When he steps back, I see he’s arranged the pile of sleeping bags on the floor, and it takes me only a few seconds to realize it’s because the cot is really only wide enough for one body. But by zipping the flannel-carcass sleeping bags together, he’s made a cozy little bed for two. There are pillows propped against the wall to lean against, if we want. He’s even brought a couple of bottles of my favorite sparkling water out here from the kitchen.
I must have hearts in my eyes when I look at him. When did he even do this?
“You said you didn’t have beverages.”
“I said I don’t have any nightcaps,” he says, grinning, “but I do know what you like.”
I’m trying to keep my brain from doing it, but a tiny flash works through, of the handful of guys in my past who would be hard pressed to remember how much ice I like in my drink or name one of my favorite anythings, let alone procure it for me.
Without any careful calculation—only gratitude and want—I move right up against him. My arms go around his neck and there’s no hesitation on his end, either; my God, it’s like an explosion in reverse, a melting. His arms pull me in, and his mouth comes over mine with a laugh-moan of happy relief. This feeling is sunshine. There’s no pause like there was in the closet, no careful consideration of who might find us. Here, there’s only the heat of his smiling mouth, the tiny relieved exhale.
Andrew turns us, pressing me against the wall. Playful and sweet and light Andrew is washed away in the shadow of the man in front of me who smiles still, but it’s dark and exciting. His hands grip my hips, pulling me flush to him, letting me feel that he’s still just as hungry for this as I am.
We move to the floor. My shirt is slid up and over my head. I finally get to push that soft flannel off his shoulders and run my hands down his arms, feeling the smooth definition there, the bunching of tension in his back as he hovers over me, pressing just where I want him.
The neon sign is back. Sex. Sex. Sex.
We’ve been in the Boathouse for maybe four minutes, and we’re half-undressed. It’s not that I’m surprised, but… I don’t want to be stupid.
“Andrew,” I mumble against his mouth.
He pulls back, and even in the dim light I can see the worry on his face. “What?”
Do I say it? Or do we figure it out as we go? But honestly, that’s never a good idea. The heat of the moment is a real thing, and we are right in the middle of it. “This is awkward, okay, but I don’t have…”
He waits for me to finish the sentence, but suddenly it feels too presumptuous. Too fast. We just have our shirts off, Mae, settle down. “Never mind.”
“Don’t have what?” he presses. He shifts forward slightly, leaning into that distracting heat between my legs.
“Um. Not that we are going to. I mean, of course we probably aren’t. But if one thing leads to another, and—”
There’s a smile in his voice. “Maelyn Jones, are you thinking about birth control?”
I don’t think I could be more mortified.
“Like I said,” I say immediately, “I’m not saying we’re going to go there, we just got here, but I like to be—”
“Safe.” He drops the teasing voice and squeezes my hip with a gentle hand. “I’ve got it taken care of. Don’t worry.”
Andrew bends and it’s sweeter now, less frantic, like we’ve let out some of the pressure by just saying the possibility out loud.
The air in the Boathouse seems colder than the air outside, but in the zipped-together sleeping bags it is toasty warm. Andrew wrestles briefly with my bra, which I find both reassuring and endearing, and then it’s gone, tossed somewhere over near his cot. His mouth is a trail of heat down my neck, over my chest, tiny bites and kisses.
It’s like wanting to hit the brakes and the gas all at once; I want to go faster, feel him moving in me, but want to savor every second of this because it’s so many of my lifelong fantasies come to life and he’s perfect, like he read the Guidebook on Mae’s Body and is determined not to miss a bullet point. I’d had no clue that Andrew felt anything but big brotherly feelings toward me until today, but, with my very simple invitation to explore an us, he’s on board. Totally. It’s almost as though he’s been waiting, too. He’s had fantasies of his own that he’s finally able to bring to life. Which is completely surreal.
He disappears beneath the top of the sleeping bag, and with a combination of kisses, dexterous fingers, and determined hands, he manages to unbutton my jeans and get them down my legs and shoved to the bottom of the sleeping bag.
I can’t see him, can only feel his mouth on my knee, my thigh, the smallest press of his mouth between my legs and, good God I might die, I don’t think I have ever wanted something more in my life, like I would sacrifice anything just to feel the direct, heated press of his kiss there—
Andrew scrambles up my body, crawling in a panicked flurry, and takes a deep gulping breath of air once he manages to emerge from the sleeping bag. “Holy shit.” He sucks in another breath. “I have never been that close to death.”
It’s a combination of shocked laughter and mortified cry that escapes me.
Obviously everything down there is terrible and horrifying? Why has no one ever told me the truth?
I clap my hands over my face. “… Are you okay?”
“I’m great. I wanted to—but I couldn’t hold my breath—” He gasps, inhaling again deeply. “It is so hot in that flannel sleeping bag, there’s, like, no air.”
I burst out laughing, dropping my hands. “I was making a mental deal to sacrifice all of our loved ones if it’d keep you going, but it isn’t worth your death by suffocation.”
He bends, leaning his forehead on my bare shoulder. “I accuse Mae, in the sleeping bag, with her vagina.”
I completely lose it when he says this, and he’s shaking with laughter, too. Honestly, laughing with Andrew while I’m naked might be the best feeling I’ve ever had. He slides to the side in the giant double sleeping bags, propping his head on his hand. With the fingers of his other hand, he draws little circles on my stomach, my chest, my neck.
I like looking at him in this light; with the way it’s angled across the room, it makes him a perfect combination of angular and soft. Sharp jawline and cheekbones, the gentle bow of his lips, his impossibly long eyelashes.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have the most beautiful eyes?” he asks. “You’ve got this doe-eyed, innocent Gidget thing going on.”
I laugh. “That’s an awfully old-man thing to say, Mandrew.”
“No, listen,” he insists, pushing up and hovering over me. “I used to watch reruns of Gidget when I was home sick, and I’m not kidding, I think Sally Field was my first crush.”
“Is that weird?” I ask. “I can’t decide.”
“Not weird.” He bends, kissing my jaw. “She’s a babe. Even in her seventies, she could get it.”
“Did you know Tom Cruise is almost sixty?” I ask.
He looks mildly concerned. “Do you have a thing for Tom Cruise?”
I scrunch my nose. “Definitely not. I just think it’s funny that he looks eternally forty.”
He hums thoughtfully. “Did you know Christopher Walken is almost eighty?”
I laugh. “Why do we even know these things?”
“We’re the good kind of weird?” His mouth moves up my neck.
“But is it bad-weird,” I say, “that I’m naked and we’re talking about Christopher Walken?”
“It is good-good that you are naked. And frankly,” he says, “I’m happy to share this moment with Christopher Walken.”
I’m overcome with a fondness so consuming that I cup Andrew’s face and pull him to me. It isn’t just about how good this feels or how flat-out gorgeous he is, it’s about how easy and natural it is to be with him, to talk between kisses, to be totally unselfconsciously naked, to laugh about Andrew’s near-death experience between my legs.
The kiss starts sweet and calm, but when h
e grazes his teeth across my lip, I make a noise that seems to uncork something inside him, and he’s over me again, elbows planted beside my head, kissing me so good I’m dizzy with how much I want him.
My fingers toy with the waistband of his sweats, and skim just beneath and then—why not—I push them down his hips, and his warm skin slides over mine. I think for one second that it’s moving too fast, but I sense the same awareness in him because he shifts back and away.
I’ve never been in sync with someone like this. It feels like hours pass while we’re kissing and touching, talking and breaking into spontaneous, loud bursts of laughter. The sex is right there, but so is the blackness of night, reminding us that no one is in a hurry and we have plenty of time for fun. Even the fumbling condom unwrapping leaves us in hysterics. He’s still laughing into a kiss when he moves over me, and into me, and then I get to see the quiet, focused side of Andrew, the one who makes it his life’s work to listen, because he works so carefully to respond to every single sound I make.
When we finally pull our clothes back on and he walks me across the moonlit expanse of snow, there are two things I want with equal intensity: I want to turn around and go back to being naked in the sleeping bag, and I want him to follow me into the kitchen, sit down at the table, and talk to me for hours.
chapter twenty
At five thirty in the morning, two and a half hours after Andrew walked me back to the house, I give up on sleep and shuffle upstairs to the kitchen. I am a sewer creature emerging into daylight; a woman who very definitively needs eight full hours of sleep. Today should be interesting.
Ricky stumbles in about the same time I do, and we both freeze at the sight of his son at the end of the table, bent over a bowl of cereal. My heart falls into my stomach, and I watch in horror as Andrew lifts an arm and casually wipes away a drip of milk from his chin.
He hasn’t heard us approach, I know, but the view of him bowed over the table, the silence that seems to stretch like a canyon across the otherwise warm, inviting space… it’s so similar to that horrible morning with Theo that I am instantly queasy with dread.
Is this the catch? The surprise ending? Gotcha! You’ve made the same mistake with Andrew. Did you really think the point of all this was for you to be happy?
A sound creaks out of me, something between an inhale and a groan, and Andrew’s eyes shoot up, and then back over his shoulder to his dad, before returning to me.
His sleepy gaze immediately shifts into twinkling happiness. “Well, good morning, fellow early risers.”
He’s looking at me like I’m exactly who he wanted to find this morning, but my doubt takes a beat to wear off and the feeling keeps me from moving deeper into the room.
Ricky looks at me, then the coffeepot, and then me again meaningfully before he eventually gives up and walks over to it himself. “What’re you doing up so early, Drew?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Behind his father’s back, Andrew winks mischievously at me, and my insides all turn into a heated tangle. An echo of his groan, a flash of his throat arched back in pleasure snaps my thoughts clean of anything else.
“Too cold out there in the Boathouse?” Ricky turns to smile at me, too, like he’s really got Andrew where he wants him now.
“Actually, I was toasty as a bear in a den,” Andrew says, poking at his cereal. “Just stayed up too late and then couldn’t shut off my brain.”
“Something worrying you? Work stuff?” Ricky pulls down three mugs as the coffee starts to slowly dribble into the carafe.
“Work was the last thing on my mind, actually.” Andrew gives his dad an easy shrug and takes another bite of cereal. “Just wide awake and buzzing.”
I look down at the linoleum, faking a yawn to smother my delirious grin.
“Well, you’ll be tired after today,” Ricky says, sitting at the table, “that’s for sure.”
Today: December 23. Scavenger Hunt Day. We pair up in teams pulled out of a hat and disperse around Park City to collect photo evidence of a long list of random things Ricky and Lisa dream up for us—a silver ornament, a giant candy cane, a dog wearing a sweater, things like that. Occasionally video evidence is needed, like last year when we had to get video of a group of people doing the cancan. Permission is required, and asking strangers to do weird things can be mortifying, but mostly it’s a blast.
The hunt also gives us the chance to do any last-minute Christmas shopping we might need—Theo and Miles never have their shopping done beforehand—and is usually a much-needed break from the confines of the cabin. Mom, Kyle, and Aaron usually stay back to start cooking tomorrow’s feast. They prepare the same, beloved menu every Christmas Eve: ham, scalloped potatoes, roasted vegetables, macaroni and cheese, homemade bread, and about ten different pies we all look forward to every year.
The rest of us are unleashed and turn ruthlessly competitive. One year, Dad even bought a woman a new shirt so no one else would have the chance to cross off the “someone wearing a Broncos jersey” item on their list.
My feet finally unlocked, I walk across to the table, pull out a seat, and sit shoulder to shoulder with Ricky.
“What about you, Mae?” he says, nudging me. “You sleep okay?”
I should probably lie, but I’m too tired to be coy. “Not really.”
Andrew puts on a mask of dramatic concern. “Oh no. You too?”
Ricky bolts up as soon as the coffeemaker beeps that it’s done brewing, and I use the opportunity to give Andrew a warning expression that I can’t seem to hold; it immediately cracks into a smile that feels like sunlight on my face. In my head, Julie Andrews sings and spins on an Austrian mountainside. Confetti bursts from a glittery cannon. A flock of birds take glorious flight from the top of an enormous tree. I am silvery, glimmering happiness.
Ricky slides a mug in front of me and lets out a tiny sound from the back of his throat. “You don’t look tired, Maelyn.”
“You actually look a little flushed.” Andrew innocently slides another bite of cereal into his mouth, chews thoughtfully, and swallows, adding, “If you need a nap in the Boathouse later, it’s quiet and really warm in the sleeping bags.”
Well, now I’m sure my cheeks are hot and my eyes are gleaming. I lean over my mug, inhaling the warm, nutty scent. “I think I’m good.”
“In any case, we’ll get you to bed extra super early tonight,” Andrew says, and catches my eye over the lip of his own mug. “Scout’s honor.”
* * *
A half hour later, he catches me in the hallway with my shower bag, preparing to climb the long staircase to the upstairs bathroom with the best water pressure. Andrew tugs me into the dark, secluded dining room and hides us behind one of the thick velvet curtains, burying his face in my neck.
“Hi.” He pulls in a deep inhale. “Don’t shower yet.” His mouth opens, teeth press into the sensitive juncture of neck and shoulder. “You smell like the Boathouse.”
“Your flirting was very subtle back there,” I tease.
Laughing silently, he pulls me right up tight against him, a stand-up cuddle. “Kiss me.”
So I do.
“You want to know why I couldn’t sleep?” he asks.
I laugh. “Why?”
“Because I kept thinking about all your little sounds last night.”
“My sounds.”
His mouth comes up my neck. “Yeah. Right in my ear.” His voice goes quiet. “ ‘Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.’ ”
I honestly have few recollections of anything that concrete—just blurry flashes of him moving over me, of this spiraling, back-bending pleasure, and of his own breathy, gravelly noises when he came. “I don’t think I realized I was saying anything coherent.”
“Not all of it was coherent.” He laughs. It turns into a groan. “How are we going to hide this? I’m sure I won’t be able to keep it off my face. Maybe we shouldn’t try to keep it quiet.”
Is he serious? He can’t really think we’ll announce thi
s today, after one day of togetherness? Does he not know our families at all?
But I don’t actually want to think about any of them right now. I wind my arms around his shoulders, and he starts to feel me up. “You know, it might look suspicious from the outside when the curtain starts to wiggle.”
He pulls back in feigned shock. “What are you thinking we’re going to do in here?” Even so, his palm comes over my breast.
I still feel the rhythmic echo of last night all over. In a twist I can only blame on my semi-uptight upbringing, guilt casts a shadow over my elation. Mom has left a lot of her own mother’s prudishness behind, but her biggest conservative holdover is her preference that sex not happen casually. She knows I’m not a virgin, but I’m also sure she wouldn’t love to know I was having sex with Andrew in his parents’ cabin. I don’t regret it, but I don’t want to flaunt it, either.
Andrew sees the shadow fall over my thoughts; his hand slides back down to my waist.
“What’s wrong?”
It’s also more than just the reality that I had sex with Andrew so quickly—which, frankly, is shocking enough. But in the past several hours, I’ve let myself forget that I’m actually on a wild, cosmic trip, that I might be living on a timer. I’ve been in this exact day and hour before and I don’t know what might propel me backward all over again. Do I feel more firmly rooted here than I did last time, when the branch fell on my head? Maybe? I made it through day three without returning to the plane, but I also didn’t make any new declarations or have any heavy realizations yesterday. I was just… happy.
And being happy was the only thing I asked for.
So what happens when I’m not happy? What happens when this vacation is over, and Andrew heads back to Denver, and I return to Berkeley, and I’m devastated to be away from him, and jobless and broke? What if I can’t keep up this trajectory? Will I fail this particular test? Will I find myself back at the beginning of the game, tasked with reliving all these moments again and finding a way to keep the balloon in the air eternally?
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say, and hope I wasn’t quiet too long. “Just processing it all.”
In a Holidaze Page 15
