Page 117 of It's Always Sonny

“Good,” I say smugly. “Because you’re stuck with me now, sucker.”

He doesn’t laugh. Instead, he drapes his arms around my waist. Then he presses his lips softly against my temple and then to my ear and down my jaw. When he speaks, his voice is as dark and velvety as the night sky. “I know you love me, too.”

The sensation of his mouth on my skin is more than I can handle. I lean back against the wall of the hot tub, too tired to filter my emotions, too tired to keep the smile off my face. The jets swirl around us, and bubbles pop between our faces. The low lights from the hot tub make his bright eyes positively magnetic.

“I do. I love you. I want to be with you,” I say.

The smile that explodes across his face makes me feel like I’m weightless. One of the jets shoots into my back, as if trying to push me off course, but I hold my ground. Steam rises around us, and I feel like I’m going to float away with it. Hope and love swell in me, lifting me—

Wait, something is literally lifting me.

With alarm, I look down. An air bubble is rapidly growing in my fitted yoga shorts.

“Is that an air bubble in your pocket, or … ?”

I snort and push Sonny’s shoulder. “Oh, shush.”It looks like a balloon is blowing up in my bottoms. I try to push the bubble out, but it just moves to my butt. I laugh into the night air, where the trees swallow the sound. Sonny looks like he wants to return to what we were doing before the jets so rudely interrupted us, but all the jets seem to have zeroed in on me.

I shift around another jet to see if I can sit without turning my outfit into a life preserver. Big mistake. Now the jet forces air into my sports bra as well as my shorts. The air pocket in my bra grows bigger and bigger, creating a massive uni-boob that swells up close to my neck.

An amused smirk plays on Sonny’s face. “You really have changed.”

“Ha ha.” I say, thrusting my chest out comically. “Worst boob job ever.” I poke at it, and a stream of air bubbles releases like my bra just passed gas. We both snicker like little kids. It’s so late that it’s possible this isn’t quite as funny as I think it is.

No, that’s not true. This is friggin’ hilarious.

The bubbles in my shorts and top are enormous. Sonny twists me so that the jet is fully against my back, and the uniboob expands all the way up to my chin. With every push and prod, I laugh harder and harder. If I don’t actively steady myself, the bubbles push me up so that I’m completely floating. I let go, and my bubble front-butt zips me up to the surface. I’m laughing too hard to care how stupid I must look.

Sonny stands over me with eyes like a kid on Christmas morning.

Look at that face. So eager and hopeful. “Do you want to push it?”

“Can I? Pretty please?”

I scoot back to a jet, refilling. “If you must.”

“I must.” He pushes my air-butt, and a huge bubble shoots through the water and bursts at the surface. Sonny adds a loud farting sound with every poke.

“You are such a child,” I laugh.

“You’re the one who keeps going back for more!”

“Because it’s hilarious! You try.” I stand and push his expansive chest, lining him up with a jet. Sonny puts his hands on my wrist, pinning me in place, as he wiggles to find the right placement. He’s so tall that our faces are level. I stand in between his knees, my wrists caught in his hands, and the happiness of the moment hits me. It’s so much more than smiling until my cheeks hurt or laughing until my sides ache. This is fullness inside my chest—beyond my inflatable bra.

Like me, he doesn’t have a swimsuit but rather workout clothes on. When the lining of his shorts begins to inflate, his glee is contagious. He pulls me down to sit on his lap, and the explosion of bubbles splashes us both in the face.

I stay there, glued to his side, while we laugh and poke each other’s air pockets until the timer turns the jets off again. I don’t remember laughing this hard ever. There’s something so freeing about it. I couldn’t stop myself if I wanted to.

After the last bubble hits the surface and the last giggle escapes my lips, Sonny puts his cheek against mine.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers.

“I’ve missed you, too.”

“So we’re doing this, right?”

“We’re doing this,” I say, not letting myself focus on the regret and pain of our last goodbye. I made the only choice I knew how to make at the time.

I know how to make different choices now.

---