Sweet Filthy Boy(18)

so that’s why you proposed and he said yes really fast with this drunk smile like it was the best idea he’d ever heard because of course we should get married! now you’re headed there but i wanted to write this first because you might not remember why, and that’s why. don’t be a jerk. he might just be the nicest person you’ve ever known.

xo

Miaself

ps. you haven’t had sex with him yet. but you want to. A lot. Please have sex with him.

pps. you just asked him if you guys were going to and he said “we’ll see.” :/

I fold the papers up as neatly as I can and push them back inside the envelope with shaking hands. My heart feels like it’s doubled in size, maybe conjoined to another, a new one that prefers the staccato of panic. The doubled beats bounce and reverberate in my chest.

“So?” he asks. “You know I’m dying of curiosity.”

“I wrote it before we . . .” I hold up my left hand, displaying the simple gold band. “The last time I wrote myself a letter . . .” I start, but he’s already nodding. I feel like I’m spinning beneath the weight of this.

“I know.”

“And I proposed to you?” I suppose what actually surprises me is that there was a proposal at all. It wasn’t just drunk stumbling. I remember his teasing the night before that I should go with him to France, but this took discussion, and planning. Getting a car, giving directions. It required us to sign papers, and pay, and select rings, then repeat vows coherently enough to convince someone we weren’t drunk off our asses. I’m actually a little impressed by that last part.

He nods again, smiling.

“And you said yes?”

Tilting his head slightly, his lips pout the words, “Of course I did.”

“But you weren’t even sure if you wanted to have sex with me?”

He’s already shaking his head. “Be serious. I wanted to have sex with you the first time I saw you, two nights ago. But last night, we were really drunk. I didn’t . . .” He looks away, down the hall. “You left to write yourself a letter because you were worried you would forget why you proposed. And you did forget.” His brows rise, as he waits for me to acknowledge he’s made a decent point. I nod. “But we got back to the hotel, and you were so beautiful, and you . . .” He exhales a shaky breath. It’s so jagged, I imagine I can see the slivers of it fall from his mouth. “You wanted it.” He leans closer, kisses me slowly. “I wanted it.”

I shift on my feet, wishing I knew how to pull my eyes from his face.

“We did have sex, Mia. We had sex for hours and it was the best, most intense sex of my life. And see? There are still details you don’t remember.”

I might not remember every touch, but my body certainly does. I can feel his fingertips tattooed all over my skin. They’re in the bruises I can see and they’re invisible, too: the echo of his fingers in my mouth, dragging along my legs, pumping inside me.

But as intoxicating as the memories are, none of this is what I really want to talk about. I want to know what he remembers from before the wedding, before the sex, when I dropped my life in his lap. Having sex with a virtual stranger is weird for me, but it’s not unheard of. What’s monumental is for me to have opened up so much. I never even talked to Luke about some of these things.

“Apparently I said a lot to you yesterday,” I say, before sucking on my bottom lip and working it with my teeth. It still feels bruised and I get tiny, teasing flashes of his teeth and tongue and fingers pinching my mouth.

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes move over my face as if he’s waiting for me to reach some understanding he reached hours ago.

“I told you about Luke? And my family?”

He nods.

“And I told you about my leg?”

“I saw your leg,” he reminds me quietly.

Of course he did. He would have seen the scar extending from hip to knee and the tiny ant trail of staple marks along the long, silvery gash.

“Is that what has you shaking?” he asks. “That I saw your naked leg? That I touched it?”

He knows it isn’t. The smile pulling at his mouth tells me he knows my secret, and he’s gloating. He remembers everything, including his unique achievement: a babbling Mia.

“It was probably the gin,” I say.

“I think it was me.”

“I was really drunk. I think I just forgot to be nervous.”

His lips are so close I can feel their shadow on my jaw. “It was me, Cerise. You still haven’t stuttered this morning.”

I press back into the wall, needing space. It isn’t just that I’m surprised to find I’m so fluent with him. It’s the intoxicating weight of his attention, the need I have to feel his hands and mouth on me. It’s the headache that lingers and the reality that I’m married. No matter what happens, I have to deal with this and all I want is to climb back into bed.