28. Avery
Avery
T he first thing I feel as we walk out into the night is the cold December air. The second is Wes’s hand on my back as he draws me to him against the wall.
“Say it again.” His voice is a low rumble that rolls through me and lands low in my stomach.
I smile, knowing what he means and that I’m finally able to give it to him. “My husband.”
His fingers clench in my skirt causing it to swish over the ground. A beam of moonlight cuts his face in two, putting his anxious swallow on display as his voice shakes. “Do you regret it?”
And it feels like he’s asking about more than just tonight, but if I ever married him in the first place.
“No,” I say, cupping his face and making sure he can see that I mean it in my eyes.
There’s no word that has the capability of encapsulating what we are to each other, how over decades our lives have woven together.
But husband? That might be as close as I get.
The truth of that reality launched out of me when I came to his defense.
“You are my husband and I’m done pretending you aren’t. ”
I grab his lapels, wrinkling the fabric in my fists and kiss him, in case words aren’t enough for him to understand how thoroughly I mean it. His mouth is crushing. The truth is out there and it’s freeing—a long aging bottle of wine being uncorked to savor and we won’t let a drop go to waste.
“Fuck,” he says against my lips before kissing me again, and I can taste his smile. “My.” Kiss. “Wife.” Kiss.
With my hips pressed against his, I feel him growing harder against me. I slip a hand between us, his muscles rippling as I untuck his shirt and graze this skin over the waist of his pants.
“I’m a grateful wife too. You came all the way here with me. Can I show you how thankful I am?” It’s a privilege to touch him, to bring him pleasure. And it’s always important to know that he wants this.
“Yes, Avery. Please,” he rasps, sending a spray of goose bumps over my skin.
“So polite. I didn’t realize my husband was such a good boy. Or are you only that way for me?” My hand slips lower, cupping him through his pants for a moment before busying myself with his belt buckle. I spit in the palm of my hand and slip it into his pants.
“Just for you,” he grunts. His mouth hangs open as if he is about to say more but his eyes roll back as I wrap my fingers around his length and start to stroke.
He bends over me, teeth clamping down over the juncture of my neck and shoulder.
The act muffles the sounds of pleasure escaping him, though it only serves to urge me on.
It’s vampiric. This ancient need that verges on a drive for survival that ties us together.
The feeling that, without him, I am a husk of the person I could be.
“I’m going to—” is all the warning I get before he comes against my hand, body jerking in a final weak hitch of his hips.
It takes us a long few minutes to collect ourselves and find the car waiting for us.
“Mr. Hart and Ms. Sloane, your room number is written on the back of the card. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to make your stay better,” the woman working the front desk of the hotel says as she slides our key cards across the polished wooden counter.
Our hotel for tonight isn’t the nicest around. Distinctly plain, really. A chain location a few miles from the airport that looks like it was plucked from a stock photo. Normal and perfect.
“It’s Mrs., actually,” Wes corrects with a smirk. He may be having a little too much fun with it. But I like it, and how happy he looks reaffirms that I made the right choice, no matter how impulsive it was.
Still that choice is why, an hour later, I’m sitting on a hotel bed talking to Lydia while Wes goes out to get us food.
Between a few clips from our impromptu concert and catering staff members who took videos of Ivy, Wes, and me fighting, the news has spread like wildfire. It’s the top trending story everywhere with endless speculation of when and how our marriage happened.
Lydia and Derek know the truth, and if that got it out it would be a scandal that would make what happened between me and Jamie look like nothing. The simple solution was to say that we eloped during the tour, caught up in our old feelings and new romance.
“Okay, you need to pass along the story to Wes, make sure he’ll either say the correct shit or keep his goddamn mouth shut.” She pauses, and then speaks again, but this time it's muffled, likely talking to someone else in the room with her. “How fast can we get them here? Of course.”
Her voice comes back louder again. “We’ll have a plane ready for you in two hours.”
“Have them get us in the morning. We’ve got a place to stay.
” I like this. Wes and I never got a honeymoon, never had a reason to have one.
And this mid-range hotel with mass produced art prints on the walls makes it feel like we’re an everyday couple on a trip.
I want to cling to these moments we’ve found before we’re launched back in front of the world.
It’s been giving me a bit of whiplash really. How quickly I settle into soft moments and then am tossed back under the spotlight. I wish I could have this longer instead of mourning the end of the respite before it’s even over.
It’s not that I don’t love performing. I do. But I’ve done it for so long that it’s almost like I forgot there were other ways to live my life. Softer, slower ways that feel more like sipping lemonade on a porch swing in the summer and less like slamming back a tequila shot.
“Fine,” she relents. “But you’ll need to be ready to go early tomorrow. We have a few more shows before the holiday break. Then you need to lie low during that time.”
“We have plans to go to Tennessee and visit his mom. It’s out in the middle of nowhere so we should be good on that front.”
“God, you really like him, don’t you? This wasn’t a mistake?”
“I do and it wasn’t.” I smile, flopping onto the mattress and looking up at the swirling, textured ceiling of our suite.
I’ve changed into the set of silk pajamas I packed for the trip.
The gold dress is now stuffed in a trash can, scratchy tulle puffing up over the lip of the bin. “You saw the video?”
“If I wasn’t so exhausted, I’d be impressed.”
“Sleep at least two hours tonight,” I urge.
“Not a chance. You owe me a coffee IV drip,” she says before hanging up, and then my screen lights up with texts.
Jared
Congratulations!!! But also why didn’t you tell us?
Ev
Because it happened a billion years ago and didn’t invite us
Me
Thanks
Me
Wow thanks for keeping the secret
Ev
No problem
Jared
Ok WTF???? Why does Ev know and not me?
Me
Will tell you later. The story is better in person
Wes
I’ll tell it. I was obsessed with her and she was oblivious, so I’ll be better at it.
I smile to myself and as the door thuds, Wes comes in, arms loaded with brown paper bags, phone in his hand.
“Who do you plan on feeding with all of this?” I ask, hopping off the bed to help him. I reach him just as one bag is starting to tip over. It lands in my arms as a slim rectangular box falls out and thuds against the carpet.
He holds up a plastic bag stretched around the outline of to-go containers. “This is food. If you intend to eat anything else here, I’ll have to call poison control.”
At his words, I inspect the boxes lying on the floor.
Ruby Red Semi-Permanent Hair Dye.
“Is this what’s in all the bags?” I ask, my hand flying to my mouth. “You know I only need one of these.”
I look up to find his face flushed and he’s ruffling a hand through his hair. Since we left my grandparents’ he’s removed his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his button down.
“When I got there, I realized I didn’t know what you used. So I called my mom and talked with the woman working there. They gave me all these options because I also had no idea what shade your hair is now. I ended up buying two of every shade of red.”
“All of them?” My lips twitch as I imagine him in the store trying to select the color. I’d say I can’t believe he did this, but I can. It’s absolutely something I’d expect from him, going out of his way so I can feel comfortable in my own skin.
“Just the reds and the developers.”
“All right, let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Now I get why you and my mom always liked doing this,” Wes says.
I watch in the mirror as he rubs color into clumps of my hair.
After doing a test strand to make sure my hair wouldn’t melt off with more chemicals, we’ve selected the darkest color, Wine. My hair will likely look black with a red sheen.
“You’re going to regret this tomorrow when your hands are red.” I look at him from where I’m seated on the counter, feet in the sink. The bathroom is draped with yards of white hotel towels that we’ll no doubt have to pay for.
If I were doing this by myself, my arms would be aching from the strain of trying to reach the back of my head. I’ve never liked the idea of going to a professional because, from the start, there was something special in the ritual. Just turning on an album and spending time with myself.
“Doubt that. This way everyone will know I was the one with my hands in your hair.” He moves around me, pulling at sections as he goes to check for any spots he’s missed. “I think we’re good to go. I’m setting a timer.”
“It really means a lot that you did this. Being here for all of it.” I swivel so my legs drape over the edge of the counter. My knees land on either side of Wes’s legs. His eyes go from his phone to my face, swallowing hard.
“We should talk about what all this means. You called me your husband, Ave. That changes things.”
“It’s what you are to me.” It’s the safe answer.
“Are you saying that as a technical truth, or because you actually feel that way?” The air between us fills with a pregnant pause.