“Is this okay?” he whispers, pressing a kiss to one hip bone and then the other.
“Yes.” My voice is featherlight. “But I—I haven’t done this before.”
“I haven’t either.” The words are low and breathy, and they do nothing to ease my wanting. “We could figure it out together?”
The figuring-it-out is strange at first. Then a little less strange, warm and shimmering and yes, my hands in his hair and his name on my tongue. And then just… bliss. Utter bliss.
When I pull him back up to me to kiss him, it feels different. Heavier. Maybe because we’re alone, maybe because that was new for both of us and by far the most intimate thing I’ve ever done.
He drops his lips to my neck. “Quinn,” he says into my skin, a little growl that sounds like both an invitation and a question. Just like that, I’m ready again.
“Do you have a condom?”
He nods. “Are you sure?”
“Very. Are you?”
“I don’t think I’m doing a terribly good job hiding my enthusiasm,” he says, muffling a laugh into my neck as he grows more enthusiastic against my leg, “but yes.”
I have to laugh at that too, because laughing is okay, because why can’t this be funny and hot and sweet and probably even a little weird all at the same time? Why did I ever think it had to be only one thing and that I’d done it so wrong?
It’s all of those things and more, and as soon as it’s over—for both of us—I miss the heat of him. With the sheets around our hips, we talk and we laugh and we listen to the rain taptaptap at my tower window. Our stormy summer soundtrack.
At one point, Tarek cups my face with his hands, his touch gentler than it’s ever been, this reverence that nearly breaks me in half. “So, how was it? Having a boy in your room?”
“Ten out of ten, would do again.”
A grin lights up his face. “You’re not unhappy right now, then.”
“No,” I say. “I’m very, very happy.”
It’s only once the words leave my mouth that the dread fights its way to the surface, filling my mind with all the fears I’ve tried to lock up tight. It makes me roll away from him on the bed, desperate for air, his light touch suddenly suffocating.
I could really fall for him. I’m convinced of that now, and it would be a catastrophe.
I should tell him to leave. Kick him out of my room. This isn’t right, having him here long past our expiration date, no matter how very, very happy it made me. Happiness is fleeting, and any amount of it I have now isn’t worth the heartbreak waiting for us on the other side. I’ve already made it clear I can’t be the girlfriend he wants. I can’t give him the story his parents had if I’ve never believed in stories.
The longer I let him stay, the more this is going to hurt. Somehow, I know it won’t just leave a bruise this time—it will rip me apart.
And that’s how I know it’s time to end it.
24
The flowers were supposed to be royal blue,” Mom barks into her phone, an unsuspecting florist on the other end. “These are cerulean.”
The museum is a flurry of activity. Camera wires are taped down, tables are repositioned, candles are lit, centerpieces are examined to make sure not a single petal is out of place. The ivory velvet curtains hiding the most erotic paintings look rather artistic themselves, giving the reception an even more exclusive feel.
Our clothes are pressed and crisp, and Dad made us do this dorky team huddle when we got here that still somehow managed to tug at my heart. I can’t help feeling jittery, despite my decision that Asher’s wedding will be my last one with B+B. Or maybe because of it.
Naturally, something goes wrong right away.
“That’s odd,” Asher says, frowning down at something on her timeline.
“What?” I straighten out the MOB and MOG cards at the head table.
“I have a few cards here that haven’t been assigned to a table.” She shows me the handful of delicate, loopy-scripted cards. “Five of them, actually.”
We cross-check my stack of cards with the seating chart, and it turns out I have three more without a home.
“We’re lucky it’s a buffet.” Asher’s bun is slicked back with so much hair spray, you’d need one of those infomercial knives that can cut through granite to take it apart. “We were so meticulous. You updated the RSVP list this week, right?”
I’m pretty sure I did. Didn’t I? “We could add an extra chair at each table,” I suggest feebly, but we have an entire family to seat, and we can’t split them up.
“Let’s see if we can grab another table.”
“A reject table.”
She taps her nose. “Yes, but only you and I will know that.”
Two more weeks, and then I will break her world apart.
I swallow that down. No time for it now.
We find an extra table in the museum’s restaurant and recruit a couple of producers and cater-waiters to help us tweak the spacing. My stomach does this swoop when Tarek appears in the doorway. Everything about him looks brighter, fuller today, the wave to his hair and the light in his eyes and the quirk of his mouth when he sees me.
“Hi,” he says, rolling up his sleeves like he’s about to do something more aerobic than simply moving tables. He grazes my lower back with a few fingertips, his hand lingering for a moment. It’s a small but intimate gesture, and it makes me blush.
“Hi.” And suddenly I can’t stop grinning.
Too late, I catch myself. Tarek is my other countdown, but I haven’t yet decided how to tell
