He did? He is? I straighten from where I’m leaning against my dad’s car, looking at my phone while he talks to himself about routes, then try not to look too interested.
“He texted fifteen minutes ago and said he was?—”
“I think that’s him,” my dad says. The driveway to the rental cabin is pretty long—it’s the last building on this road, back in the trees—and we all turn to watch a ten-year-old sedan drive toward us.
“I told you,” Bastien says, and Paloma doesn’t reply.
“You were serious about leaving at seven?” is the first thing he says when he gets out of the car.
“Yes,” his mom says, just as my dad says, “We’re hoping to make it past Roanoke before rush hour.”
Javi, who doesn’t quite look awake, takes a moment.
“Isn’t it a holiday?” he asks, pushing a hand through his hair. It looks unbrushed. I think there’s a pillow line on his face. I wonder what it would feel like if I traced it with a fingertip.
“Why risk it?” my dad says, and then Javi’s eyes finally land on me. His coat’s open, and his breath is fogging in the air. The headlights of his car are still on, and his shoelaces are untied like he had to run out the door to get here on time. Paloma and Bastien are discussing whethertake the trash outmeans “putthe trash into the bins” or “take the bins down to the street,” and Javi’s not paying them any attention. We’re just looking at each other. Fuck.Fuck.
Inspiration strikes. “Is the back door locked?” I ask, a little too loudly. “I’m not sure I locked it—let me go check.”
“I think I got it, but it can’t hurt…” my dad says, but I’m already pushing open the gate in the wooden fence. Behind me, Javi says something I don’t catch, and then the gate swings open and shut again. I don’t dare look back until I’m on the porch, by the back door. Javi’s steps behind me.
“Is it—” he starts, but I grab the front of his jacket and kiss him.
He makes a surprised noise, and it’s ugly for a moment there, teeth and lips sliding together. Then we both shift and everything locks into place. I probably taste like coffee and his face is sharp with stubble, but he’s warm and solid as he backs me against the side of the house, then grabs the backs of my thighs and lifts.
I don’t yelp as I wrap my legs around him, pinned against the wall, but I do bite him a little. It’s mostly an accident.
“Ow,” he says, but he’s smiling. “Teeth, Madeline.”
“You didn’t warn me.”
“I didn’t know I was going to until I did,” he says, and I tilt my head back against the wall, trying to catch my breath. How long does it take to check if a door is locked?
Javi takes it as an invitation because then there’s lips and teeth on my neck, and I clench my teeth so I don’t make a sound and squeeze his hips with my thighs for good measure.
“Don’t—”
“I won’t, I wouldn’t,” he promises. “Not now.”
And god, that’s his tongue, hot and wet and gentle.
“When’s the wedding?” he says, warm lips against my cool skin.
“Seven weeks? Six?”
He sighs. I realize my hand is in his hair, and it tightens.
“We should get back out there,” I say, squeezing him with my thighs again. “Before someone comes to check up on us.”
Javi makes a low noise, almost like a growl, but he lets me go and we untangle. I get one more kiss—sweet, gentle, lingering—before we’re straightening our clothes again and I’m checking my face in the reflection in the windows, hoping I don’t look freshly ravaged.
We walk to the front together in the quiet, and right before he opens the gate, he looks at me and says, “Happy new year.”
After we get home,my dad gets a message from the owners of the house that we left the back door unlocked.
“I thought you checked that,” he says, bewildered, as I transfer my suitcase to my own car.
The next evening,I’m standing in a classy wine bar, sipping a glass of classy white wine, wearing my classiest heels, and trying to chat to classy people about the incredible work being done at the Chesapeake University Hospital, where Ben is currently a neurosurgery resident. I don’t actually know very much about the incredible work being done, but I get to tell the story of the bandage on my forehead about thirty times. Every single person makes the joke that at least I’m in the right place.
