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When I heard the news about Grandma. It was about six months ago now. “It was sunset at the beach.”
“Really?”
“I was homesick. It was too cold in New York. I wanted sun and ocean and the lack of pretension you find here.”
“A lack of pretension?”
“A different kind,” I say. “Everything felt like bullshit. I wanted to picture something real.” I bring my eyes to hers, expecting disbelief, but I don’t find any. “I imagine you see weddings as bullshit.”
“No.” She swims back to me, brings her hand to my shoulder. “But I don’t find them romantic the way other people do.” Her other hand, to my other shoulder. “What do you like about the image of yours?”
Everything. My family all in one place. My grandma, celebrating. The feeling of love in the air. “When I go to a wedding, I watch the couple. They’re in the middle of this strange tradition where they promise their lives to each other in front of friends, family, strangers, and they’re not thinking about what it means. Or who’s watching. Or what they’ll eat for dinner. They’re completely lost in each other.”
“That is romantic,” she says.
“Not what you see, though?”
She shakes her head. “But I can almost picture that.”
Me, too. I see the two of us, right here, staring into each other’s eyes. I see the two of us in an airy hotel room, Deanna stripping out of her white lingerie and climbing into bed with me.
An entire honeymoon’s worth of sex.
I need that, now.
How can I need that now? Last week, I was sure I was meant to be with Lexi.
Grandma would say something sarcastic. It’s been too long. I want to fuck someone. As soon as I do, I’ll realize there’s no such thing as destiny. Only dick-stiny. Something ridiculous like that.
Maybe she has a point. Maybe I need to take the edge off. See if I feel the same way with more blood in my brain.
I can do that. Later.
For now, I need to stay on task. To focus on how she feels, not how I feel.
I release her and suck a breath through my teeth. I need air. I need sense. “You hate them?”
“No. I just don’t love them. I don’t feel what people are supposed to feel. Stephan always gave me attitude about it. Even though he was a realist, too.”
A cynic, but this time, I don’t argue. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she’s the realistic one, and I’m the one who isn’t in line with reality.
“It was small things. He asked me to skip underwear when we went out for drinks, and I told him I’d have to wash my dress too soon.”
Deanna Huntington, naked under her dress.Fuck.
“It’s not that I was against the idea. There is something sexy about it. But he didn’t ask. He told. And I wanted him to ask. Or at leastoffermore to me.”
“Promise you’d come on his hand at the bar?” The words are too easy on my tongue. The vision is too vivid.
She raises a brow. “Is that your move?”
How about we try it right now?“I don’t have moves. I do what feels right.”
“What feels right, right now?”
Touching her. Kissing her. Taking her back to the car to fuck her.
But I don’t say any of that. I dive under the water, and when I surface, I say, “Swimming.”
