“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.
“Youhaveto 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.”
“Betterwarning,” 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 wholerakishly disheveled groomsmanthing 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 tobeginto have any idea—”
“The odds are good but the goods are odd!” she yelps, and then starts laughing.
“How much champagne did youhave?” 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,pleasedo,” 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—”
