“You don’t have to be. You’ve already seen me naked.”
“And I’d really like to again, so…”
Now she laughs. “You’re so fucking cute, I can’t stand it.” Then, as though it really is that easy, she steps between his legs, tilting her face up to his. His hands knot at the base of her spine, and when he draws her close for a kiss, he practically melts into her. He can’t believe it’s been less than twenty-four hours since the last time they did this—he missed it.
“Hi,” she says when they move apart, breathless.
“Hi. Can I interest you in a mocktail?”
And, still laughing, she agrees to try one.
They sit on the couch with their drinks, a modest charcuteriespread on the table in front of them. Nick tries to relax. Ramona is here, in his temporary home, and if she didn’t want to be, she definitely wouldn’t keep it a secret. It’s one of the things he likes most about her.
He did make the drinks a bit too sweet, but if Ramona minds, she doesn’t say anything. “Is there a reason for it?” he asks. “The not drinking? Not that you need one—I’m just curious.”
“It’s not very dramatic,” she says. “It just seemed to make people do a lot of things they didn’t want to do, and I already had enough of that in my life. I didn’t want to have too much and suddenly the next day I was all over the tabloids.”
“I get it. The first and only time I got absolutely shit-faced, this happened.” He turns his head and taps his earring. The one she seemed to really, really like yesterday.
Ramona runs her thumb along it. “Oh, I need to hear that story.”
He’ll try his best, since now she’s dragging her fingertips into his hair in the most soothing massage. “It was in college. A bunch of friends and I drank some forties and decided to get tattoos.” When she lifts her eyebrows at this, he holds up a finger. “I’ve never loved needles, so I bravely volunteered to go last. Watching my buddies go through it…well, it did not look fun. I chickened out at the last minute and had them pierce my ear instead.”
“Just the one.”
“Just the one. I couldn’t handle a second.”
She leans in, kissing the underside of his ear, drawing out a shudder as her tongue flicks the hoop. “My sweet, anxious boy.”
The words are almost too intimate, tinged with the closeness of a couple that’s been together for a long time. He knows Ramona’s joking, that she doesn’t mean anything by it.
That he’s not reallyheranything.
In the silence that follows, Nick realizes he forgot about the music. Leaping to his feet, he heads to where his records are stacked in milk crates.
“Wow. I can’t believe showing me your vinyl collection wasn’t a euphemism.”
“Some of it’s still in boxes,” he says. “So this isn’t all of it, but…yeah. Here it is. The product of fifteen years of record shops, thrift stores, and tracking down rare LPs online.” He kneels down, picking up a vintage Joni Mitchell. “The artwork really gets me. The tangibility of holding your favorite songs in your hands. And of course, the way it sounds.”
“I love all of that too,” she says quietly, and he gets a sudden, horrible flash of all those records stacked in her off-limits room.
“If it’s too painful for you, we don’t have to—”
She gives a firm shake of her head. “For a while, I couldn’t listen to anything I used to like. I got really into jazz, and then podcasts. But I’m not going to let my past life ruin music for me.”
“I’m very glad to hear that.”
She looks through the records, skimming her hand along the covers.
“Pick something,” he says, and she lifts her eyebrows, as though accepting this for the challenge it is.
When she hands him a Tom Petty album, a dreamy look comes over her face. “ ‘Wildflowers’ was one of the first songs I learned on guitar,” she says as she strums an air chord. “So I guess not all nostalgia is bad.”
Nick slides the record from its sleeve and drops it onto the player, then offers her his hand. When they start to sway, it’s not like Halloween at all. That night he was tense and wound up,electric-shocked by every touch. Now dancing with her has the same calming effect as a mug of tea on a stormy evening. A highlighted passage in a favorite book.
At first Ramona hums along, then opens her mouth and starts to softly sing—and he realizes he’s not sure he’s heard her sing before. Not in real life.
There’s none of the production or Auto-Tune from her recorded tracks, and she’s a little shaky at first. But there’s a loveliness to her voice, one that he likes even more. This precious, quiet thing she’s sharing with him.
