He sounds self-conscious. My chest aches, like I feel the little sore spot in him, the thorn deep in between layers of muscle. I’d do anything to get it out.
I grab the lapels of his coat and look up into his face. “First of all,” I say, “simple isn’t bad. Second of all, simple isn’t stupid, and you’re not stupid, and I don’t know why you’re always trying to convince yourself you are, but it really is bullshit, Wyn. And lastly, you’re the opposite of slow-release boring. I like you so much more than when we first met. Partly because you actually answer my questions now, instead of turning everything around to flirt.”
His brow lifts. “And what’s the other part?”
“Everything,” I say.
He laughs. “Everything?”
“Yes, Wyn,” I say. “I like your body and your face and your hair and your skin, and I like how you’re always warmer than me, and how you never sit still except when you’re really trying to concentrate on what someone’s saying, and I like how you always fix things without being asked. You’re the only one of us who will actually take out the trash before it’s spilling over. And every time you’re doing anything—going to the store or doing laundry or making yourself breakfast—you’ll always ask if anyone else needs anything, and I like how I know when you’re about to text me from the other side of the room because you make this really specific face.”
He laughs against my cheek. I wish I could swallow the sound, that it would put down roots in my stomach and grow through me like a seed.
He says, “The I want to go down on you face?”
I hug him closer as we pause at a DO NOT WALK sign. “I didn’t have a name for it until now.”
The light changes, but instead of crossing, he draws me around the corner into an alleyway and kisses me against a brick wall until I lose track of time, of space. We become the only two people in the world.
Until a group of fratty drunk guys hollers at us from the street, and even then we don’t stop kissing, our smiles colliding, our hands twisted in each other’s clothes.
When we draw apart, he rests his brow against mine, breathing hard in the cold. “I think I love you, Harriet,” he says.
Love, I think. That’s new. And I’ll never be happy without it again.
Without any forethought, any worry, I tell him the truth. “I know I love you, Wyn.”
He touches my chin, his hand shaking a little, and slides his nose down along mine. “I love you so much, Harriet.”
At home, we gather our friends at the dining room table Wyn rebuilt from scraps for us, all our favorite people looking various degrees of terrified to hear what we have to say. Wyn and I terrified for them to hear it.
“We’re together,” Wyn says, and when no one reacts, he adds, “Together. Harriet and I.”
Sabrina runs to the fridge like she’s planning to vomit in it, only when she throws the door shut, she’s holding a bottle of prosecco, then grabbing mismatched coupes from the shelf over the stove. And Parth is on his feet, pulling Wyn into a hug, then squeezing me tight next, lifting me off the ground. He shakes me back and forth before setting me back down. “About time our boy finally told you how he felt.”
Sabrina pops the cork and starts filling glasses. “You know that now that you’re finally together, you can’t ever break up, right?”
“Don’t put that kind of pressure on them,” Cleo says.
“The pressure’s on whether we admit it or not,” Sabrina says. “If they break up, this”—she waves the bottle between us—“implodes.”
“Lots of people stay friends if they break up,” Cleo says, then quickly to me, “not that you’re going to break up!”
“I’m with Sabrina on this one,” Parth says.
She holds the bottle up as she tries to cup a hand around her ear. “What’s that? Is that just global warming I’m feeling, or has hell frozen over and Parth is actually agreeing with me on something?”
“I’m agreeing with you,” Parth says, “because this time, you’re right. It was bound to happen eventually.”
She rolls her eyes, goes back to filling glasses.
“Harry, I’m serious,” Parth says, setting his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t you dare break my delicate angel’s heart.”
Sabrina snorts. “Oh, come on. Wyn better not break her heart.”
Cleo says, “There’s no need for all this pressure.”
“He would never in a million years hurt her,” Parth says to Sabrina, passing Wyn and me each a glass of champagne. Just like that, they’re back to their old squabbling selves.
“And she’s been secretly obsessed with him for years,” Sabrina argues.
“Speaking of unspoken sexual tension,” Wyn grumbles, waving his glass in their direction. “You two want us to leave you alone for this argument, or can we be done now?”
“Ew!” Sabrina says.
Parth pulls a face. “Thank you, Sabrina.”
“I’m not saying you’re gross,” she says. “I’m saying the idea of us is gross. Can you imagine? And also, the last thing this friend group needs is another romantic entanglement. We’re already playing with fire here, and I really, really cannot lose this. This”—she waves the bottle between us again—“is my family.”
It’s mine too, but I’m not worried. I already know: I will love Wyn Connor until I die.
That night, for the first time, I sleep in Wyn’s room. We lie awake late, with the sheets kicked off us, our sweat drying, and he plays with my hair.
“It’s always a complete mystery to me,” he murmurs, “what you’re thinking.”
“I’ll help you out,” I say. “Eighty percent of it is picturing you naked.”
He kisses my sticky forehead. “I’m serious.”
“I am too,” I say.
“You’re a mystery to me, Harriet Kilpatrick.”
My smile falters. “I’m a mystery to me too,” I say. “I didn’t realize how little I understood myself until I met Cleo and Sabrina. They’re both so sure of how they feel about things.”
He pulls another curl straight, and the gentle tug sends a current down my center. “Well, we should get to know you,” he says.
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Something small,” he says.
“Like what?”
He smiles unevenly. “Like why do you love cozy mysteries?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. They’re so . . . mild.”
His kiss against the side of my head melts into a laugh. “Mild?”
“The worst thing that can happen to a person happens, right at the start of the story,” I explain. “And it’s like . . . this feeling of safety. You know exactly what’s going to happen by the end. So many things are unpredictable in life. I like things you can trust.”
He frowns, his golden hair mussed up off his forehead. I’m suddenly sure I’ve found the one unacceptable answer to his question, the one that makes him realize I am not the cool, sexy, mysterious woman he has confused me with.