Page 166 of Gin and Lava

I don’t wait for her to answer. I can’t face the puppy dog look she’s going to give me. This girl is the chink in my armor, and I’ve already missed my cue to exit stage left. I throw my suit jacket in my car and start to climb in.

Only, a song starts blasting behind me. It’s an 80s classic that I know all too well.

A song I fucking love.

I look out the open car door to see Naomi holding her sparkly pink phone over her head—which is where the music is coming from.

“Whatare you doing?” I ask, my stomach tightening.

“I’m 80s rom-com grand gesturing you,” Naomi says, motioning to the phone. “I’m Lloyd Doblering you.”

“You’re what?”

“Lloyd Doblering you,” she repeats. “It’s not a boom box—I get that—but this is the song Lloyd plays at the end of the movie.” She holds the phone over her head like the character in the film, and the lyrics ofIn Your Eyesroll over me.

“But you haven’t even seenSay Anything.”

“I hadn’t,” she admits. “But I watched it after you left.” She keeps her hands up, rising her phone up higher, the words of the song hooking into my skin. “I watched it after you made love to me and then left. After you ended us.”

“Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because you said it was the most romantic movie of all time, and I needed a code to unpack what you really meant when you said …I love you.”

My chest squeezes.

“I’m not complicated, Naomi. You don’t need a stupid 80s movie to explain me.”

“It wasn’t stupid, Mason. It was beautiful.” She keeps holding the phone up and letting the song play. “I set this song as my ring tone for you. I wanted to hear it if you ever called. And you’re right, the film didn’t show me some secret about you, but this song … this song …”

Her eyes are wet, and I don’t say anything, letting her sit in her own quiet.

“This song is about whatyousee in me,” she says finally. “How from where you stand, I’m already complete. I’m already perfect. You see things I never knew I could see in myself. Things I didn’t believe existed.”

“You are all those things, Princess.”

“Right, but don’t you get it?” she insists, finally dropping her arms from above her head and stepping closer to me. “That’s the real relationship, Mason.We’rethe real relationship. We labeled it as fake, but it wasn’t. You actually sawmewhen we were together. You helped me to be myself for once. And I love who I am around you. The only reason I’ve been brave enough to be that person is because I trust you.”

She stops and looks away, that pretty face of hers crumbling.

“Mason,” her voice is a whisper. There’s too much emotion in her throat to give her words breath. “It’s not just that I love who I am around you.” She looks back at me, and there are tears running down her face. “It’s that I actually loveyou. All of you: The sunburn, the penis shirts, the tiki bar, the raunchy jokes, the way you can so honestly say and be who you are. Your sweetness. Your big heart.”

“I think you mean my big cock,” I say, and Naomi laughs, wiping her face.

“It’s a nice bonus,” she says, “but that’s not what a girl stays for.”

“What’s a girl stay for?”

“Love,” she says plainly, walking to the opening of my car door and brushing the back of her knuckles across my sunburnt cheek.

“I’m not the trifecta, Naomi.”

“No, you’re better. You’re real.”

I turn my face into her touch and she spreads her palms out to cup my chin. “You realize I’m sunburnt, and it’s going to hurt like hell if you kiss me.”

“I won’t kiss you if you don’t want me to, Mason.”

“Fuck, Princess. The only thing I want right now is for you to kiss me.”

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