On my other side, Elliott starts laughing. I sigh.
“She has always had your number,” he says.
“I know,” I say, and let Andi guide me to the dance floor.
“Why are we here?” I ask, again.
“Because Connor’s cousin said there were fancy roses, and I want to see fancy roses,” Andi says. “Don’t you want to see fancy roses?”
“I don’t think we’re gonna see much of anything,” I say, but I’m going along with her, obviously. Of course. Always. It’s something like midnight and I’ve spent the day drinking and basking in reflected joy, and right now, like this, it’s easy to feel like I was made to go along with her.
If I was made for anything at all, it was this.
“Maybe they’re night-blooming roses,” Andi says. “Those exist, right?”
“What gives you the idea I know anything about roses?”
“You know about some plants!” Andi says, and she’s already laughing. “You know what trees are.”
“Yes. I know what trees are,” I deadpan.
“Don’t sass me while I’m taking you to see fancy roses.”
“You’re not gonna have any idea which roses are fancy and which aren’t,” I say, because it’s dark, the moon is just a sliver, the lights back at the inn not reaching this far. The sort of darkness that makes you feel nearly invisible, like you’re made of moonlight and gossamer.
“We just established that you also don’t know the fancy roses, so I can tell you whatever I want and you’ll have to believe me,” she says, and it’s nothing like the moonlight.
“I don’t have to believe you.”
“Well, you should,” she says. “And—”
Andi pitches sideways and stumbles into me out of nowhere.
“Fuck. Ow,” she says, leaning into me and looking at the bottom of one foot.
“Didn’t you have shoes?” I ask. She did, I’m sure of it; they’re probably with my tie and jacket, wherever they are.
“Somewhere.”
“You came outside with no shoes?”
“It’s a civilized outside,” she says, brushing off the sole of her foot. “It’s all nice and stuff.”
“Then what did you just step on?”
“A rock or something, I think.”
I heave my biggest, most dramatic sigh.
“If I step on glass, I’ve got exactly the right person to take care of me,” she says, and she’s grinning about it for some reason.
“Please don’t step on glass.”
“It’s fine. I’ll just swoon into your arms,” she says, like this is a desired outcome or something.
“Since when do you swoon?”
“I could swoon at literally any moment.”
“Not really a swooner.”
“Ready?” she asks, and I frown at her. “I’m gonna—”
Andi practically flings herself to one side, arms over her head, and I barely catch her, and then I nearly drop her because we’re both a little sweaty.
“You have to warn me,” I tell her. Neither of us makes any move to let her up, though I shift until my hold is a little more comfortable.
“I literally just asked if you were ready.”
“Better warning,” I say.
“That’s the thing about swooning,” Andi says, serious in her tipsiness, winding an arm around my neck. “Could happen any time.”
“Still, seems like it could be avoided by wearing mmmmmph.”
Andi levers herself up and presses her mouth to mine, which doesn’t count as winning the argument but does make me stop talking. She’s warm and pliable and tastes a little like champagne and wedding cake, her skin damp with the humid night and sweat from the dance floor. I work my fingers into her hair at the nape of her neck, slightly wet and sticky with whatever was in it.
I like her like this: flushed and overheated, gloriously alive. I like the tang of salt on her skin and the way it sounds when she’s panting for breath in my ear, the way droplets of sweat look when they slide down her neck. I want her when she’s picture-perfect, like earlier, and I want her when she’s devilish and disheveled, like now.
We kiss until I hear voices getting closer, so I pull her upright and she gives me a satisfied look while she wipes the corner of her mouth, as if she has any lipstick left to mess up.
“So. Fancy roses,” I say, and she points in a random direction.
We wander. We never do see the other people we heard, and instead of fancy roses we find a wall with a gate in it, a grassy yard outside. I lean against it, and somewhere in the back of my mind I know the brick might stain the back of my shirt, but I can’t bring myself to care.
“I’ve been lied to about fancy roses, I guess,” Andi says, stepping between my feet.
“Can’t trust anyone,” I agree, and she leans into me, elbows on my shoulders.
“You look good like this.”
“Sweating through a shirt?”
“Happy,” she says, and—she’s right. I am. “Also, the whole rakishly disheveled groomsman thing is really working for you.”
“It’s been a good day,” I tell her, my hands on her waist again, the spot where it feels like they belong. “A good—what is it, six months?”
“Has it really been six months?” she says, and is quiet for a minute. “It has! Huh. Think we can do it again?”
“Have six more good months?”
“Mhm.”
I want to say I think we can have six good years. Sixty. As many as I’ve got left, but that’s a thing to say sober, not drunk in a garden with no fancy roses.
“I like the odds,” I tell her instead. Andi wriggles, her elbows still propped on my shoulders.
“What’s that saying about the odds?” she asks.
“I cannot even pretend to begin to have any idea—”
“The odds are good but the goods are odd!” she yelps, and then starts laughing.
“How much champagne did you have?” I ask, but I’m smiling so hard it hurts.
“I have no idea,” she says, gazing up at me, her blue eyes a little dreamy. “People kept coming around with it on a tray, and it would obviously be rude to refuse.”
“I’m gonna have to pour you into bed.”
“Oh, please do,” she says, and now she’s grinning, leaning in. “I brought the dick vibrator,” she says. “And the regular vibrator. And the one with the straps so you can have your hands—”
Suddenly there are voices again and Andi’s not talking quietly, so I press my mouth to hers. She makes a noise but slides her tongue into my mouth, and then her body’s pressed even harder against mine and everything is her.
She feels like going somewhere I’ve never been and realizing that it’s home. Andi’s been part of me for longer than I can remember, a sliver of sunshine and quicksilver lodged so close to my heart I wouldn’t survive pulling it out. She’s made me brave, always; she showed me the path that led me back to her.
I’d choose it, again and again. Whatever it took, I’d always come home to her.