Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
brUNO
What the hell?
Usually.
It will take me four minutes to dress, but Kelsey will need much more. We should already be moving.
But I don’t move.
Her hair is splayed out on her pillow like a messy mane, her mascara lightly smudged under one eye. I lie there trying to absorb everything about her: the tone and cadence of her breathing, the tiny mole on her cheekbone, the soft crease between her eyebrows.
Maybe I am a cannibal.
Her right hand is curled near her mouth like she fell asleep mid-thought. My mind goes back to those fingers fisting my shirt, the way she pressed her face into the side of my neck.
The sounds that she made into my skin.
I should wake her. And what I really should do is tell her what I overheard about her family—that they only invited her as a condition of Granny Ernie footing the bill for the wedding.
But the timing couldn’t be worse, considering how transparent she is with her emotions.
That family is everything to her, and I’d be sending her to the farewell breakfast broken and tearful.
But if not now, when?
I steal another minute. I’m a cannibal and a thief.
My helicopter is due at eleven o’clock; I could push the departure to 1 PM and I could tell her the truth about her family back up at the room, maybe help her work out what to do and protect her from her worst impulses.
She doesn’t seem to be a logical thinker when stressed, whereas when I’m stressed, I lock down and get more logical.
I imagine ripping those people a new asshole. To pretend you love somebody and it’s all a self-serving crock? What the fuck is that?
I know exactly what that is. I know how it feels.
Kelsey would never fake like that. It’s not just that she’s incapable; she wouldn’t want to. She cares about emotional truth. I love that about her. Her emotional honesty feels exhilarating.
I force myself to shake her shoulder. “Hey. Kelsey. Hey.” Of course she’s impossible to wake up. “We’re going to be late.”
Her eyes fly open, because Kelsey doesn’t do anything gradually. “What! What’s going on?”
“The breakfast. We are going to be late.”
She blinks at me and then a smile breaks across her face. “Hey, you.”
“It’s 8:37. Breakfast is at nine. We need to move.”
“Best fake wedding date ever.” She slides her hands around my neck and pulls me in for a kiss.
It’s not the kiss from last night. It’s warm and careless and tastes like sleep.
When was the last time I was kissed by somebody like this? I bracket her cheeks and kiss her back. Until I force myself to stop. “We have to be there in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes!” She grabs my wrist and looks at my watch. “Bruno, that is not enough time.”
“You need any help?”
She scrambles out of bed, naked, grabbing things off chairs and the floor and eventually disappears down the hall, presumably into her bathroom. The shower turns on, and then she starts singing an ABBA song in a funny voice, like that’s how she takes a shower.
I go linger in the doorway to her bathroom. “You okay? Do I need to call somebody? Next of kin?”
The water goes off. She bursts out and grabs a towel. “Dude, are you going to the breakfast like that?”
Right. I have to get ready, too.
I head for my closet and grab black trousers and a white shirt.
I won’t be needing a tie; this is a daytime breakfast, not a state dinner.
I button my shirt watching my own hands in the mirror.
They’re steady. I’m almost surprised that my eyes look normal, no trace of how far away from myself I got last night.
It’s good I’m going back to my real life. That wasn’t how I am. This isn’t how I am.
I know better.
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, responding to emails, when Kelsey emerges in a dusky purple dress, and even with her hair half dried and an earring between her teeth, she’s fucking gorgeous.
“Can you...” She turns.
I cross the room and zip the dress the rest of the way. My knuckles brush her spine.
“Thanks!” She puts the second earring in and turns to face me. “Dude.”
Something tightens in my chest. I say, “We should go.”
She holds my gaze for a beat. “I suppose your extraction team is already in position with synchronized watches or whatever.”
I lower my voice. “There’s no such thing as synchronized watches.”
Her face splits into a huge smile. “I have loved having you as my fake wedding plus-one, Bruno.”
I close the distance between us, put a knuckle under her chin and kiss her.
Me too, I think.