“Hey, you wanted to laugh too. Your eyes went all crinkly.” Which had been something else that Shay found adorable at the time.
“Maybe. But it definitely wouldn’t have been appropriate to burst into laughter since we were surrounded by a hundred mini metal doors, each of them with a dead body hiding behind it.”
“No.” Shay shook her head rapidly. “Definitely not. Do you think you could get kicked out of a morgue for inappropriate behavior?”
Rosie winked. “Do you want to go back and find out?”
Shay blew out a long breath. “With your mom behind one of those doors?” She tilted her head slightly. “Hard pass.” She gestured to the list in Rosie’s hand. “I guess some of the requestsare unusual. But it’s been a while since she wrote it. Maybe she had an updated version you haven’t seen.”
Rosie shook her head. “Every time one of her old friends or someone she knew from way back died, she’d bring it up and ask if I’d read it yet. She hated getting old… I think in a lot of ways, she was stuck in that same time when she wrote these instructions, so she wouldn’t have wanted to change them.”
“Does anyonelikegetting old?” Shay looked at Rosie’s soft, unlined hands and imagined the dark age spots that would inevitably mar her pale skin. “Although I don’t have to worry much. Everyone in my family looks about fifteen years younger than their actual age.”
“You can be okay with getting older. I think that’s different from getting old.” Rosie shrugged. “But over the last ten years or so, my mom always said that she didn’t recognize the woman looking back at her in the mirror. And she was angry about it, about losing that past version of herself, the one she loved the best.”
“What about you?” Shay asked, eager to divert the conversation away from Rosie’s mom. The day had been all about her, which was fair given why they were there, but every moment of that seemed to weigh heavy on Rosie. Her color had faded slowly throughout the day, as if her mom was still there, washing her brightness away. “Which version of yourself do you love the best?”
Rosie laughed. “Who said I lovedanyversion of myself?”
Beyond the humor of Rosie’s words, Shay detected a truthfulness to her flippancy. “Don’t you have to love yourself before you can expect anyone else to love you? Isn’t that therapy 101?”
“Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong,” Rosie said quietly then stopped stroking Shay’s feet and tucked her knees up to her chest. “Although, Lori loves me, and Aunt Sheila is convinced she does too, even though she only says it after a half bottle of whiskey.” She waved as if the words she’d just said out loud were hanging in the air, and she needed to shove them away. “Anyway, can I ask about your mom’s funeral?”
Shay hesitated before answering, not only because that topic was too painful to talk about, but also to keep herself from pursuing Rosie’s dropped conversation. The room was already supercharged with emotions, and Shay was having difficulty parsing out what was real and would stick around, and what was only the result of the situation and would fall away once they went back to Chicago.
“I’m sorry,” Rosie said, “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s okay.” Shay stretched to tap her foot Rosie’s. “You can ask me anything,” she said, though she really hoped Rosie wouldn’t take her word for that. She might have answers, but they might not be answers Rosie would want to hear. “There was a lot of music. And singing and dancing. That’s the way it’s been at all of my family’s funerals. The energy is supposed to be healing, so we express our emotions any way that works… People read out poetry, sang psalms and her favorite songs.” Shay thought about the funeral program she’d tucked in the back of a photo frame of her and her momma at Shay’s Yale graduation. She’d played no part in the preparations because it had taken her so long to get home; her CO at the time had been one of Major Nelson’s old cronies, and he’d pulled every string he could and put every delay possible in her path just to fuck with her. She sometimes thought that might be one of the reasons her daddy had pulled away from her, but she couldn’t be sure because he simply wouldn’t talk to her about it. But Rosie was dealing with her past and moving forward. Maybe Shay could too. She resolved to visit him when they got back, just like Rosie had suggested; it was beyond time to sit with him and have an uncomfortable conversation.
“Shay?”
She became aware of Rosie’s hand on her arm, and she looked up to see Rosie had come to the edge of the bed. Concern etched lines across Rosie’s face, and Shay ached to trace her finger across those contours.Damn it. Last night’s sex had affected her more than she’d wanted it to, more than she wanted to acknowledge.Without asking, she pressed her lips over Rosie’s, seeking to deal with her tension the only way she knew how. If they could just have sex again, the fun, unemotional, and purely physical kind they’d been having in Chicago, then the confusion would melt away, and she could get back on track.
But even the kiss was different now. Soft, tender, full of intimate promise, and beyond simple sexual satisfaction. She opened her eyes to see those same emotions reflected in Rosie’s gaze. Shay shifted to sit properly in the armchair, and Rosie slipped smoothly off the bed and straddled her. Shay placed her hands on Rosie’s hips and leaned back, but Rosie followed her, her mouth seeking hers, giving her the green light. Shay really couldn’t say what she was asking for, so how could Rosie know what she was consenting to?
Rosie cupped Shay’s face and kissed her hard, and Shay grasped at the tiny sliver of simplicity, responding with a similar pressure, as if she could kiss away a slowly dawning reality. Damn, why did Rosie have to be so beautiful inside and out? Wouldn’t it be easier to stick to her rules if Shay could find one thing that she didn’t like? One thing that irritated her was all she needed to hold onto.
But as their kiss deepened, and the heat of Rosie’s body filtered through Shay’s thin cotton tank top, she stopped thinking and let go. She rose slowly from the chair, and Rosie wrapped her legs around Shay’s waist. She guided Rosie onto the bed and pressed her body against her, not wanting even a millimeter of air between them as she continued to devour her as if she might never taste her again.
Rosie thrust herself against Shay’s core and squeezed her legs so tightly around Shay that it made it difficult to breathe. But the strength of her embrace served only to stoke Shay’s fire for her all the more. When she rolled onto her back, Rosie came with her then sat up briefly to tear off her own shirt before tugging at Shay’s.
“Oops,” Rosie said as Shay’s tank top strained and tore.
Shay didn’t care. She could buy more clothes, but moments like this weren’t anywhere near as easy to come by. Rosie tore it off and discarded it before falling back onto Shay’s body, pressing her lips to Shay’s with a passion that could’ve set the room on fire. Shay absorbed Rosie’s energy and returned it two-fold, desperate to take everything and anything Rosie had to offer.
Rosie’s hair fell over her shoulders and fanned around Shay’s face, the errant strands tickling her nose. She reached up and brushed them over Rosie’s ear while her body begged for more. She stroked her other hand along the length of Rosie’s side until she got to the edge of her short skirt. Shay raked her nails up along Rosie’s thigh, bringing the soft material of Rosie’s skirt up higher until she felt the intricate lace of Rosie’s panties. Shay had admired the matching set when she’d watched Rosie get dressed in the bathroom earlier that day, but she’d kept her desire to rip the bra and panties off to herself.
She hooked her fingers in the band of the panties and pulled them down just enough to give her access. Rosie lifted herself slightly higher to give Shay the space to move inside her, and she moaned loudly when Shay slipped two fingers into her wet pussy.
“You were ready for me,” Shay whispered, her arousal ramping up even higher at Rosie’s vocal appreciation.
Rosie ran her tongue along Shay’s bottom lip before sucking it into her mouth. “I’ll always be ready for you.”
Always.Permanently. Forever. Things no one had any business promising anyone else. And yet, Shay wanted to believe her, wanted to believe that Rosie’s desire for her could be everlasting…
She’d looked into Rosie’s eyes last night and seen something she hadn’t thought possible: a future happiness, a connection beyond their shared sexual appetite. How the hell had that happened? “Always?” Shay was unable to stop herself from asking as she thrust harder inside Rosie, who moaned loud enough to make their neighbor bang on the wall.
Rosie raked her nails over Shay’s chest, and she hissed inresponse, pushing in even deeper.
