Page 30 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

It’s gentle at first, exploratory, as if it’s our first kiss and he’s unsure of his welcome, but then he hears the small whimper I cannot stop and he presses more firmly, not waiting for me to fully open my lips before he delves in with his tongue, tasting and reclaiming even while I tilt my head and reach out, trying to pull him more fully to me.

The angle is awkward and I almost lose my balance as my need to kiss him wars with my desire to touch him, to run my hands under his shirt and feel the new muscles he’s acquired in our years apart, to find and retrace the small scars I know will still be there. I shift toward him even as his hands wrap around the back of my head, securing me to him, as if he needs to hold me there, as if I wouldn’t sell my soul to stay here in this moment. Because the taste of Lucas, even a vodka-laced, goofy-grinning, wasted Lucas, is intoxicating in a way nothing else has ever been. Could ever be.

I’m beyond thinking about the consequences, beyond anything but trying to commit every detail to memory—from the faint scrape of his beard against my skin to the tinge of Old Spice and sweat to the feel of Lucas’s lips, firm and warm against mine. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to document every minute detail.

The kiss is over as quickly as it started.

I’m pressing myself into him and a half second away from crawling into the tiny twin bed to join him when Lucas is the one who pulls abruptly away.

My eyes are wide and likely wild while his are half closed and heavy-lidded. I bite my lip, trying to cudgel my brain into forming a coherent sentence, something to help us laugh the moment off, something about how perhaps I’m a little drunk too.

But for once, Lucas beats me to it.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Despite the alcohol and what was, for me, an earth-shattering kiss, and despite the fact that his breathing is a little labored, Lucas’s voice is calm, his tone placid.

I’m a hot mess, and Lucas . . . well, he sounds not borderline bemused, perhaps mildly pleased? Then, as I’m shifting through my myriad emotions, Lucas leans in to kiss the tip of my nose before grabbing my hand and tucking it under his face like a child tucking away a keepsake. As I continue to gape, astonished, he closes his eyes.

Before my breathing has evened . . . he’s out.

As in . . . asleep.

I am indignant.

Disbelieving.

Perhaps… a tiny bit aroused?

But perhaps more pressingly, my hand is trapped at a very awkward angle, and I really don’t want to wake him again.

The longer I wait, the more my hand cramps, and I’m reminded of the times when Lucas used to curl around me in his sleep, his bony chin sometimes digging into my shoulder in his attempt at bad-cuddling. I’ve wriggled my hand away, just a little, when I hear the front door opening.

“Lorelai?” There’s the sound of luggage being dragged through the doorway, and though Lucas doesn’t wake, he stirs enough that I’m able to snatch my hand away before gracelessly falling heavily, painfully on my ass, now the proud possessor of two sore hands and likely a vivid butt bruise by tomorrow.

“Lorelai?” Gwendy is already walking through the bedroom door I hadn’t bothered to close when she sees me, still splayed on my bum, and a man on my bed.

“Ohmygosh. Ohmygosh. Ohmygosh!” Gwendy might have started with a quiet whisper, but it’s more shrill half shriek by the third ohmygosh.

I glance over to make sure Lucas isn’t awake—and he hasn’t even stirred—while frantically waving Gwendy out of my room.

“You’re going to wake him.”

My voice is more hiss than whisper, but Gwendy remains completely undeterred. She throws her arms around me and is nearly squealing.

“I am so proud of you.” She’s almost strangling me in her enthusiasm, and I tap at her arm multiple times before she finally lets me go enough to draw in a breath and retrieve my errant glasses.

I pull her arm, and her luggage, farther away from my bedroom doorway, keeping my voice low. Lucas might be drunk and asleep, but there’s no point in taking chances.

“He’s only here because he’s drunk. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?”

Gwendy’s voice is so rife with disappointment that I roll my eyes. “Gwennie, and I say this with love and acceptance of you and your overly romantic ways, but . . . that man is drunk and borderline passed out. No way I’m going to take advantage of him.”

“Then let him take advantage of you!”

“Please lower your voice.”

“You just told me he’s drunk and borderline passed out.”