She straightens her skirt, smooths her tights, and walks back to the stage.
“Smooth,” Ren says. “She’ll have no idea now.”
“Please,” I say, watching as my sister leans up against the stage toward Leo. “She’s not thinking about anything else tonight.”
When I look back at Ren, he’s smiling at me, distracted from the job in front of him. “What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says. “Just happy you’re here.”
chapter twenty-seven
Any other time, I’d have asked for the grand tour of Ren’s apartment, spent time poring over how he organized his records (the same meticulous way he did at his old place, I’m sure—by genre, then artist and album in release order), observing all the things that make it his and not just another box in this building. Is his guitar still propped in one corner of his living room? Does he still keep a Chemex sitting on his stove? Did he ever get rid of that hideous lamp we found in a thrift store in college?
But as soon as the door closes behind us, Ren is hoisting me up against it, kissing me greedily.
We move together easily, barely making it to his kitchen before I’m unbuttoning his pants and he’s pulling my sweater over my head, dropping to his knees in front of me to kiss a line across my abdomen and tug my jeans down.
We stumble into his bedroom, and he sheds the rest of his clothes. On the bed, I sink down onto him, Ren swearing, a low groan stretching out of him, his hands coming up to my hips to guide me. For a while I’m nothing more than a body, chasing after every sensation until I fall against his chest, his fingers scraping up my spine to hold me to him. I’d worried we might not be able to replicate the magic of that night outside Boston,had to tell myself every time we confessed we were missing each other in that way, up on the phone late into the night, that it was us that had made it wonderful and not the hotel on the coast, the over-the-top wedding, the vacation mindset we were in.
But I didn’t need to. This is something almost better: a familiarity that lets me anticipate how we’ll touch each other, the push and pull of it all.
After, I lie on top of him, my cheek resting on his sternum. He dances the pads of his fingers over my arm, across my shoulders, down the other arm.
I think I could live with Ren like this forever, but that’s half the problem: we don’t have forever.
“What are you thinking?” he asks me.
I roll off him, onto my side, haul his oatmeal-colored sheet over me. Over his shoulder, I can see three framed vintage concert tour posters, one that I recognize and two that I don’t. His Red Sox cap sits on a shelf underneath them, a stack of books next to it. He tucks the comforter up over us before he lies on his side too, one hand coming up to rest at my waist.
“Nothing,” I say. I don’t want to drag Ren down into my swirling anxiety, because it’s rarely right: I’m just overthinking, worrying needlessly. I don’t want him to think I don’t want this. “I’m just— I’m so happy.”
A soft smile plays at his mouth as he exhales what’s almost a laugh. “I don’t think people usually sayI’m so happyin that tone.”
“I am,” I say, curling closer to him, but still keeping a notable distance between our bodies. I want to close it, want to pull him into me again, because that seems to be the one time I can get my brain to quiet. But I know this will still be waiting on the other side. I’ve been trying to ignore it, but being here with him,in his apartment, in his bed has forced it all to the forefront of my mind, cast a spotlight on it. I don’t know when we’ll see each other again after this week. What if we can’t see each other until the summer? It’s been hard enough being long-distance best friends for the last four years. But every time we’ve tiptoed toward this discussion of us, a future, aplan, over the months, we’ve veered the other way, both of us hesitant to mention anything, I think, that could screw this up. Both of us, I know deep down, without a real solution.
Like he can sense my anxiety hiking, Ren draws me against him. He asks me to tell him about the movie, and I do, and I ask him for his predictions for Sasha’s wedding, and we agree Stevie might have just met her person. I say things I know will make him laugh, storing the sound somewhere deep in me. We talk about everything but us, and for now, I tell myself, that’s okay.
I try to believe it.
* * *
In the morning, Ren drives me to Stevie’s apartment. She’s already outside, car keys in hand and her face burrowed into her coat. There isn’t any snow on the ground, but it’s cold, the tip of her nose visibly red as she comes over to the window, resting her elbows on it once I roll it down.
“How was Ren’s couch?” she asks.
“Come on, Stevie,” Ren says in mock disappointment. “You know I’d never let Joni sleep on the couch.”
“Chivalry isn’t dead, then.” He smirks at her comment, and she sticks out her tongue at him, then taps the window’s edge. “Come on. We’re due at brunch in thirty minutes. Sasha will hate it if we’re late.”
I push the door open and dislodge Stevie from her post. My hair is still damp from the shower Ren and I took together, Ren behind me like it was something we’d practiced. I turn back to him,hope Stevie won’t notice that his hair isn’t totally dry either, that I smell like his soap. “See you at the rehearsal dinner?” I say, ignoring the slightly hollow feeling that developed in my stomach on the ride here at the way this weekend already was no longer ours.
He nods, eyes drifting over my face.
Stevie has walked back over to the front door of her building and is shifting between her feet, rubbing her arms. “Come on!” she calls, antsy.
“Okay,” I say, gaze finally dropping from Ren’s as I hop out of the car.
“Joni,” he calls through the window as I start across the sidewalk. Stevie grumbles in protest when I pivot, walk back to his car and lean into the passenger window.
