I reach down to unbutton his pants, his abdomen drawing tight when I wrap a hand around him. We’ve never been bare in front of each other, and for all my disbelief I also feel the weight of it, the distinction of this moment.
Everything off, I push gently at his chest until he rolls onto his back. I swing a leg over him and straddle him, the sound that emanates from deep in his chest sending a new wave of heat through my center.His hands tighten on my hips as he sits up, our bodies fitted together.
“I’m on birth control,” I say. “And there isn’t anyone else, but everything’s clear too, according to my doctor, at least, but if you—”
Ren silences me with a quick kiss. “Me too,” he murmurs. “But I have a condom, if you’d rather.”
I laugh, settling my arms on his shoulders. “Why did you bring condoms, Ren? Were you planning to get lucky this weekend?”
He chuckles, eyelashes fluttering. “It’s been in there for a while.” He pulls me in closer, eliminating all space between us, and I can feel the rough spots on his fingers from years of playing guitar, love how they lightly scrape against me. “I didn’t dream I’d ever get this lucky,” he says.
I press my palm to his chest, count the fast beats of his heart in my head to tie myself to this moment.One, two, three, Ren smiling at you over the bar at Sublimity, four, five, six, the feel of his chest under your cheek when you hug him goodbye, seven, eight, nine, ten, this, right here, right now.
Before I can slide my hand between us again, he grabs my hips and flips me onto my back, reaching down to hitch my leg up against him. Then he eases into me, his thumb moving in circles, my hips arching toward it until Ren crushes his body to mine, dipping his forehead to the pillow, rocking just slightly. When he moves, it’s achingly slow, emptying me and filling me up again.
I would have thought I’d feel nervous. Heart pounding, mind racing, contemplating all the ways this could mess everything up. But as Ren looks at me with those brown eyes, I feel like everything might have led us to this moment. Like it was always supposed to happen. Like our friendship was one long precursor to this. Like ours is a love story.
As our movements quicken, he scoops my hips up to him. My legs tighten around his waist as he sinks fully into me, his forehead against mine, stars bursting behind my eyelids. I can tell he’s still holding back, waiting for me, so I wrap a hand around the back of his neck, kiss him, and then I surrender to every sensation coursing through me. With a final push inside me he does too, breath against my neck as we’re pulled under together.
Afterward, I lie with my head on his chest as he traces slow lines up and down my back, the sheet tossed on top of us. His heart beats steadily beneath my ear, the same one I counted earlier, the same one that’s carried him through so much life by my side.
I doze intermittently, ocean air cooling my skin until I startle awake, smiling lazily up at him when I remember where we are, burying my nose against his neck. I could smell Ren for days and never grow tired of it. Here is the scent I know so well, and here is the sweat dried on his skin and here is the soap he used earlier and here is something deeper, something new that makes me move against him again, smiling at the sound it draws out of him.
“Joni,” he says against my hair, fingers dancing up my spine. “Should we—”
“Tomorrow,” I whisper, angling my head so I can kiss him.
I wait for him to respond, to tell me weshouldpause and talk, but instead, the hand he’s had on my back floats up to my head, fingers weaving into my hair as he tugs me toward him.
If we were anywhere near hesitant before, gentle because of how fragile this is, now everything is just shy of bruising, fingers pressing and mouths dragging across skin, and I know, with a deep, yawning ache inside of me, that things will never be the same again.
friday
chapter twenty-three
When I wake up in the rental house the next morning, Ren is lying next to me, his palm over mine. We’re both on our sides facing each other, the same position we fell asleep in after we walked back into the house to discover Thad spread-eagled on the air mattress he was supposed to share with Ren, and Sasha sound asleep on the sofa. We’d settled onto the remaining air mattress.
Ren smiles at me, warm and slow, like he’s still waking up. There’s a healthy distance between our bodies, but his fingers slip from mine and trace down them in slow, featherlight circles that have me almost curling closer to him, my own fingers folding down to capture his.
Morning, I mouth, not sure who else is awake in the house yet.
“Good morning!” Stevie calls from the kitchen before the sound of a coffee grinder whirs loudly.
Our hands release as I sit up on one elbow, and Ren rolls onto his back. Stevie watches us from the little window into the living room, her hair shoved up on one side of her head and dark shadows beneath her eyes. She looks, nonetheless, incredibly smug.
“Coffee’s almost on,” she says as she lets go of the button on the grinder. “I need Fern’s.” At that, she picks up the grinder and carries it deeper into the kitchen toward the coffeepot.
Ren rubs at his eyes, then tucks his hands behind his head, tanned arms flexing. He looks up at me, another smile passing between us.
He considers me, a wordlesscome hereandI can’tandlet’s go somewherepassing between us until Thad is stirring on his air mattress, a groan emanating from him, our silent conversation dissipating with it. “Pink shots,” he grumbles. “Pinkshots.”
Ren and I brush our teeth at the kitchen sink while everyone else cycles in and out of the bathrooms. We lean against opposite counters, his mouth never far from a smile and his gaze climbing around inside me.
As planned, we herd the crew—those we can actually coax out of bed, at least, leaving the band’s guitarist and bass player and Oliver behind—down the street to the diner, Sasha pausing to lean over a flowerpot with her hand at her stomach, one finger held aloft behind her in adon’t come any closergesture until she recovers and, thankfully, doesn’t puke into the peonies.
“Are you okay?” I hear Ren ask her.
“I had a rough night,” she says, patting his shoulder. “But thanks, little brother.”
