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I laugh. It comes out shaky and breathless and not at all dignified.

“Eloquent.”

“Shut up.”

His mouth finds my collarbone, pressing there without moving, and I can feel the shape of his smile against my skin.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi.”

He shifts his weight off me carefully, one arm still braced beside my head, and I feel the absence of him immediately—the cool air hitting my stomach where his come is drying in warm streaks.

“Don’t move,” he says.

“Wasn’t planning to.”

He disappears into the bathroom, and I hear the tap running. The sound of water on porcelain, the clink of something being set down. I lie there staring at the ceiling, my chest still rising and falling faster than it should, and try to remember how to be a person who exists in a body that has just been thoroughly reminded of what it’s for.

He comes back with a warm washcloth.

“Arms up.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m trying to help.”

I raise my arms.

He wipes me clean with a tenderness that makes my throat tight. His fingers are careful, deliberate, tracing the line of my hip, the dip of my navel, the soft skin below my ribs.

We lie there catching up on the last few weeks. Naked together, touching each other more than necessary.

“Bea?” he asks.

“Yeah?”

“I know the timing of it was shitty. In the argument. In the song. I have to say it again. I love you.” He swallows.

“I love you too,” I reply. I think I’ve known it for a while. It doesn’t scare me anymore.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Bea

I’ve learned something about road trips.

They look better in movies. In movies, it’s very romantic—a convertible, good hair, and a playlist that somehow contains exactly the right song at exactly the right moment. In real life, all you’ve got is a gas station outside of Vegas where the bathroom situation is, to put it charitably, fucking horrendous, and a three-hour stretch of road that is just beige in every direction, and a very mean driver who likes to make jokes about you when you fall asleep.

“You’d just had a double espresso! That must be some kind of record.” He laughs. “You were like ‘oh I’m just closing my eyes for two minutes’ then an hour later, wake up.” I have only just woken up, and I’m groggy, whereas the caffeine has clearly affected Cal in the more traditional sense.

“You’re a menace,” I say.

“You snore a little.” He side-eyes me.

“I do not snore.”

“Just slightly. It’s cute.”