and I can’t seem to pull in enough oxygen. My breaths feel too fast, too loud. Lola slumps forward on my chest and I wrap my arms around her. She feels tiny in my arms: willowy and delicate. I feel like I’m made of nothing but basic instincts—fuck, breathe, sleep—but I manage to remain upright. The pleasure slips away gradually, and I run kisses up her neck, pausing for a breath so I can tell her how fucking good it was.

Before I can get the words started, I stop, listening.

An odd stillness seems to have surrounded us, and I’m hit with a restless awareness: the magnitude of the quiet is nearly dystopian, almost as if the world outside ended while we were in here wildly fucking.

Lola’s eyes meet mine and I know the thought hits us both at the same time.

I close my eyes, waiting for the explosion. “Oh sh—”

Suddenly Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” blares from the front of the store. It’s so loud it may as well be playing in the room with us.

I look at Lola, who is still flushed from her orgasm. She claps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. “Oh, my God,” she mumbles.

Motherfucking Joe starts yell-singing along with it: “Demolition woman, can I be your man?”

Finally, I pull out, quickly tying off the rubber and dropping it in the trash bin. Together, we start putting our clothes back on: I pull my pants up my legs, tug my shirt over my head. Lola slides from the desk, straightening her skirt, locating her bra and shirt.

“Television lover, baby, go all night!” Joe sings.

At least four other voices join in for the rest of the chorus.

Lola hooks her bra behind her back, adjusts the straps, and then presses her hands to her face. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

The music dies down and Joe proclaims, “Show thyself, mighty stallion!”

Laughing, I call out, “Shut the fuck up!” I help Lola get her shirt back on as laughter trails through the door.

Pulling her hair into a bun, she says, “I guess that answers that question.”

“The soundproofing in here?” I ask.

She nods, rubbing her face again, but behind it I can see her smile. “Is there a secret way out or are we doomed for a walk of shame?”

This makes me laugh. “Shame? I’ll be strutting. We nearly broke that fucking desk fucking.”

“Seriously.”

I cup her face, kissing her once. “Sorry, pet, we can only escape through that door, right there.”

Lola nods against my hands, eyes holding mine.

“Was it good?” I ask quietly. “Did you like trying to be quiet?”

“So good,” she whispers, stretching to kiss me again. “I don’t want to go to L.A.”

My arms come around her, and I feel the warmth of her breath on my neck. “I’m not wild about this plan, either.”

She’s shaking, and I want to look at her face, but she has it determinedly pressed to my shoulder.

“Look at me,” I say. “Let me taste that pretty mouth.”

She tilts her face up to me, lazily sliding her lips with mine: warm, heavy, wet.

“I love you,” I tell her. Her eyes flutter closed, her kisses deepen. And I don’t need to hear the words from her in return because this—her body language, her response when I say it, even the fact that she’s confirmed to anyone in the store that she’s mine—tells me she feels it, too.

After another ten seconds where I’m debating having her again, but this time on the couch near the window, I pull back, kissing the top of her head and coaxing her arms from around my waist. It’s time to face the inevitable.

I cross the room and look over my shoulder at her; she swipes away the smudged eyeliner from beneath her eyes, and then gives me a tentative thumbs-up. The squeak of the doorknob seems to reverberate in the quiet and I pull the door open, letting in a gust of cool air.

My heart drops when I see Harlow first, Finn just behind her. I expected Joe. Not this.

“Well, well,” Harlow says as a smile spreads across her face. “If it isn’t my two favorite nerds.”

I step out, working to keep my expression neutral. “You know two other nerds?”

Harlow’s mouth tries to form a few words. Finally, she manages, “How long have you been—”

Finn gets his hand around her and over her mouth just milliseconds after she releases a loud “Fucking?” into the entire store.

“Roughly for the last eighteen hours,” Lola answers, coming up behind me, and I look down at her, surprised by the poise in her voice. She slips her arm around my waist. “Though we took a break between ten and three today to get some work done.”

Joe whistles from behind the counter, and then looks down at a book he’s reading, as if he weren’t behind these shenanigans.

“Think you could have started the music a few minutes sooner?” I ask him with a grin.

He laughs down at the book. “Probably. But where’s the fun in that? This is your punishment for taking so long to do that.”

“And leaving him in charge,” someone calls from the front reading nook.

“Wong to Doctor Strange . . .” I remind him. “Wong would have been a team player.”

Joe looks up at me, feigning insult. “That hurts, boss.”

Harlow is staring at Lola, brows raised in expectation. “Do you have a minute, friend?” she asks, fighting an enormous grin.

Lola looks warily up at the clock behind the counter. It’s nearly four, and I’m sure she’s thinking the same thing I am—that a conversation with Harlow about this is unlikely to be quick. “I have a few. But I need to pack for L.A., so just come to the loft with me for my interrogation.”

She turns, gives me a pained look, stretches to kiss me in front of her best friend—who gasps—and then whispers, “I’ll see you Friday.”

“Friday,” I repeat, holding her hand until the last possible moment. With a last wide-eyed glance over her shoulder at me, Lola allows Harlow to march her out of the store.

Finn watches the two women leave with a mixture of amusement and concern. Harlow is already shouting excitedly on the sidewalk. “So,” he says, turning to me.

I smile. “So.”

He lifts his cap, scratching his head. “Lola’s headed to L.A. again?”

My smile widens. I can always count on Finn to keep things easy. “For a few days.”

“I hate L.A.”

“You do?” I ask through mild sarcasm.

He ignores this. “You either spend the entire day driving from meetings on one side of town to another or you get up there and do everything over the phone and could have stayed home anyway.”

“Well, I think they’re working on the script.”

He nods. “Probably better to be up there, then.” Finn walks around the counter and looks in the mini-fridge we have stashed in the corner. “Lola will figure it out, I bet.” I hear him slide a couple of cans out and he tosses me a beer. “So things are good?”

I grin at him for several beats of silence before asking, “Finn, did you just ask me a personal question?”

Laughing, he says, “Forget it,” and cracks open his beer.

“Yeah things are good,” I tell him, opening my own. “Bloody great.”

“So last night . . . ?”

He lets the question hang between us. This is the deepest Finn is willing to pry.

“Yeah.” The reality of it—of Lola as mine—makes me feel like sprinting from the store and running a marathon.

“Fucking finally,” Finn says with a small lift of his brow.

I laugh, taking a deep drink. “Do you ever stop and think how crazy this is?”

Tilting his chin up, he asks, “The wives, you mean?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, from Vegas to now.”

“Part of me suspects Harlow masterminded the entire thing,” he says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one to slip us each the Bike and Build info years ago.”

“The long con.” I acknowledge this by lifting my can to him. “How is the esteemed Mrs. Roberts?”

He grins. “Crazy as fuck. She’s probably up there giving Lola the third degree.”

I think third degree is probably an understatement, but if Lola can handle anyone, it’s Harlow.

“It’s a good time to be a man,” I say. The clink of our cans echoes dully through the store.