“I mean, you are TikTok famous. So, not really nobody anymore.”
I laugh. “Okay, but TikTok famous and actually A-list famous-famous? Not the same thing at all.”
“No, you’re right.” She eyes me sidelong. “You guys feel like…I dunno. A real couple. Like, a real, adult couple. Me and Derek felt more like two kids fumbling through sex for the first time together.”
I laugh. “It feels like that for me, sometimes, but it’s one-sided because he’s not a virgin. He’s not had as many…um, girlfriends, or anything, as you might think. But he’s not a virgin.”
We’re approaching the rental, now. We stop at the walkway to the front door. Bethany turns to face me, holding both my hands, now.
“Jo, I love you. I’m really, really glad you get to have this with Wes. With anyone, but especially with him. I know you’re playing it cool, but I also know how much it means to you that it’s him.”
I smile. “It’s a literal fairy tale, Beth. I’m living a fairy tale, and I’m just trying to make the most of every moment and appreciate it for what it is.”
“Call me, at some point, okay?”
“Honestly, Beth…I know no one wants to hear this, and I don’t want to have to say it, but I don’t think I’m going home. I think Wes is going to have you guys stay there, so you’re close.”
She shakes her head—she knows what I mean, what I’m not saying out loud. “Jo, don’t —”
I cut her off. “I won’t say anything else. But I feel it, Beth. I sense it.”
“Maybe your grandma is right. Maybe God has a miracle in store for you.”
“I want to believe that.” I crush her to me in a fierce hug. “I really do. I’m gonna hold on as long as I can. I promise.”
She nods, her cheek moving against mine. “I love you. Thanks for talking with me.”
“You’re my best friend. Always and forever.” She glances back the way we came, and sighs dreamily. “He’s literally on the porch waiting for you.”
I glance back, and sure enough, he’s sitting on the top step, phone-glow lighting his face blue-white.
“He worries about me.”
She wiggles her eyebrow at me. “Or, he’s antsy to have you alone.”
I snicker. “You’re not wrong. We haven’t had much time alone since I stopped feeling like poop.”
What I don’t say—to her, and what I haven’t said to him, either—is that I did stop feeling like death warmed over, but I haven’t entirely gone back to anything like normal. Not like I have in the past. There’s a deeper ache that remains, this time. A sharper, lingering, whole-body pain that I’ve never felt.
A sourness in my…spirit, I guess. I don’t know how to capture it, even in my own mind.
It’s an ache that feels…permanent.
And frightening.
As I say one last goodbye to Bethany and walk back, slowly, preserving my energy, I do my best to push the fear and the ache to the back of my mind, the edges of my awareness. Don’t think about it.
What’s that line from Frozen? “Conceal, don’t feel.”
I approach him, and he stands up, shoves his phone into his back pocket.
I step up to the same level as him, and wrap my arms low around his waist, tilt my face up for a kiss. “Hi.”
He gives me the requested kiss, a slow, deep, thorough one. “Hi.”
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“For what?”
“Bringing my family here. Getting them the house. Taking them on the tour and entertaining them. You went above and beyond, and I appreciate it.”
“At the very least, you’re my girlfriend. Which means your family is important to me.”
“And at the most?”
“At the most, your family is my family, too.”
That makes my heart do a little thump and patter. “Oh.”
He scoops me up into his arms. “Come on. I have something for you.”
“Okay.”
I busy myself as he carries me inside with kissing him, wherever I can reach. Chin, jawline, earlobes, throat, shoulders, lips, nose. He grunts laughter as pepper kisses on him.
I hear water running, and then the sound becomes an echo as we enter the bathroom, and I realize he’s run a bath.
“I don’t have any, like, bubbles or anything. But I thought maybe you’d like a bath. Just, you know, sit and soak for a while.”
We have a bathtub at our house, obviously, but it’s a small, old one, and even I don’t fit in it very well.
This tub?
It’s a small swimming pool, and looks deep enough that, fully filled, the water would come to my chin.
“That sounds really nice.” I kiss his lips, this time. “Thank you. You’re so thoughtful.”
He sets me on my feet. “It’s been a whirlwind few days, and I figure you might like to relax a little.”
“It does sound amazing. Our bathtub at home is from, like 1956, and built for leprechaun children or something, so I don’t really take too many baths.”
He smiles at me. “Well, that’s a real-deal soaking tub, for actual full-size adult humans.” He backs away. “So, yeah. Enjoy your bath. If you need anything, just holler.”
I frown at him. “Wes.”
He pauses. “Yeah?”
“I think maybe I’d enjoy it more if we took a bath.”
He hesitates. “I meant it for you, though.”
“I know. But we’ve been so busy with my family that we haven’t gotten to spend any time together. We don’t have to do anything, just sit and talk.”
“I think I can handle that.”
I peel off my T-shirt. “I mean, I’m just saying we don’t have to do anything. Not that I don’t want to do anything.”
He grins. “I know what you meant.” He smirks at me. “You just want to get me naked and take advantage of me.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Then I suppose I can admit I was hoping you’d invite me in with you.”
“But you weren’t going to invite yourself.”
“No, of course not. I’m not going to draw you a bath so you can relax, and then assume you want to get naked with me and do stuff.”
I shuck my shorts and underwear together, and I’m naked. He hasn’t even started taking his clothes off, so I decide to help him. First, his shirt, so I can get my hands on his yummy, muscular torso. He holds his arms up and lets me rip it off and drop it, and I run my hands over his shoulders and back and chest, on the way to the fly of his jeans. He yanks his foot out, turning the leg inside out, and then the other, kicking the inside-out garment aside. His underwear is bulged.
I touch the bulge. “Someone is eager to come out and play.”
He rumbles a laugh as I tug the undergarment away from his belly, allowing his burgeoning erection to unfurl. “Always. Especially when you get naked.”
Me, naked, makes him get hard.
I love knowing that.
We play with each other in the bath. Touching, teasing. Never quite taking it to the point of rising to climax. We talk. We touch. We soak. I lie against him, my back to his front, and I close my eyes, and relax in his embrace, hot water splashing around us.