“For the buttons,” she nods as if this makes sense.
“Yup. For the buttons.”
After our two-hour bath and a blow job, I searched for the clothes we’d discarded in the foyer. Gianna stayed behind, finding clean clothes of her own, and it gave me a moment to take in her personal space. It was both exactly as I envisioned and utterly different from what I expected.
There are pieces of projects lying everywhere. A massive canvas in the living room. Buttons all over the floor. Scrapbooks piled so high in one corner that I’m shocked they didn’t fall over during our rendezvous in the foyer. I expected as much. What surprised me was how much it felt like a home.
There are personal touches everywhere—pictures, trinkets, little succulents lining the windowsill in the kitchen. Throwblankets on every chair. It feels lived-in and comfortable, and if the walls could talk, I’m sure they’d tell stories for days.
“So what happens now? Do you leave?” She pauses. “Do you stay?” Her tone shifts higher, as if this option is her favorite. But quickly her brows tug together. “Hey, where is my phone?”
I laugh. “I have no fucking idea.”
“Did you bring it in?”
I plant a wet, loud kiss on her lips. “All I remember is that you opened the door wearing basically nothing.” I shrug. “Where’s your phone? Is my car still running? Did we shut the front door? Hell if I know.”
Would anyone blame me for blacking out?Gianna Bardot is a siren on a bad day, but dressed—barely—in a red silk kimono? No words were available. My brain shut down of all thoughts except for making her mine.
“Okay, but give me some credit,” she says, smiling proudly. “My plan was brilliant.”
“Did you have someone call it so it would ring? Or was that a coincidence?”
She snorts. “Of course, I did. Astrid called you repeatedly, so you’d come right back. In the meantime, I was rushing around here trying to look cute, smell cute, and be as irresistible as I could.”
“Your irresistibility score wasn’t what kept this from happening before. You know that, right?”
Her shoulders rise and fall as if it doesn’t matter anymore. But it does to me.
“Do you want a snack?” she asks. “I always need a snack after sex.”
“Does this mean you want me to stick around?”
She looks at me over her shoulder, leading me out of her bedroom. “You’re not going anywhere until we have at least one more round.”
How is this real?
She flips a light on in the hallway, something I did not do earlier, and it illuminates the space. The walls on the left are dotted with gold frames of all sizes. Inside them are pictures of people whom I don’t know, but who look happy.
“Those are my friends, mostly,” she says. “There are some of Lucia.” Her gaze sweeps across the images until it lands on one in the top left corner. “That’s my mom and dad.”
I step closer to get a good look at the couple who raised my girl. They’re attractive and very well put together. Her mother’s smile is bright but practiced, and her father reminds me of the kind of guy who everyone loves but never quite gets to know.
“How do you feel when you look at that picture?” I ask, wrapping my arm around her waist.
She studies it for a while. “Honestly? Sad.”
I pull her closer to me.
“I’m sad they’re gone,” she says. “I’m sad we didn’t have more chances to really understand each other. I’m sorry for the life they could’ve lived but chose not to, you know? I wonder a lot if they regretted anything in their last moments. If they could’ve been saved, would they have changed anything?” She looks up at me with doe eyes. “I’ll never know.”
“You’re right,” I say carefully, trying to find words that don’t try to fix her pain, nor steal her grief. “You won’t know. But that doesn’t mean the questions aren’t worth asking.”
She nuzzles into my side.
“Want to know what I know?” I ask softly, remembering the things she’s told me about her parents.
She nods against my chest.
