"I'd call it contemptuous but annoyed also fits," I said. "That school couldn't keep up with him this year and he's still pissy about it. Actually, I could use your help with that. When you're sober."
"What do you mean?" She shifted, flailing in the most convoluted ways imaginable until she straddled my thigh. A fresh new rung on the descent into my personal hell. "I'm a hundred percent sober."
"No, baby, you're not." I cupped her chin, studying her glassy eyes. "But I love that you think so."
"I'm perfectly aware of what's going on. Everything's just a little fuzzy. Like felt. The fabric." She rubbed the pads of her fingers together, directly in front of her eyes. "No, no, it's moss. That's what I feel like. It's like I'm made of warm moss."
Audrey rocked against my thigh as she spoke. She was hot, even through my jeans. Scorching hot. And she'd hate me for this tomorrow if I let her continue.
"Okay, that's enough." I shifted up, groaning as my belt strangled my cock, and reached for her waist. I managed to turn her around and settle her between my legs, her back to my chest.I banded an arm over her to keep her still though I knew it wouldn't do much good.
"But why?" she asked, wriggling in my hold. "We have this big bed all to ourselves. Weneverhad beds. Remember? There was the back seat of my car and that really old storage room in the library and?—"
"I've already told you to behave."
I closed one hand over her mouth, grabbed my phone with the other, and went back to the photos. The album opened to me and Percy at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, a reef shark floating by behind us. She tried to say something but it was too muffled to understand.
I let my hand slide down her neck, coming to rest on her sternum. "Mind your manners, princess."
She gave me a tart glance from the corner of her eye that was almost enough to make me beg her to ride my leg. She must've seen the hunger written all over my face because she rocked back against me, her ass working my cock with a sweet, filthy drag that was almost worth her hating me tomorrow. "I know you want to."
I stared up at the ceiling. "Not like this I don't. Not tonight."
"But—"
"No, Saunders. You had your chance back at the motel but you went and hid behind that little pillow fortress of yours. Didn't you?" I moved my palm up her neck, turning her just enough to catch my gaze. "You're so pretty when you're fearless and free to ask for all the things you don't think you should want. So fucking pretty." I pressed my lips to her temple and let a breath rasp out of me. "But the next time I touch you, it's going to be when you don't need any help asking for it. When I know you'll remember every second."
She made an aggravated, huffy sound and I was ready for another rebuttal but she sagged into me. The frenetic energythat'd pulsed in her just a moment ago bled out and she dropped to my shoulder.
"Just let me—" She slipped her hand under my shirt and pressed her palm to my torso. "Okay. That's better. I like this too."
I held my breath, waiting for her to dive bomb my dick again, but a minute passed with just the gentle sweep of her thumb along my side. It was back, that sensation of coming apart. Like she'd picked the right threads and now I was one good pull away from being unraveled.
"Why?" I asked, masochistic enough to squeeze every drop of tonight's honesty out of her. "Why do you like this?"
She yawned, curling into me a little deeper. "Because you just let me…be. I don't have to worry about anything. I don't have to think."
I sifted a hand through her hair, letting the strands slide between my fingers. So soft, so silky. I'd always loved her hair. There was something about it that quieted entire corners of my brain. I couldn't explain it, I just knew that untwisting her bun or running my lips over the crown of her head calmed me the hell down.
"There's nothing you need to worry about anymore," I said. "I have you now."
She murmured in agreement, and for a few minutes we fell into a rhythm of her thumb on my side and my fingers in her hair. There'd been times over the years when I'd questioned whether I'd loved her as much as I remembered, or if the intensity of the feelings I still shouldered was nothing more than a byproduct of living without a shred of closure.
But right now I knew it would always be like this. That I'd loved her in a way I'd never be able to recover from. She'd marked her place on my bones and inside my organs, and ruined me.
It was Audrey or no one, just like I'd told her under that meteor shower. And I was running out of time to get this right. All we had left was tomorrow, really. She flew back to Boston the day after. I was headed back to Seattle for meetings. It wasn't enough. None of this was enough.
"Have you ever thought about how basketball is about chasing pumpkins, tennis is hitting lemons, baseball is catching onions, and football is about throwing potatoes?"
I blinked down at Audrey, my head still busy inventing ways to squeeze more time out of the next thirty-six hours. "I haven't thought about that," I said. "But I know Percy would love it. He'd repeat that endlessly."
"Can I see more photos of him?"
I went back to the album and handed it to her. She scrolled for a few minutes, keeping up a running commentary on the array of Percy's grumpy expressions, all the photos I had of various engine parts, and the screenshots she accused me of never once referencing. I refused to admit any guilt on that last count.
But then she zoomed in on a photo where I had Percy's head tucked under my chin and she said, "I see it now."
"What's that?"
