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“Let me show you something.” I get up and pad over to the closet, reach onto the top shelf and retrieve a box.
“What have you got there?”
“Oh, just some stuff I saved from when we were kids. You know, mementos, sentimental stuff.” I reach into the box and feel around until I find the old, folded piece of paper. I retrieve it and walk back to the bed, crawling on my knees until I sit next to Grady. “Do you remember these?”
He grins as he sits up and faces me. “Is that a cootie catcher?”
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I shrug. “Cootie catcher. Fortune teller. We called them all sorts of things.” But it really was just a piece of paper with things of interest written on it, then folded in such a way that you fit your fingers and thumbs into movable flaps. The person you played it with had to pick a number, then a color, and then you lifted a corresponding flap to reveal what was written underneath and it told you who you would marry, or kiss, or whatever you wrote inside. Called cootie catchers because kissing was usually under one of the flaps, and kissing could give you cooties. “Pick a number,” I say, slipping my fingers into the maneuverable folds. “And keep in mind that this was my cootie catcher, okay?”
He nods and says, “One.”
I open and close the folded paper once, which exposes a set of colors. “Pick a color.”
“Blue.”
I lift the flap and grin when I see my handwriting inside. “See!” I cry. “I told you!” I show him the name under the flap. “It says I’m going to marry Grady Parker!” I pretend to look astounded.
“What do the rest of the flaps say?” he asks, suddenly very serious. “Show me who else you were considering marrying.”
“Pick a color,” I say to taunt him.
“Green.” He stares at the paper. I lift the green flap and it says Grady Parker under that one. He grins. “Red,” he says. I lift that flap and let my mouth drop open, showing him that this one says his name too. “Yellow,” he says, his voice suddenly light and filled with laughter.
The last flap has his name under it too. He gently takes the cootie catcher off my fingers, since it’s decades old now and a little more fragile than it used to be, and he sets it on the bedside table. “When did I get a bedside table?” I suddenly ask. That wasn’t there this morning.
He laughs. “My mom brought it over.” He loosens the knot that holds my towel closed and gently unwinds it from my body. “So you always knew you’d marry me, huh?” he asks, as he pushes me onto my back. He kisses his way across my stomach and down, and I laugh as he blows a raspberry over my tattoo.
I grab his hair and give it a tug so he’ll look up at me. “I wouldn’t want to marry anybody else,” I tell him, being as sincere as I possibly can.
“Good.” He gently arranges my legs so that his shoulders fit between my open thighs.
“What are you doing?”
He points down between my legs. “I’m going down here.”
“Why?” I laugh as he kisses my inner thigh.
“Just want to be sure you got all my come off your lower lips since you were so worried about it.”
I lift onto my elbows so I can watch him. “Yeah, you better check just to be sure.”
His lips touch me, and I fall back against the bed.
He checks. And then he checks some more. And it’s not until I’ve been thoroughly checked over that he gives in and lets me come again.
Epilogue
—Exactly Nine months later
Grady
“I swear to God, Clifford, if you don’t push that baby out some time in this century, I’m never going to speak to you again.”
Evie glares at me from where she lies on the bed. Her forehead is dripping with sweat, and her hair is stuck to her cheeks as beads of sweat roll down her temples. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Grady Parker,” she says. “I hate you right now, by the way.” As the contraction passes, she lies back to rest.
The nurse gives me a compassionate look. “Honey, they all say they hate you when they get to this point. Don’t take it personally.” She reaches over and pats the back of my hand.
