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“Look at this. Somehow we ended up naked again.”
A tanned shoulder lifts and drops. “I can see this being a regular problem.”
“Problem, perfection. Tomato, tomahto.”
His flash of a laughing grin fades quickly, and the way his eyes search my face looks like he’s going to say something more. I wonder if he can read my thoughts, how I’m silently begging him to not bring up Dane or everything that could screw this up back home, and thankfully he doesn’t. He just carefully lowers over me, groaning quietly when my legs come up along his sides.
He knows what I like already, I think, skirting my hands down his back as he starts to move. He’s been paying attention this entire time, hasn’t he? I wish I could go back in time and see him through these new eyes.
• • •
THRIFTY JET SEEMED HORRIFYINGLY LOW-BUDGET on the way here, but on the flight home, the tight quarters are a convenient excuse to wrap my arm around Ethan’s and spend several hours huffing the lingering smell of the ocean on his skin. Even he seems calmer on this flight: after being tense and monosyllabic at takeoff, once we’re in the air, he wraps a big hand around my thigh and falls asleep resting his cheek against the crown of my head.
If, two weeks ago, someone had shown me a photograph of us right now, I think I might have died of shock.
Would I have believed the look on my face—the giddy, sex-sated grin I can’t seem to wipe clean? Would I have trusted the calm, adoring way he watches me? I haven’t felt like this before—this type of intense, free-falling happiness that doesn’t carry with it any unease or uncertainty about me and Ethan and what we’re feeling. I’ve never adored someone with such heated abandon, and something tells me he hasn’t, either.
My uncertainty is all about what waits for us at home—specifically, what sort of rift any drama between Dane and Ami will cause between us all.
So then I have to ask myself: Is it worth saying anything to my sister? Should I let bygones be bygones? Should I take a novel approach and not leap to the worst conclusion but have a little faith instead? I mean, maybe she knows all this already, anyway, and they’ve worked through it. Maybe finding out that I know Dane wasn’t monogamous early on would only embarrass her and make her constantly self-conscious or defe
nsive when I’m around them both.
I look up at Ethan, who’s still asleep, and it hits me that just because I think I know what’s going on, it doesn’t mean I really do. This guy right here is the perfect example. I thought I knew exactly who he was, and I was completely wrong. Is it possible there are sides to my twin I don’t know at all, too? I gently shake him awake, and he inhales, stretching, before looking down at me. It’s like a punch to the chest how much I like his face.
“Hey,” he says, voice gravelly. “What’s up? You okay?”
“I like your face,” I tell him.
“I’m glad you wanted to tell me that this very moment.”
“And,” I say, smiling nervously, “I know we don’t like this topic, but I wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to not say anything to Ami about Dane. I’m not even going to ask her whether she knew.”
Ethan’s face relaxes, and he leans forward, kissing my forehead. “Okay, cool.”
“Things are going so great for all of us right now—”
“I mean, yes,” he cuts in with a laugh, “except for the ciguatera toxin that caused them to miss their honeymoon.”
“Except for that.” I wave a faux-casual hand. “Anyway, things are going well, and I should just let the past be in the past.”
“Totally.” He kisses me once and leans back, smiling with his eyes closed.
“I just wanted to let you know.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“Okay, go back to sleep.”
“I will.”
• • •
THE PLAN: ONCE WE LAND, we’ll grab our bags, share a cab back to Minneapolis, and each spend the night at our respective home. We’ve already agreed the cab will drop me off at my apartment building in Dinkytown—so he can see me get in safely—before taking him to Loring Park. I’m sure it will be weird to sleep alone, but we agreed to meet up for breakfast, at which point I am positive that I will maul him instead of doing what we’d planned to do: figure out how and when to tell Ami and Dane about us.
Everything about this end of the trip stands out for how starkly different it is from the beginning. We aren’t uncomfortable. We’re holding hands, walking through the airport terminal, bickering lightly about which one of us is going to give in first and show up at the other’s doorstep.
He bends at the luggage carousel, planting a kiss on my mouth. “You could just come over now and save yourself the trip later.”
