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"No." She looks into my eyes. "But I trust you."
I trust her too. But I'm not sure if I trust myself.
"Tomorrow?" she asks.
"Tomorrow," I say. "But I'm gonna need to hit item two first."
"Oh?"
"Oh, yeah." I wrap my hand around her thigh. "I'm going to need to taste you."
"Right now?"
"Tomorrow."
"Right now works."
"Uh-uh." I shake my head, shifting into teasing her. "Bad girls don't get what they want."
"Bad girls?"
I nod. "Bad girls who go off script."
She smiles. "No one has ever called me a bad girl."
"I'm happy to be your first."
"Me too."
I help her up; I help her into her clothes; I lead her to the main room with every intention of leaving and getting stuff for dinner.
But when she suggests a movie, I settle onto the couch with her.
And, after, when she climbs onto my lap and kisses me, well—
I'm only human.
I kiss her back; I do away with her top, then her bra, and I toy with her exactly the way I want to. For ages.
I'm ready to go forever when the door swings open and Archie marches inside with a bottle of champagne.
Val jumps out of my lap. She grabs a pillow to cover her chest.
Archie laughs as he sets the bottle on the table. "I guess you two started celebrating without me."
Val blushes.
"Should I leave you to it?" he asks.
"No," she says. "He's going to make me wait until tomorrow anyway."
"Really?" Archie looks to me and raises a brow.
I'm not sure what he's asking, exactly, only the meaning behind it. Can I trust you to take care of her? And that's an easy question to answer. "Of course."
As her best friend, it's a no-brainer.
As more?
Well, I don't fucking know how to do more. But he does. And this is my last night to make use of his knowledge, so I say, "Do you have last-night plans?"
"Only the champagne," he says. "But you two can keep it. It's not real champagne."
"You treat us right." Val laughs.
"Let's have dinner. The three of us," I say.
Val looks to me really?
I nod really. "Yeah. You owe me one. For fucking with me."
He nods I do. "You too."
"I guess we'll have to fight over who pays," he says.
"No," Val interrupts. "I fucked with both of you. I pay."
I lean in to whisper in her ear, "You're going to pay with way more than that tomorrow."
She smiles. "Can't wait."
At nine, on a weeknight, the restaurant Archie and Val pick is busy. Of course, this is nothing. Peak dinner time is ten o'clock. If there are seatings at eight and seatings and ten, all the eight o'clock seatings go to tourists.
This time, Val leads the conversation. She and Archie talk about school and their ex-roomie and what they're doing next year.
They have big, beautiful plans for big, beautiful lives.
And I—
Well, I love what I do. I want to keep doing it. But there's only so much space to climb. In theory, I could open my own shop or run a franchise or start a graphic design side hustle or some sort of fashion company with tattoo-inspired designs.
But I don't want any of that, not really.
Even so, when Archie asks about my plans, I make up something about a temporary tattoo company. So people who aren't ready to commit can try out actual badass art, not just the cheesy stuff in quarter machines.
"Since when?" Val asks.
"I don't tell you everything," I say.
She looks at me funny, like she's not sure whether she's proud or disappointed. "What kind of designs?"
"Riffs on classics. Pinups, anchors, sparrows. And modern updates," I say.
"What's a modern anchor?" she asks.
"A smart phone," I say.
She laughs, and we slip back into dinner mode. We drink too much sangria, eat too much paella, linger through three plates of fancy Spanish cheesecake.
When we drop Archie at the train station, Val says goodbye. Then I take my turn.
"How do you do it?" I ask.
"Do what?" he asks.
"The boyfriend thing?"
"Seems like you have a handle on it."
"How do you do it right?"
"You do your best." He shakes my hand. "That's all you can ever do."
But that's what I'm afraid of.
Chapter Thirty-Three
DARE
I keep my promise to Val.
I make her wait.
Even though I sleep in her bed, with my arms around her, I make her wait.
Despite the thoughts flitting through my head and the excess of sangria in my system, I sleep soundly. Wake rested.
The second I roll over and see Val, my worries fade. They're small and quiet compared to how much I love her.
I do.
Maybe I always have.
But that's never been the problem, has it?
It's always been the rest of the world.
We have another week together. Then, we go back home, to the real world, and all the questions in it.
The questions her mom asked a million years ago.
Is it really a good idea to spend so much time with Darren?
