Now Daxon
Now DAXON
I n the history of great kisses, of the kind directors have carefully curated on camera for decades in all your favorite movies, this one is the best.
The crowd, the music, the lights, all of it goes away.
Gently, we break, and Wil presses her forehead to mine.
The look on her face is undeniable, clear as day, strong and confident—she’s in love with me. And it doesn’t scare her anymore.
The howling of the audience is reaching such a breaking point that we can’t ignore it. I carry Wil over to the podium and she takes our golden popcorn bucket in one hand, the other around my neck. Gently, I set her down.
“You guys are gluttons for punishment,” she says into the mic. All I can do is watch her glowing under the stage lights, the way they illuminate the bareness of her shoulders, the curve of her neck. There’s lipstick all over my face, I know it. I can feel it. I couldn’t care less.
Comfortably, because I need something to hold on to, to stop myself from passing out with excitement, I take hold of Wil’s semi-bare waist and lean in to the mic. I’ve got no idea what the hell I’m going to say, or if I can actually speak anymore, so I stare out at the audience, who are howling with laughter—probably at my lipstick-stained face and mussed hair.
“ Thank you ,” I say finally, grinning.
And then I stop and hoist her back into my arms, where she locks her ankles around me, and I stride backstage to the holding place before the press line where I finally set her down.
“Come here,” Wil says, and takes my hand, leading me not towards the waiting photographers but to a small, empty green room.
Alone, she reaches up with her free hand and rubs her thumb across the places on my face where lipstick has smeared.
“I think you’re stuck like this,” she says, grinning.
“Hey, no complaints here.”
Her hand moves to rest against my jaw, cradling my face, and I know that my pulse is jumping against her fingers like I’ve just been running for my life.
“Let’s make a pact,” says Wil softly. “You and me? We’re not gonna be just friends ever again.”
My eyes jump around her beautiful face, almost frantic to memorize it, and this moment, and the way her voice sounds so confident and sure and sexy .
“No?” I ask, but it’s redundant. My voice is low, wanting, and my hands slip around her hips, pulling her in.
“Not even close,” says Wil, and we’re kissing. Kissing like we’re not trespassing in the green room of this theater, like this is our house and we can break any rule we like. “I love you,” she breathes between kisses.
I nod frantically, then lift my hands to catch her face and hold her there a moment before my lips break into a huge smile.
“You sure?” I ask.
“Well, Avery,” says Wil, pulling a face like she’s really mulling it over, “I’m mad with power. I want it all. But I want you most.”
I kiss her. I put a lot of years into that kiss. The sparkling beginning ones, the long-suffering middle ones, and these ones, right now, where we’re exactly where we wanted to be.
And all the golden ones to come.
I pull back, beaming. “I love you, too. Like, you have no idea how much.”
There’s a firm knock on the door.
“Press are waiting,” comes a nervous PA’s voice.
Wil and I look at each other and laugh. The silent kind, where all we can do is clutch each other and try not to pee our pants. Then, her hand in mine, and the golden popcorn bucket along for the ride, we walk out into the press room where a hundred voices start shouting at once, flashbulbs blinding.
“Wil!” a photographer calls clearly through the din. “This is such a departure from your earlier work. Do you miss Marnie, Maybe ?”
“Not anymore,” she says, gazing up at me.
I know it’s true, because the best thing about Marnie , that summer we were seventeen, was always me and her. My eyes meet hers and we grin at each other, fingers tangled. The best thing about Hollywood, this movie, our lives together from here on, will always be me and her.
And I think, this time, the pact’s gonna stick.