Happy Place(41)
When he brings the wine back, I drink it in one go, because now slowing my brain down seems like the better of two fairly terrible options.
“You all right there, Harriet?” Wyn asks in his own husky equivalent of the happy-birthday-Mr.-President voice.
I turn back toward him, leaning in until his firm chest meets mine and our mouths are close. My arms lock tight across the back of his neck, and his gaze slinks down me and back up, the muscles in his jaw flexing.
His deep breath presses us closer, his pulse thrumming against my breast. His hands move to my hips, adjusting me in his lap.
Drunk on the power, plus five months of repressed anger, plus one glass of wine, I lean even further into him, feeling my nipples pinch between us as I lower my mouth, like he did, to the spot beneath his ear. “Never better,” I say. His fingers unconsciously tighten against my hips, glide down the sides of my thighs until they pass the chiffon and reach bare skin.
We may be playing our parts, but that’s not all this is. I can feel him stiffening beneath me. It makes every soft place on my body feel like magma: incendiary, volatile. But I’m not going to be the one to back down.
“Dartboard’s open,” Sabrina says from the far side of the table. “Anyone want to play?”
“I’m in,” Kimmy chirps, jumping up.
I hold Wyn’s gaze, waiting for him to break. Finally he flicks a look toward Sabrina. “Maybe later.” His eyes come back to mine, hard and steely. “I’m pretty comfortable right now.”
* * *
? ? ?
SABRINA BEATS FOUR locals, plus Kimmy, at a game of darts, and Parth and Cleo get into a long conversation with the bachelorette party about gerrymandering and how Parth’s organization works to fight it.
The bachelorette partygoers are impressively accepting of the turn their night of debauchery has taken. No one knows how to hold court quite like Parth Nayak. Plus, Sabrina keeps having shots of Fireball sent over.
By the end of the night, both she and Parth have exchanged literal, physical business cards (Who knew they even had these? Not me.) with a couple of people in the party, and Cleo, Wyn, and I have to basically mop the two of them and Kimmy out of the Lobster Hut and into the cab.
Still, Parth finds the wherewithal to play his traditional end-of-the-night soundtrack, the eerily beautiful Julee Cruise song from the opening of Twin Peaks.
In the back seat, Sabrina slumps against me, half asleep, a domino effect that forces me into Wyn’s chest. He holds on to my knee, and I wonder whether it’s his pulse or mine thundering between us.
Back at the cottage, the sober among us herd the others into the kitchen and ply them with water. Upstairs we hug each other good night, and then, with my heart clanging wildly in my throat, I trail Wyn into the bedroom. I’m suddenly too nervous to close the door and be truly alone with him.
He reaches over my shoulder and shuts it himself. His hand stays there, to the left of my head.
There’s a foot of space between us, but it feels like friction. Like straddling him in a dark alcove under the stairs. Like draping myself across his lap in a crowded bar.
His eyes move back and forth over my face, and his tongue sweeps absently across his bottom lip. In a rasp, he asks, “Are we done yet?”
I lift my chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Somehow we’ve gotten closer. The corner of his mouth hitches, but his eyes stay dark, focused. His breath feathers over my mouth. One more strong inhale, from him or me, would close the gap. “Why are you punishing me?”
I try for an angry laugh. It doesn’t come. He looks too earnest, too lost, like he’s desperately trying to understand.
Like he can’t fathom that all my love for him didn’t just vanish, the way his did for me. That it had to go somewhere, and funneling it into anger is how I’ve managed to make it through these last two days.
It makes me feel alone. It makes me feel defeated.
He swallows. “Can’t we . . . call a truce?” he asks. “Be friends for the next few days?”
Friends. The irony, the sterility of the word, stings. It’s pouring alcohol over my wounded heart. But I can’t quite grasp on to my anger.
“Fine,” I say. “Truce.”
Wyn’s hand slides clear of the door. He steps back and, after a moment, nods. “You take the bed.”
I can’t help but think he doesn’t look any happier than I feel.
14
HAPPY PLACE
MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NEW YORK CITY
A FOUR-BEDROOM APARTMENT that the five of us can barely afford. One full bathroom, with a rigid shower schedule (organized by Sabrina), and a half bathroom we call the “emergency can” because there’s nothing but a toilet and a lightbulb with a chain in it, and it’s creepy as hell.
Original hardwood floors that bow in the middle, tired of holding up grad students’ thrift store furniture for generations. Windows that get stuck for days at a time and must simply be left, tried again later. When it’s hot or when it’s raining, the smell of cigarettes past seeps faintly out of the walls, reminding us that we’re passing through, that this building has stood here since long before we came to this city, and will be here long after we leave.
After Wyn’s and my first kiss, in the cellar over the summer, I’d expected that to be it: our curiosity satisfied, our crush squashed. Instead, the moment the door to our shared room at the cottage closed, he’d lifted me against him, kissed me like only seconds had passed.