“Prognosis looks good,” he says. He keeps a hand on my leg, lifts his eyes to look at me. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I say, unable to help the smile that threatens at my cheeks. “How’s it going down here?”
“Oh, you know,” Ren says. “Sasha thinks getting the bar set up is a life-or-death situation.”
“Well, she chose the right man for the job.” I glance at the bar behind us. “Thad and I are on our fourth go-round with the lights.”
“So I heard.” Ren’s fingers slide a little higher, over my knee. “I can ask Thad if he wants to trade.”
“Mmm,” I say as his fingers continue their path until they’re just reaching under the hem of my shorts, toying with a loose string. “Do youwantto get all scratched up threading lights through a bunch of underbrush?”
“If you’re there, absolutely.” He grabs the leg of my chair and yanks me closer to him, his other hand still on my thigh.
I slide my leg around his hip and smile against his lips as he kisses me. “This is exactly what we’re not supposed to be doing,” I say.
“What, kissing you isn’t on Sasha’s list?”
“Hey,” I say between kisses. “Good work bringing up my tattoo earlier.”
“I’ve seen you in a swimsuit since you got it,” he protests, smiling as his grip tightens on my back.
“Something my sister, who is deeply suspicious of us, doesn’t care about at all.”
“So we should probably stop this, then,” he says, nodding as I do.
But we don’t stop. He roams under my tank top, fingers coming to rest against the tattoo in question,and swallows at the sound that escapes me.
Ren’s phone vibrates in his pocket.
“Mmm-hmm,” he answers over Sasha’s shrill orders on the other end of the line. “No…Didn’t you—” He stops, sighs, extends his phone toward me. “She’d like to speak with you.”
“Hi, Sash,” I say. Ren’s attention returns to my leg, still slung across his lap. He tucks his fingers in, then slowly releases them over my knee like he did when we were younger. I’d laugh about it then, kick him away, but now it’s shooting up to my center in a way that has my toes curling.
“We don’t have enough lights,” Sasha says.
Ren trails his lips over my shoulder and I have to work to keep my breathing even. “Didn’t youjustsay—”
“Yes,” she says. “But that wasbeforethey fucked up the delivery schedule anddidn’tbring the lights for the cottage and—” she says something to someone else on the other end of the phone that I would distinctly not like to be on the receiving end of “—I need you and Ren to run into town and buy every twinkle light you can find.”
I hang up, look at Ren as his head lifts, his eyes soft and open, waiting to hear Sasha’s decree. I wish, very much, I could lean forward and kiss him right now, wrap us up in this moment instead of going on an errand to make this wedding visible from space. I sigh, comb my fingers into his hair. “Sounds like you and I are going into town, Webster.”
* * *
As it turns out, being in Ren’s car is a welcome respite from the chaos of the house. On the drive, I admire how he manages to make a plain white T-shirt look so good, return the face he makes at me when I’ve been staring at him for several long minutes.I think I could swallow this moment, let it nourish me, survive on times like this, alone with Ren.
At the hardware store, I lean against him as he walks us down the narrow aisles. He’s wearing a pair of camel-colored shorts, and I never thought a bare knee against the back of my thigh could send such a decided spark shooting through me.
We find what we’re looking for in a back corner full of long-forgotten party supplies: inflatable flamingo pool floats marked at 50 percent off, their boxes dented or torn open, Fourth of July tablecloths that will be full priced again next year, and in the middle, what will hopefully be enough twinkle lights to satisfy Sasha.
“Should we do a box of two fifty-foot twinkle lights, or a box of the single hundred-foot strand?” I ask. The arm Ren isn’t using to hold the shopping basket is wrapped around my hips, fingertips skimming under the hem of my shirt as he towers over me, his nose brushing against my neck.
“Hmm,” he murmurs, voice vibrating through me. I fold both my arms over the one he has around my waist, trapping it there and letting its warmth sink into me. “We need to think long and hard about this, Joni.”
“Don’t you think Sasha will want us back at the house soon?” I ask, my head dizzy.
“I couldn’t care less what my sister wants right now,” he breathes into my ear.
“We could drive somewhere,” I say, tipping my head back against his shoulder.
