Wallbanger(100)
in mind when she said take care of him in Spain.
“We?”
“What? We what?” I asked.
“I could we with you.” He smiled.
“Aren’t we already we-ing?”
“Yeah, we’re we-ing on vacation. It’s quite a different thing to be we-ing back home, in the real world. I travel al the time, and that takes its tol
on the we unit,” he said, his brow knit together.
It took al my power, al of it, not to make a joke about the we(e) unit.
“Simon, chil . I know you travel. I’m wel aware. Keep bringing me pretty things from faraway places, and this girl has no problem with your we,
okay?” I patted his hand.
“Pretty things I can do. Guaranteed.”
“Speaking of, where are you off to next?”
“I’l be home for a few weeks, and then I’m headed down south for a bit.”
“Down south? As in LA?”
“No, a bit more south.”
“San Diego?”
“Souther.”
“Stanford educated, right? Where are you going?”
“Promise you won’t be mad?”
“Spit it out, Simon.”
“Peru. The Andes. More specifical y, Machu Picchu.”
“What? Oh, man, that’s it. I official y hate you. I’l be in San Francisco, planning rich people’s Christmas trees, and you get to go there?”
“I’l send you a postcard?” He looked like a kid trying to get out of trouble. “Besides, I don’t know what you’re so pissy about. You love your job,
Caroline. Don’t even try to tel me you don’t.”
“Yeah, I love my job, but right now I wish I was headed south.” I huffed, snatching my feet away.
“Wel , if you want to head south, I can think of something—”
I placed my hand in front of his mouth. “No way, buddy. I’m not machuuing your pichu now. Huh-uh,” I stated firmly, not wavering one bit when he
began pressing open mouth kisses against my palm. Not one little bit…
“Caroline,” he whispered against my hand.
“Yes?”
“One day,” he began, removing my hand and leaving tiny kisses up the inside of my arm. “One day…” Kiss. “I promise…” Kiss kiss. “To bring
you…” Kiss. “And my woo…” Kiss kiss. “To Peru,” he finished, now kneeling in front of me and dragging his mouth across my shoulder, peeling the
fabric away to linger along my col arbone, his lips making me hot and shivery.
“You wanna woo me in Peru?” I asked, my voice high and stupid and not fooling him for a second. He knew exactly how he was affecting me.
“True.” His fingers tangled in my hair and brought my mouth to his. I tried for a second to come up with something that rhymed with true, but I
gave up and kissed him back with al I had. And so, I let him make out with me on the terrace, overlooking the ocean. Which was…blue. Ahem.
Al week long, we’d been seeing signs of a festival coming together around town. It started tonight, as if celebrating my departure, and we were
headed out to dinner, to somewhere considerably more fancy than the places we’d been eating al week. I’d discovered Simon and I were very
similar in many of our tastes. I was al for getting dressed up from time to time, but I much preferred smal er, casual places, as did he. So tonight,
getting dressed up and going out someplace a little fancy, and then maybe hitting the festival, had a special feel to it. I was definitely looking
forward to this evening, in more ways than one.
They say when a soldier loses a leg in battle, sometimes, late at night, he can stil feel twinges of that leg—phantom pain, they cal it. I lost my O
in battle, the battle of Cory Weinstein—that machine-gun fucker—and I was stil feeling the aftershocks. And by aftershocks I mean nothing at al .
But there was an end in sight. I’d been feeling twinges of the phantom O al week long, and I was very much looking forward to her return later this
evening. The Return of the O. Of course I would see it as a title of some kind of action film in my head—but truly, if she was returning, I would
capitalize anything. Any Thing.
Because tonight, sports fans, I was gonna get me some. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was ready for some serious Simon Wang.
I ran my fingers through my hair once more, noticing how the strong sun had brought out the natural honey tones. I smoothed the front of my
dress, white linen with a little swing to the skirt. I paired it with some turquoise jewelry I’d bought in town and little snakeskin sandals. I was the most
dressed up I’d been al week, and—undercurrent of nerves aside—feeling pretty good. I took one last look at myself in the mirror, noticing that my