Twice Shy

I AM FACING MY CLOSED bedroom door at 7:59 p.m. on Friday, already sweating through my dress, waiting for that knock that just might mark the beginning of everything.

This is the sixth outfit I’ve tried on—if I had the time, I’d probably change again—light pink with cherries all over. It’s supposed to be a knockoff of a strawberry-print dress I love that’s way out of my budget, and although it doesn’t look anything like the Amazon picture, it fits nicely and twirls whenever I turn. I stressed myself out trying to land on a decent hairstyle, unable to commit to a high pony when I know I’ll end up with a headache, unable to do a fishtail braid like the one in the tutorial. I messed with it until my previously gleaming locks got frizzy, ended up having to wash and style it again, and now it’s damp, hanging loose, because I don’t trust myself to experiment with it anymore.

I have never been this nervous.

There’s no reason to be nervous. This is Wesley. Gawky, shy, uncomfortable, unintentionally charming Wesley.

Knock, knock, knock.

My heart springs into overdrive. This is it. I haven’t been on a first date in . . . it’s best not to count. A long time. What will we be doing? Where are we going? Will he kiss me again? I clutch my purse like it’s a life preserver and rethink my choice of shoes. If we’re doing anything outdoorsy I’m going to regret these heels.

I open the door and all of my intelligent thoughts fall right off the shelf.

The man on the other side is tall, broad shouldered, strong jawed, in a suit of blackest black. Dark blond hair falls in waves that make me think of ivy tendrils. He’s the god of spring, powerful but sweet, burying things to make them come alive. The god of spring carries earth and rain on his skin wherever he goes. His brown eyes are topaz—a glass of root beer held up to the light, widening as he slackens against the door frame like he’s just been wounded.

“Oh . . .” His gaze rakes me. His eyes go wider still, and he rubs his chin. “Wow.”

I resist a million electrical impulses: to look away, bite my lip, cross my ankles, fiddle with my purse, fidget with my hair. To say apologetically, The dress doesn’t look like the one I ordered, or minimize myself with a grimace and a My hair’s misbehaving. When he looks at me that way, I feel like a goddess.

I feel . . .

“Yes,” I agree, drawing myself up strong and tall. “You are a lucky boy tonight, Mr. Koehler.”

He nods, not a whisper of humor in it. “I am.”

In heels, I don’t have to jump to kiss him, but I do have to yank his lapel to get him to dip his head. One hand slides up his smooth cheek, and I leave a kiss on the other. When I pull away, his eyes follow me in such an intimate way that I get tingles all down my spine. “You look incredible, as always. Where are we going?”

Wesley inhales a bracing breath. Puts on a practiced smile that quivers just the slightest bit, trying very hard to cover up his nerves. His hands are clenched at his sides. “I’m taking you to heaven.”

I must be hearing things. “Wesley Koehler. Is that a pickup line?”

He holds out a stick of chewing gum. “You might need this.”

I frown, but he doesn’t move until I accept it. “Is this a commentary on my breath?” I brushed my teeth twice before this. And flossed. And swished mouthwash until my eyes watered.

“You’ll see.” He swallows, smile widening as I side-eye him irritably, popping the gum in my mouth. Then he takes my hand and leads me toward the front door. Just as I reach for the knob, however, he loops an arm around my waist to haul me close to him and turns in a different direction.

“What are you—”

He shakes his head, striding down the hall with me in bewildered tow.

This half of the house is dark. I try again: “What are we—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” he admonishes me, clucking his tongue. Then he abruptly spins so that he’s walking backward in front of me, face-to-face. He takes my hands in his, turning again down a different corridor. In my peripheral vision, I see his brilliant smile transform his whole body, but I can’t look directly at him because I’ve been swept away into another world.

There are clouds in the corridor.

A whole night sky: great big puffs of cotton threaded with twinkly lights hanging down like raindrops. I think he made them himself, affixing the cotton to paper lanterns and suspending them from the ceiling. We walk under and around cloud after cloud, the only illumination in this long, dark hallway.

“You’re probably experiencing a change in atmospheric pressure,” he tells me, raising our hands together and flattening our palms before his left laces tightly with my right and his other hand finds the small of my back. He brings me close to him, then reverses our positions in one fluid motion. Then again.

I realize we’re dancing.

He waltzes me down the hallway, eyes sparkling, wholly riveted on my face. Neither of us is getting the steps right, but I’m not even the tiniest bit self-conscious about it and he—oh, he’s a dream, just marvelous, mesmerizing, painfully luminous in the glow of a sky he made all for me. “That’s because we’re up in the clouds now, going higher and higher,” he says.

“I see that,” I reply, hardly able to get the words out because I’m beaming so hugely.

“You see that bird that just went by?” he teases. “Caw, caw!”

I fall sideways just a bit, giggling. He catches me, holding me closer. Our graceless stumbling makes me throw my head back and laugh harder.

“Whooooosh,” he says at my ear, a smile in his voice, “there goes an airplane.”

I shake my head, but my heart leaps out of my body with a parachute. I feel wildly out of control, like I’m standing in the surf and the water’s pulling at me, trying to knock me off my feet. I’ve gotten close to this feeling before, manufactured in the superficial relationships of my fantasies, but that feeling falls flat on its face in comparison to this.

I am bubbles and butterflies. I am fizz floating into the night sky. I don’t know what’s happening or what will happen because for once, I am not orchestrating any of this. The lines are all unscripted, every second a thrilling surprise. I’m spinning out, carried away in a current. I want to fight it and I want to surrender.

My knees go wobbly as the identity of this feeling rips its mask off and declares itself to me, but Wesley thinks my heels are the culprit.

“All that effort, and you’re still all the way down there,” he tells me with a crooked grin. I blow a bubble with my gum, letting it pop in his face.

We’ve reached the end of the hall. Wesley reaches behind him, fumbling for a doorknob without turning. I think he wants to continue monitoring my reaction.

I arch a brow. “The conservatory?”

His expression is sly. “Is it?”

My forehead scrunches, but then the door is open, and the huge bags of soil I’ve seen him drag in here are nowhere to be found. “A bell chimes,” he says lowly, “when we open the door.”

“I didn’t hear a . . .”

My brain blinks out. I’m stationary as I wait for backup generators to kick on, letting pieces fall together slowly.

The sunroom, which I handed over to Wesley in exchange for the cabin in our negotiations, is not the conservatory he’s been talking about. There are plants, big floppy ferns in pots, but my attention flits past them to the red vinyl booth sidled up against the glass wall. The opposite wall is painted pale purple, lower half adorned with aqua tiles that spread over the floor. It smells like plaster and new construction, drilled wood and fresh paint. There are succulents in hanging baskets and a travel poster on the wall that says, in vintage style, welcome to falling stars. On closer inspection, it isn’t a poster at all. He’s painted the design directly onto the wall, then hung a frame around it.

“Over here is the display case,” he tells me, motioning at a bank of empty space, “filled with donuts. Up here is the old-fashioned register.” He raps the register-less countertop, which I realize was taken from the bar in the lounge upstairs. A coffeepot that’s probably as old as I am, carafe stained amber, awaits.

Part of me has gone away from Falling Stars, from Top of the World. I’m in Lexington, Kentucky, fourteen years old. In the car with Mom, world black, snow pushing against the windshield. We’re bundled in coats, hats, mittens, still-warm leftover pie from the diner between us in a Styrofoam container. We’re listening to syndicated radio host Delilah on the radio, and while we didn’t scratch millions from the lottery ticket, for the present moment we’re a peaceful family unit. The happy spark of memory infuses me with warmth.

My throat closes up. “It’s perfect.”

The rotary phone is blue rather than beige, nonfunctional, cord cut off. It automatically becomes canon. There’s only one red vinyl booth; the rest of the seating is thrifty substitutes, red-painted card tables with mismatched patio chairs. The bar stools don’t spin, and they’re yellow, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. He’s lit a candle called Blueberry Pie, the scent too weak to overpower the rest of the room. I picture Wesley picking out candles at Casey’s General, hunting for ones that smell like baked goods.

The cloud lights are in here, too—on the floor around us, hanging from the ceiling, reflecting off the glass wall to imitate a café in the night sky. Rain begins to fall outside, pelting the panes.

It’s a miracle I can stand upright when I am, in fact, melting.

“Do you hear the jukebox?” He’s behind me, hands at my waist, lips at my ear. He points at an old red Zenith radio sitting atop a pile of extra tiles.

“It’s playing my favorite song,” I reply, voice quivering in spite of my best efforts. I glance sideways at the glass wall to see his reflection. We stand in a room that is half shadow, half heaven, with softly glowing clouds, their number doubled in the glass wall. He is the most radiant thing in here, smile dazzling.

“You haven’t seen the best part yet.” Wesley moves my hands up from my mouth to my eyes. “Don’t look.”

I shut my eyes tight. “I can’t believe you did this. How long have you been working on it? How did you— I can’t even— You are . . .” I can’t drum up any coherent speech, babbling. “You are . . .”

“Yes,” he replies from several feet away, a touch smug. “I am, aren’t I?”

My cheeks hurt from smiling. “You truly are.”

Click.

“What was that?” I ask. “Please let it not be my morning alarm. Am I asleep? I hope this doesn’t all disappear when I open my eyes.”

“Don’t worry, it’s here to stay.” Wesley’s voice is closer than I anticipated. “And . . . open.”

I do.

Ohhh!

It’s my sign! Maybell’s Coffee Shop. The words are painted on an oval piece of wood. Below them, he’s shaped a donut out of two hot-pink neon wires that plug into the wall, feeding through the back of the wood.

My vision glitters and the image appears in my mind’s eye like a premonition: I see myself adding books to this room, stacking them wherever they’ll fit. Whole rows of romance and science fiction. A cappuccino machine. Menus that double as bookmarks . . . pairing the perfect book with the pastry of your choice. The thought lands with a fateful boom that rattles the floor and ceiling.

“I hope you don’t mind Subway sandwiches for dinner,” he’s saying, scratching the back of his head self-consciously. “I wanted to cook something nice for you, but the clouds took longer than expected and—”

I leap at him, throwing my arms around his neck. I kiss his cheek, his chin, his forehead. “Wesley! How dare you be this amazing! Who gave you the right?” I don’t stop to let him respond. “What about your conservatory? This was supposed to be yours. We made a deal. You can have the cabin, then. It’s yours.” My name is on a sign. My name is on a sign on the wall. With a neon donut. I cannot believe this. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome so much.” Wesley is trying to be modest, but I can tell he’s exceedingly pleased with himself. Good. He should be. “I wanted to bring your happy place to life.”

“And all along, you were just out here.” I am off the rails now. “Being you. And I was over there, not even knowing.”

“Now you’re here,” he replies cheerfully, leaning back so he can view me better.

“Now I’m here,” I echo. I am so giddy that I’m making myself ill. If this feeling is what I think it is, I’m going to die. This cannot be sustainable. How do couples spend whole years feeling like this about each other? How do they not combust?

“Ready for five-star cuisine?” To my surprise, he sidesteps the red booth and takes us to the counter, pulling out a stool for me like a gentleman.

Subway is one of the only takeout places in Top of the World, the other being Benigno’s, a little pizzeria. They sit side by side in a building that used to be a sawmill and sabotage each other’s advertising signs. Thunder cracks over the house as he pushes me in, foul weather interfering with the static that seems to be the only sound Wesley could coax out of the old radio.

“So this is what you’ve been doing all day.” I can’t get over it.

“Just the clouds. The rest I’ve been doing whenever you’re out of the house, or asleep.” He pulls two hot chocolates from behind the counter, setting them before us. You wouldn’t think that hot chocolate and veggie sandwiches would pair well, but he’s noticed my favorite drink is hot chocolate, and that means everything. “What have you been doing all day?”

Other than crying over my hair, my day’s actually been rather productive. “I had a chat with Ruth’s daughter Sasha over the phone.”

“Really? Why?”

“The last time I talked to Ruth, she mentioned her daughter had quit culinary school to get away from an ex-boyfriend. I’m going to have my hands full around here—preparing three meals a day would take up too much of my time. Plus, I’m good at baking but I don’t have the range for lunches and dinners day in and day out. I wanted to know if she’d consider being my chef.”

“What’d she say?”

My adrenaline is surging so high that I can’t taste any of my food, which I eat anyway, feeling that rise of excitement and stress flood me all over again. Excitement and stress is the line I’ve been straddling for a while now. “She’s going to come over and discuss the possibility in a couple of weeks. She wants to see the kitchen first—I’m gonna have to get a second fridge, and maybe other appliances, if she needs them. She wants freedom to plan her own menus.” I add in a rush, “All vegetarian meals, of course.”

Wesley puts his sandwich down. Stares at me. “You don’t have to do that.”

I wave him off, inexplicably blushing. Maybe it’s because I’m showing my hand here, betraying that what is important to him is important to me. “No big deal.”

He’s turning pink, too. “I would never pressure you to only serve vegetarian food. It’s a personal decision. I don’t expect—”

“I know.” I cut him off with a pat on the hand. “Do you honestly think, though, that after hearing about your childhood pet cow, I’m ever going to bring meat into your house? Nope.” I take a sip of my drink in a Case closed gesture. “Not happening.”

We stare down at our plates. We are both flustered, both unable to take a compliment, both wanting to give compliments rather than receive them and both being bad at verbalizing our feelings. I’d laugh out loud at how disastrously awkward we are if I weren’t channeling every drop of energy into staying put on this stool when all I really want to do is maul him.

He reaches for a Subway napkin. Takes a pen from inside his jacket and unclicks it, hand poised in midair for three seconds.

That is very wonderful of you, he writes, and slides the napkin over to me.

My face heats even more. I take much too long settling on a reply. You make it easy.

He rereads that line over and over. “You make it easier,” he says finally. “So we’re really doing this, then.” He pushes his plate away. “A hotel and an animal sanctuary. An interesting combination.” He clinks his mug of hot chocolate against mine. “To Violet.”

“To Violet.” I finish my drink, then add, “Thank you, by the way, for taking care of her. I’m sad that I never met her as an adult, and built a relationship with her as two adults rather than caregiver and child. I think we each thought we’d failed the other.”

He listens. Nods slowly, writing on the napkin some more. “She would have liked adult Maybell, I can tell you that. She would have liked who you’ve grown up to become.”

I lean into him, more for the excuse to be close than any other reason, and smile to see that he’s sketching me.

“Your pendant,” I muse, tapping the miniature version in ink.

“Your pendant,” he says, briefly touching the one that rests against my chest. My skin responds with goose bumps. “Looks better on you.”

I prop my elbow on the counter, chin in hand, posing for him. His eyes flicker from me to the drawing, me to the drawing, the edge of an amused smile flirting at his lips. “You can move a bit, you know.”

“Hm?”

“You’re being so still.”

“I don’t want to mess you up.”

He tips his head back, searching the ceiling. The sound that escapes his chest is a cross between sigh and laugh. “Maybell, I can draw you from memory. With my eyes closed.”

“Is that so?”

“Hands behind my back.”

“Now you’re just bragging.” I steal the napkin from him, helpless not to admire it. “That’s it. We need an art gallery down here for the guests to look at. I’m your number one fan, of course, but there’s room for more in the fan club.”

He sits forward over the counter, fingers in his hair, tousling it and trying to cover his face. The strands are too short to do the job, so he suffers in the open. “The drawing is pretty because the subject is pretty. I like drawing you.”

I’m not finished inflating his head. The man needs more ego. “The flowers you’ve put in the background are the best combination ever designed.”

“I was inspired by the flowers I see you gravitate toward whenever you’re in the garden.”

The storm outside rages and Wesley brings the lightning, radiating all around his magnificent frame like a halo. His eyes lock on my mouth, darkening.

I think he’s going to kiss me, but then he eases off his seat. As I turn, he takes my hand and pulls me along with him. We move to the center of the room, pressed close.

“Um.” My heart is the ocean slamming against a rocky shore. “Hi. Hello.”

For once—once—that anticipation, that tingling on the nape of my neck, that intoxicating awareness injected straight into my veins, isn’t vicarious. It doesn’t belong to an imaginary Maybell in a fantasy, a guess at what she might feel. It’s mine. And I think: At what point did my happy place stop being a dream and start being the person in front of me?

“Hello,” he returns, palms cradling either side of my face. “I’m trying something.”

“Try anything you want,” I reply, and he gifts me a half smile, then a kiss on my temple.

My pulse pounds, vision tunneling. The lights in the clouds begin to slide, converging together.

“A lot of times there’s a disconnect between what I want to do and what I can get up the nerve to do,” he confesses. “But with you, I’m anxious in a good way. Let’s see if I’m any good at this.”

“At what?”

I think I know what, but I can’t hold still. Suspense is eating me alive.

He retreats. I watch his reflection in the glass panes shift closer until he’s behind me, hands roving up either side to grasp my upper arms. The room tips onto its side, everything in it rolling except for us and each golden filament of light. The air is weighted, dropping lower, lower.

In the glass, his mouth hovers at my throat, just below my ear. Every molecule in my body sings. “I would like to touch you,” he says faintly. “If that’s okay.”

The air is so heavy now that it’s a drum pound.

“That would be perfect.” My voice sounds foreign to my ear, husky and strange.

He drops a kiss to my neck, eliciting a shiver. Then he blows softly along the hollow, migrating over to my shoulder. “This,” he says, toying fondly with my hair. “This is what I’ve wanted.”

Tension thickens as his hands gain confidence, no longer hesitating. He circles me, eyes going dark. Swipes a thumb beneath my chin and raises it so that I’m meeting his inscrutable stare.

“I’ve wanted it, too.” I want to swallow the rest, but the truth escapes. “Badly.”

I think he likes the truth. It makes him hold me closer.

I explore the planes of his chest, stomach. Then he can’t hold himself back any longer and wraps his arms around me, face descending with palpable intent. There’s a bright moment in time as we look at each other, and we know, like we’ve shared the thought with telepathy, what tonight means. Then there’s a brush of lips to initiate. And another. There’s warm breath, me tilting his jaw in my caged hand to see how malleable he is. He bends to my will easily.

His tongue slips into my mouth and it’s two things at once: quick pulse, hot blood turning in my ears. It’s languorous, long fingers of molten gold in a slow spill across the floor, burning the room away. With every thumping beat of my heart I am being ruined. I never want anyone to hold me again if they don’t hold me like this.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, our reflections watching each other.

My heart is too large to fit inside my chest. “Honestly?”

“If you’re willing.”

“I’m thinking that I’ve had dreams about getting our hands on each other and none of them live up to this.”

He bites his cheek, eyes downcast. “You dream about me?”

“I can’t help it.”

“No, I . . .” He wets his lips, picking words carefully. “I love that you do.”

“There’s the literal dreaming,” I venture. “And then, you know.” How do I say this without saying it? Oh, well. Caution to the wind. “Fantasizing. Everybody fantasizes.”

I’m starting to worry that I’ve overshared when he stares at me with a keen intensity and he says, “Can you tell me?”

“I could show you, if you’d like.”

He takes one step backward, which seems counterproductive, but I think he’s signaling that he is paying attention. “Tell me how it starts.”

“It starts with us standing in the sunroom that was going to be a conservatory but is now a café. You’ve just done an amazingly romantic thing with some clouds and it’s got me feeling all swoony.”

“Oooh, I like this so far.”

“You pick me up.”

He obliges with zeal, scooping me to his chest like a knight rescuing his princess. I think about where we are, where we could go next.

“You carry me out of the room.”

So he does.

“And we go . . .” My bedroom is too far. I’m in practical mode, hunting for the nearest soft landing pad. “Into the living room.”

So we do.

He lets his forehead fall to mine. “And then?”

“You notice a plaid couch,” I say, “that looks big enough for two people even if one of them is the size of Thor.”

He laughs. “All right. I’m noticing it.”

“And you say, ‘My, it’s been such a long day. I think I have to lie down immediately in this room where there is only one couch to lie on.’”

Wesley tries to keep a straight face. “My, it’s been such a long day. I think I have to lie down immediately in this room where there is only one couch to lie on.”

I grin. “You lay me onto the couch first, delicately, and admire me for two full minutes. You’ve never seen such beauty.”

He sets me down. A flash of lightning slants across his chest like a jagged blade and the emotion in his eyes steals my air. “I haven’t,” he murmurs.

“Two minutes is a long time,” I amend. “You admire me for a few seconds, then turn in a slow circle.”

Raising a brow, he complies.

“You tear your shirt up over your head.” Wesley snorts, but my expression is stern. “And you do it ferociously, with animal magnetism.”

He gamely peels his shirt off, tossing it aside.

My attention takes a leisurely stroll across all the bare skin he has on display. It’s decadent. “You flex your arms.”

He gives me a dry look.

“You have to,” I insist. “That’s how the fantasy goes.”

He flexes, and I fall back snickering. Wesley sighs melodramatically.

I want to see how much I can get away with. “You say, ‘Is it hot in here or is it just me?’”

He makes a face. Grumbles. “Is it hot in here? Orisitjustme.”

“It’s you,” I assure him, enjoying myself. “Then you—”

“Start to get impatient,” Wesley finishes darkly.

“No, you do not. You start doing a striptease.”

His eyes flash. “Or, I walk over to you.”

“Or, you shuck your pants and helicopter them over your head.”

Wesley leans over me, fisted hands pressing into the couch. His voice drops low, scraping my skin. “I kiss you.”

I loop my arms around his neck, only too happy to give in. “Yes. That’s exactly what you do.”

So he does. Softly, softly. Again and again.

I’m starting to feel warm, a bit delirious, and lean back slightly. “Just real quick.”

“Yeah?” He withdraws.

“Not to be down on myself or anything, but this is your first time. And, uh, I don’t know what you’ve been imagining, but . . .” I scramble for phrasing that won’t kill the mood. “I’m not a Victoria’s Secret model. You might have idealized what the woman in this experience would be like. I’ve done this, but not a lot. Also, I just ate, so I’m going to be a little bloated—”

“You’re beautiful. I’m going to love whatever’s under here,” he says, sliding a hand up my torso. A bolt of heat zings through me.

“Okay, but—”

“Maybell.” He stops me with two fingers pressed to my lips. “Don’t be giving me disclaimers, you don’t deserve that. I’m going. To love it.”

I let go.

The kisses change tempo, get deeper, needier, and there are long fingers gliding up my wrist, palms, lacing through mine. He settles over me, asks, Is it okay if I touch you, and I say, Yes. I’m giving him tremendous power over me by wanting him the way that I do, so much that it sticks in my throat, making it difficult to breathe. He’s giving tremendous power to me by trusting me enough to be intimate like this.

“What happens next?” I ask.

Wesley reaches behind me and bunches up a fistful of my dress, tugging it to mold tightly against my curves in the front. “I think you know what happens next.” His mouth slants over mine, the pressure of his kiss desperate, before he draws away to drink me in, eyes tracking down my body.

“What if we . . . ?” He exhales raggedly, playing with the zipper up my back.

“Yes.”

“And then we . . . ?”

“Yes.”

He fishes into the back pocket of his trousers and withdraws a foil square. “I bought these a couple days ago, just in case. I didn’t want to assume anything. But I kind of hoped.”

I press two fingers to his lips. “I’m glad you did.”

Wesley smiles against my fingers, relieved.

He unzips me, then I have to do a bit of wiggling before the dress is a puddle of fabric on the floor. My temperature is so high that the air is an icy bite. I would have thought I’d feel terribly vulnerable on display like this, but his gaze traverses my body with such longing, with such naked, blazing lust, and I feel like the most gorgeous creature that ever walked the earth.

Wesley drags his fingers over his face, eyes large.

“Fuck,” he utters weakly.

It is a heady, gratifying thing, to watch this man unravel.

He explores with his hands, glancing at my expression every so often to make sure I haven’t changed my mind, that I’m enjoying it. “I can’t get over how soft you feel.” He plants a kiss on my stomach, traveling up between my breasts, each touch reverent. He takes it in turns to be sweet, dirty, sweet, dirty, switching on me without warning. The sensations he’s . . .

My mind empties of words.

His tongue. His hands. I’m. It’s. Oh. I have to bite down.

When my hands explore him, too, he hisses through his teeth and pulls back somewhat, knee digging into the couch to hold his weight. His stomach muscles contract as my hand slides down them. “I know how this goes, but I’ve never done it before, so I might need some help.”

I am on fire. Anticipation is to blame for why I nervously babble, “Teamwork makes the dream work.”

Wesley’s chin falls onto his chest, body shaking with silent laughter. “Oh my god.”

“I’m sorry.”

But it dispels some of the tension, relaxing me enough to smile.

I claim his mouth again and he surrenders the self-doubt and insecurities building up inside him, letting instincts take over. The rest of our clothes come off. I smooth a hand over his chest and push so that his back hits the couch, and his eyes widen. Taking charge takes the pressure off of him. I straddle his hard, muscular body and introduce him to the finer things in life.

“Jesus,” he rasps again and again. “Jesus. God.”

“I had no idea you were so devout.”

A rumbling laugh swiftly ebbs into a groan, and he draws in a deep breath until his ribs protrude. His eyes pierce mine, brows pulling together ever so slightly. Before I can ask what, he moves.

A quick study, he rolls us and seamlessly assumes control. Pupils blown. Lips swollen. Pleased half smiles as he learns what I like; soft laughs and grated curses as we both learn what he likes.

He feels wonderful,

wonderful,

wonderful

and it isn’t because of any particular move he’s making, or because he’s some kind of god in bed, but because it’s him, and I think he just might feel the same way about me.

A dozen manifestations of Wesley have tried to imitate this. Wesleys on windy hilltops, soaked in rain, chests heaving, hair dripping. Wesleys leaving footprints in the sand on a warm beach. Princes and baristas.

He doesn’t kiss like a dream, doesn’t touch like a fantasy. He is Wesley, real. My imagination will spend the next thousand years chasing the memory of this: Wesley. Real. It will never get it right because he is beyond imagining. Nothing beats real.

HOURS LATER, WE’RE IN my bed. When we collapsed on my mattress we both announced that we were going to sleep like the dead tonight, but reality has made liars of us because we’re not used to having company when we sleep and each of us keeps jolting awake whenever the other one moves. It’s a lovely gift that keeps giving to see him next to me. I kind of like that I keep forgetting his presence every time I’m about to drift off to sleep and then abruptly startle; this means the truth of his being here sinks in over, and over, and over again.

Wesley reaches up to stroke my hair, smiling only with his eyes. I feel more than accepted when he touches me, when he holds me and smiles at me. I feel wanted.

I feel like I’ve finally found home.

Suspended in a state that isn’t quite dreamland, not quite wakefulness, I scroll through my mental calendar. We’ve got so much coming up in the next few weeks: his brother will be visiting before we know it to discuss investing in us, I’ll be meeting Sasha Campos in hopes that she’s going to join me in my new adventure, and I could possibly have that young woman and her son from the gas station staying here soon. I’ve got to get the last of my legal ducks put in a row. The house painted up into everlasting sunset.

Wesley’s got sections of wild overgrowth to clear in preparation for four-legged friends (and a few with wings). Once the hotel opens, Wesley will still leave from time to time for landscaping jobs. I, on the other hand, am going to be homebound for the foreseeable future.

Which means that if there are any last hurrahs in order, the time for them is now.

“Hey,” I whisper, prodding him. “Are you awake?”

“I don’t know.”

My mouth twitches. “You don’t know if you’re awake?”

“I don’t know anything right now,” he replies hoarsely. “What’s my name? Never heard of it. My brain’s as smooth as a scoop of ice cream and I’m not mad about it.” He folds his arms beneath his head, staring at the ceiling. “So I’m going to lie here and just be absolutely stupid for a while.”

“I think we should make good on our pact,” I tell him, effectively shattering his afterglow. “Quitting at the resort. Going to Loch Ness.”

“We will.”

I sit up, laying a palm to his chest where his heart pounds rhythmically. “I mean now,” I elaborate gently. “I think we should go now.”

“Right now?” He’s still half-asleep.

“I found a buyer for Victor’s coin collection. I was going to put the money toward a pool, but I think we should do this with it instead. Before it gets so hectic around here that we miss our chance. When I feel like I really need to do something, I don’t want to put it off.” I swallow. “From here on out.”

Wesley pulls himself up onto his elbow, a fathomless silhouette save for the twin gleams of his eyes. He stares and stares at me, and then finally says, “All right. Let’s do it.”