Sweet Filthy Boy, стр. 13

“Okay, good luck getting unmarried,” I say with a little smile.

“You’re lucky I love you,” Harlow calls over her shoulder, chestnut hair flying around her as Lola drags her away. “Otherwise I would murder you.”

THE LOBBY SEEMS too quiet in their wake, and I look around, wondering if Ansel is watching from some dark corner, seeing that I haven’t gone along. But he isn’t in the lobby. I have no idea where he is. He’s the only reason I stayed back. Even if I had his number, I don’t have my phone. Even if I had my phone, I have no idea where I left my charger. Drunk me definitely needs to keep better track of things.

So I do the only thing I can think of: I head upstairs to the hotel room, to shower again and pack, to try to make some sense out of this mess.

One step inside and flashes of the night before seem to invade the room. I close my eyes to dig deeper, hungry for more details.

His hands on my ass, my breasts, my hips. The thick drag of him along my inner thigh. His mouth fastened to my neck, sucking a bruise into the skin.

My thoughts are interrupted by a quiet knock on the door.

Of course it’s him, looking freshly showered and just as conflicted as I feel. He moves past me, into the room, and sits at the edge of the bed.

He rests his elbows on his knees and looks up at me through hair that has fallen into his eyes. Even partly filtered, they’re so expressive I feel gooseflesh break out along my arms.

Without preamble or warm-up, he says, “I think you should come to France for the summer.”

There are a thousand things I can say to address the absurdity of what he’s offering. For one, I don’t know him. Also, I don’t speak French. Tickets are ungodly expensive, and where would I live? What would I do all summer living with a stranger in France?

“I’m moving to Boston in a few weeks.”

But he’s already shaking his head. “You don’t need to move until the beginning of August.”

I feel my brows inch up. Apparently I told him every single detail of my life. I’m not sure whether I should feel impressed that he remembers it all, or guilty that I made him sit through so much. I tilt my head, waiting. Most girls would say something here. A gorgeous man is offering something pretty amazing, and I’m just waiting to see what else he wants to say.

Licking his lips, he seems comfortable with the knowledge that he hasn’t given me something I need to respond to yet. “Just hear me out. You could stay at my flat. I have a good job, I can afford to feed and shelter you for a summer. I work really long hours, it’s true. But you could just . . .” He looks away, down at the floor. “You could enjoy the city. Paris is the most beautiful city, Cerise. There are endless things to do. You’ve had a really hard few years and maybe would be happy just having a mellow summer in France.” Looking back up at me, he adds quietly, “With me.”

I move over to the bed and sit down, leaving plenty of distance between us. Housekeeping has already changed the linens, straightened the chaos we created; it makes it easier to pretend last night was someone else’s life.

“We don’t really know each other, it’s true,” he concedes. “But I see your indecision about Boston. You’ll move there to get away from your dad. You’ll move there to keep marching forward. Maybe you need to just hit pause, and breathe. Have you done that even once in the four years since your accident?”

I want him to keep speaking because I’ve decided that even if I don’t know him well enough to be in love with him, I love his voice. I love the rich mahogany timbre, the curling vowels and seductive consonants. His voice dances. Nothing could ever sound rough or sharp in that voice.

But as soon as I have the thought, I know it’s wrong. I remember how he sounded when he was perfectly demanding last night:

Put your hands on the wall.

I can’t wait much longer for you to get there, Cerise.

Show me how much you love to feel me on your tongue.

I don’t have an answer for his offer, so I don’t give one. I only crawl up to the pillow and lie on my back, exhausted. He joins me, lying shoulder to shoulder until I curl into him, sliding my hands up his chest and into his hair. The shape of him triggers a muscle memory: how far I have to reach to wrap my arms around him, how he feels against my palms. I press my nose into the rope of muscle between his neck and shoulder, breathe in the clean smell of him: hotel soap and the hint of ocean that pushes through.

Ansel rolls to face me, kissing my neck, my jaw, my lips just once but he lingers, eyes open. His hands slide down my back, over the curve of my ass to my thigh and lower, to the back of my knee, where he pulls it over his hip, fitting me to him. Between my legs, I can feel how much I want him. I can feel him, too, lengthening and pressing. But instead of taking it anywhere, we fall asleep.

When I wake up, there’s a piece of paper on the empty pillow. He’s left his number and his promise to be there the moment I need him, but he’s gone.

I WONDER HOW many thousands of drives from Vegas to California have been like this: hot wind whipping through a beater car, hungover women, regret hanging in the air like a single flat chord played the entire drive.

“I need something greasy to eat,” Harlow groans, and Lola pulls off the freeway and into a Denny’s parking lot.

Over grilled cheese and fries, Harlow says, “I don’t get why you didn’t just start the annulment process while we were there.” She pokes a fry into ketchup and then drops it on her plate, looking queasy. “Now you’re going to have to go back there, or go through this complicated process out of state. Tell me every detail so I can stop wanting to slap you.”

Objectively Ansel is amazing, and the sex was clearly ridiculous, but she knows I’m not such a swooner that good sex is enough for me to make such a rash decision. So it comes down to the letter, really. I never kept a diary. I barely write letters to Harlow when she’s overseas visiting her father on set. But I read that other, post-accident letter so many times the paper became as delicate as a dried petal, the ink nearly invisible. Letter writing for me is seen as this weird, sacred occurrence, and even though I’m not sure it’s the right idea, I’m giving it the weight I think I intended when I wrote it.

“What are you going to do?” Lola asks when I’ve finished telling them every sordid little detail I can remember about the night.

I shrug. “Spend from now until September trying to understand why I wanted to marry this person. Then probably get an annulment.”

Chapter FIVE

LOLA DROPS ME at home. I find my little brothers in the family room playing Xbox, and Dad hands me a glass of wine as soon as I step out onto the veranda.

“To our brilliant daughter,” he says, holding his own glass aloft. He smiles indulgently at me before pulling Mom close to his side, and the sunset behind them creates a beautifully backlit silhouette I’m sure he would be thrilled to see in a framed photograph. “I trust that your last wild weekend was perfect, and, as your father, I don’t want to hear a single thing about it.” He smiles at this little joke, and I would probably find it funny were our history not so perilous. “Here’s to hoping your future from here on out is nothing but focus and success.”

I clink my glass to his halfheartedly and watch his face as he looks me over. I’ve showered twice but still look like death warmed over in my black T-shirt and torn jeans. His eyes move across my mouth, down to my neck, where I’ve tried to cover the bite marks and red splotches with a gray jersey scarf. Dad’s smile turns quickly into a look of disgust, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed my wedding ring. Carefully, I slide my left hand into my pocket to keep it that way.