Oh.
Oh.
“Give it a chance, okay?” he said from a million miles away. And then I nearly blacked out. First from embarrassment, then from pleasure. If my body was going to pick a time to go cataplexic, it sure as heck better not be now! But it didn’t, and the only thing interrupting the greatest thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life was Daniel, stopping to ask me questions. I tried to answer, but couldn’t, so I was relieved that he seemed to understand what I only had a vague idea about.
And I wasdoublyrelieved that after he made his way back up the bed, he reached for his jeans—and that the condom he managed to pull out of his pocket, after three tries and a cry of anguish, was not glow-in-the-dark.
“Do you want to try my Nick and Nora Go Wild plan?” he asked.
“I thought we just did,” I said in a dreamy voice that didn’t sound like it belonged to me.
He chuckled, and it was the most erotic thing I’d ever heard. “There’s more.”
“Is that right?” Frankly, if he’d asked me to bomb a building, I’d have asked which one.
“We can stop now....”
“No, thanks,” I said.
“No to stopping or no to continuing?”
“To stopping.”
“You sure?”
I’d never been so sure about anything.
It was slightly awkward and fumbling. Certainly not bad for a second try. But it was the third try a little later that was—
Intense. Emotional.
Light-years away from what it was in the back seat of his car that first night. Those people were strangers. We were not. And what do you know? That made all the difference.
•••
When we were done being wild, we lay side by side, all tangled up in each other. Daniel picked up my hand and placed it over his heart. Its powerful rhythm was unhurried and strong, pounding in time with mine. It felt like we were inside an invisible cocoon. As if everything we’d just done together somehow created a safe space that was just big enough for the two of us.
I exhaled a long breath and sank into the mattress.
“Hey, Birdie?”
“Yes?”
“Something fuzzy and purple is jammed between your headboard and the mattress. It has one eye, and it’s staring at me.”
I reached above his head and pulled out a stuffed animal. “It’s just Mr. Flops.”
“Mr. Flops is super creepy. Oh God, he only has the one eye.”
“He’s had a rough life,” I said. “I’ve had him since I was a kid.”
“Did your mom give him to you?”
I shook my head, petting the bunny’s ear.
“I’m sorry you don’t have a lot of good memories of your mother,” he said.
I sighed. “It’s okay. Mr. Flops is still a good memory. The Easter before my mom died was super rainy. My mom was gone—I can’t remember why. Maybe she was seeing someone, I don’t know. But I was upset about the rain because Mona was supposed to take me to an Easter egg hunt. Instead, Ms. Patty and Mona hid a bunch of clues around the diner in those pastel plastic eggs that break apart. Like, the first egg had a piece of paper inside that hinted where I could find the next one.”
