Page 57 of The Plus Ones

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He pulls his hand away. “Great. Thanks. I agree, that was amazing.”

I turn over. When my back is to him, I whisper a friendly, “Good night!”

“Good night, Roxy Carter,” he grumbles.

I can hear him laugh quietly and scrub his face with his hands.

I know, Keaton. I know.

I’m the worst.

“I mean, you were really,reallyamazing,” I say. “Good job.”

Oh God, stop talking, Roxy, I’m begging you.

“Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback.”

“Okay, cool. Good night. Again. Keaton.”

“Good night again, Roxy Carter.”

I love how he says my name.

I’m screwed.

13

Keaton

I wake up alone in bed, with two words on my mind: Roxy andsaudade.

Roxy is a word that used to mean “Aimee’s best friend,” and “hot” and “obnoxious,” and then five years ago it just became a word that had a question mark after it, but now all of a sudden, it means so many things to me I can’t even count them.

Saudadeis a Portuguese word, one that has no English equivalent and is nearly impossible to translate. You just know it when you feel it. It was the first untranslatable word that my hot linguistics professor taught us, and it’s the one that intrigued me the most. The simplest way to describe it is “a melancholy or longing for someone or something that’s absent.” But it’s so much more than that. It brings happy and sad feelings. There’s wistfulness and hope there. It’s an emptiness that you believe can only be filled by the thing you feelsaudadefor—whether it’s something you’ve experienced before or something you dream of—but there’s a pleasant suffering in knowing that this thing is somehow out of reach.

It’s what Roxy and I were both feeling that night of Chase and Aimee’s wedding, although we never spoke of it. That yearning for the way things were back when we were all hanging out together all the time. That yearning for the thing that Chase and Aimee had found in one another.

That thing for me now is Roxy.

It’s her body and everything I saw and felt and heard last night and what I didn’t get to see and do or say.

It’s who she is deep down when she isn’t being the Roxy Carter she presents to the world.

It’s those moments when I sense that she gets me in ways that most people never will and those moments when I’m dying for her to want to know more.

It isn’t love yet, I know that, but I know what the potential for love feels like, and this is it. She’s the last woman I ever would have predicted I’d feel this for when I met her. But by now I know what it takes to keep me interested in someone, and she has what it takes to be the last woman I ever want to feel this for.

When I was in my teens and twenties, I loved the chase, but once I’d captured a girl’s heart or some other part of her, all I could think about were all the other doors that would be closing if I was with this one person for the rest of my life. But with Roxy, I just know that there will always be more doors to open and they’re all hers. I know it. In my heart and in my soul.

And yeah, okay, I also feel it in my balls, and I don’t know if I can go on living if I can’t have sex with her again, repeatedly, in every way possible.

Last night was great. It was great for me and I know it was great for her, but she was holding back. Maybe it was because I caught her off guard, or maybe it was because she wanted it to be a one-time thing. It was just like after we kissed five years ago, only she couldn’t walk away this time, so she just went to sleep.

I’m not saying I have a profound sense of bittersweet homesickness for Roxy’s pussy, but I’m notnotsaying it either.

There’s still so much I want from her.

I still haven’t seen her fully naked in broad daylight.