Page 114 of Backslide
Noah sees me wavering and goes in for the kill.
“Please don’t tell me I never get to kiss you again.” There is so much earnestness in his face that I fold on the spot. “Deal?” he says, offering his hand for a shake.
Can I do this? Can I trust myself not to get too invested? Not to overthink? To just enjoy the time I have?
Maybe. But only if I can maintain real clarity.
“Not so fast,” I say, leaving his hand hovering over the center console. “I will agree not to rule anything out completely if, and only if, this all stays between us. I can’t deal with having to answer questions or hear opinions or process judgments or anything like that. I need to know that all decisions, questions, and concerns are my own.”
He considers this. “Fair,” he says. “So we good? Not to pressure you, but there’s a giant flock of wild turkeys running toward the car and I’m a little scared.”
I swivel around and indeed the giant birds are squawking toward us at full speed.
I link my own finger around his pinky and wiggle.
“I was really going for more of an actual handshake.”
“Shut up, Noah,” I say and kiss him hard on the lips.
“That works,” he says, once I pull away. Then he pulls back onto the road before the wild turkeys go wild on us.
23NOAHTODAY
The party is in an actual tree house. Or at least, it feels that way.
We are seated in white wooden folding chairs, on a large, open-air platform, almost like an apartment without walls, hovering high above the ground. Globe lights are suspended from branches above us like our very own galaxy.
They’ll glow brighter when night fully descends, setting the mood for what will be the dance floor.
Cara and Ben stand at the front and John, the driver, is acting as officiant. Apparently he is ordained—not that he needs to be.
After all, they’re already married.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper to Rita, Sabrina, and Nell, who are seated in the row beside me. “What were they planning to do if the driver didn’t wind up being so distinguished?”
“It was supposed to be Cara’s cousin,” Sab says.
“What happened?”
“He got in an accident. Tiny little temporary coma.”
Nell’s eyes go wide. “Really?”
“No,” Sabrina says. “Stage fright. He chickened out.”
For reasons I don’t understand, Nell heaves a sigh of relief.
I am trying not to pay special attention to her, to respect her desire for no one to know what’s up with us, but it’s hard.
Maybe it was the twenty-four hours of relaxation, the fact that she didn’t have time to change her hair after the beach, or maybe—I congratulate myself—it was all that life-altering sex, but she is luminous. Her gray eyes are full, her skin is smooth, her lips are slathered in some kind of shimmery pink.
I wonder how it tastes.
I want to sweep the waves off her neck with my palm and bite her shoulder. I want to rest my hand on the exposed skin of her thigh, inch it higher and higher.
But I can’t. Because, according to everyone else here, we are not a thing. Though we agreed we can at least tell everyone we buried the hatchet and are good to hang out, so we don’t have to avoid each other all night.
I focus my attention back on the ceremony, which has been sweet and corny in all the ways it should be. This may be an un-wedding, but the details have felt pretty classic. Cara walked down the aisle in all white, clutching a bouquet we picked up on the coast, to “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones—and all of us in the cheap seats cheered. (I know where Ben falls in the Beatles versus Stones debate, so I assume the song was his suggestion.) Like a real-deal officiant, John the driver mused about complementary qualities he’d observed in the couple, including the way Ben took care of Cara when she overdid it on the booze bus. That one got some laughs.
