Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Danny
I wake to the sweetest whisper in my ear. “Danny, you’re missing it.”
Sleepy and unthinking, I reach toward that sweet sound, gather Christina in my arms, and drag her body on top of mine.
“Danny!” she giggles. Then she feels evidence of the morning against her legs. Her voice drops. “Jesus, Danny.”
I nuzzle into her hair and keep her pinned against me. “Hazard of waking up together,” I mumble.
“Hazard indeed. Listen.”
My senses don’t usually stretch beyond Christina’s vicinity, so I strain to listen for whatever she’s referencing.
Laughter. Banging pans. Easy chatter.
“Your friends are already here?”
She flattens her forearms against my bare chest and rests her chin on her hands.
She’s so unbelievably beautiful with sleep-mussed hair and hazy eyes.
I thought if I could just wake up with her one more time, the obsession might wane.
Having sex with her, holding her through the night …
I figured those needs consumed me so thoroughly this past week because I only had them once.
Surely I would just need to experience them one more time to know I hadn’t made up how good they were.
To fully enjoy them past the surprise of how much the whole experience rocked me.
But no. Looking at her propped on my chest in her bed, I know I’ll never be satiated. I’m greedier than ever for her.
“They’re getting brunch going for Movie Church. They always let me sleep a little ways after they arrive because they know how much I like waking up to the sounds of them. The most wonderful sounds in the world.”
She contentedly closes her eyes to bask in them.
“Why do you like these sounds so much, baby?”
Her eyes open. Shit, that “baby” just slipped out. We’ve never used the endearment outside of sex, during which I have practically zero control over what flies out of my mouth. But she’s so beautiful right now, and I think I’m … happy.
I haven’t been happy for a very long time, but I never particularly cared before.
She stares a beat, and I hold my breath for her reaction.
“There’s so much love in them,” she finally says, and I release my breath. Relief and gratification course through me in equal measure.
“The sounds of Sunday morning in my house growing up were so strained. All of us were masking up to the nines to perform on the church stage for the entire day. At church, we pretended to be this loving, righteous family of God. In reality, we were stressed all the time. My father had a secret life, and my mother was emotionally abusive. The threat of our family’s reputation—and literal hell—plagued our every action, our every thought.
“But here,” she continues with a smile, “there’s love and fun and care. I like being reminded that Sunday is ahead of me before I’m even out of bed.”
My god, the way she experiences the world is changing me.
I’ve taken too much for granted. And I’ve only been seeing what’s wrong with the world.
But she sees the good in this world that’s been rather wretched to her, and she experiences that goodness with her whole heart.
She’s making me believe that happiness matters. That joy matters.
I’ve been going through the motions for much too long.
She shifts her chin to one hand so she can gently run her fingers through my hair with the other. “I see you thinking deep thoughts, Maestro.”
I draw soothing circles on her back under the covers. “My muse always gives me deep thoughts to think.”
“Speaking of, I have a question.”
“Mm?”
“Are we showing … whatever this is”—she gestures between us—“on camera?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we have a double feature today, and this crew does a lot of pausing for analysis and trivia and more food. So this is basically an all-day thing. I’m guessing the cameras will be running for a lot of it.
I think they should—we definitely want to capture the spirit of Movie Church for the doc.
” She bites her lip. “But that’s a very long time not to kiss you. ”
A huge grin takes over my face before I can help it.
She smacks my chest. I start laughing.
“Danny, this is serious!” But she’s laughing too.
It’s not an unreasonable question. We decided a while ago that the kiss at the bar wasn’t relevant to the documentary.
Even last night, after possibly the most ruinous sex of my life, we just sat on the floor around the coffee table, surrounded by an insurmountable amount of Japanese takeout, while we researched and discussed the special election candidates.
That footage doesn’t necessarily allude to the sex that came before.
And after.
And in the middle of the night when I awoke to her scent in my nostrils and her little body wrapped around me.
I frame her face in my hands, pushing her hair back.
“You know I’m all about capturing stories and telling the truth.
And whatever this is”—she chuckles at my repetition of her own words—“is part of the Maestro and his Muse taking on the Jezebel List. No matter what happens next, the story is what it is right now. I’m okay having it on camera if you are. ”
She turns into my left palm to nuzzle it lightly and lay a sweet kiss there. “I’m okay with it too.”
My throat constricts at the onslaught of emotions wracking through me.
A whole day together without kissing me feels untenable to her.
Any day without kissing her feels untenable to me.
And if she’s okay having our story on camera, does that mean she’s happy to live it?
That she may want to live it for as long as I do?
“Besides,” I say, forcing my voice to level out, “I don’t think we have to kiss for audiences to pick up on the chemistry here. Charlie says we’re essentially having sex on camera even when we aren’t touching.”
She laughs. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll just be wearing comfy sweats today, no lingerie. So hopefully you won’t have to exert too much self-control.”
The fucking lingerie. I’ve never found lingerie particularly appealing in the past, but those scraps of lace clinging to Christina—the invitation, the tease, the need lighting up her body, the sexy confidence exuding from her, the fact that she was on display just for me—drove the rational, conscious man clean out of my being. Only the animal remained.
“Let me be clear, baby. I want to fuck you just as much in your sweats as in your lingerie. The lingerie simply said that you wanted me to fuck you just as badly.”
She bites my pec with a smile. Jesus, this woman.
“I am surprised wearing lingerie isn’t on TJL,” I say, reminding myself that I shouldn’t make her scream my name with her friends right outside the door.
She hums. “Maybe we can call it a bonus item.”
“Was lingerie explicitly disallowed?”
She rolls her eyes. “My mother used to literally make this disgusted shoo noise every time we passed by a Victoria’s Secret in a mall.”
“That’s common among fundamentalists. Victoria’s Secret is a beacon of nonapologetic female sexuality.”
“I can do one better, though. Once my dad’s indiscretions became public, all these shameful secrets about him from my parents’ entire marriage started pouring out of my mother.
She told me that for their first Valentine’s Day together, he bought her a red lingerie set, and she balled it up and threw it in his face, shouting ‘I’m no whore! ’ ”
I gape at her. “Your mother told you that?”
“Proudly. To prove how she’s always been good and my father’s always been bad, just secretly so.”
“What else was your father doing?”
“Some of it’s just regular TJL stuff—you know, vodka and porn.”
“A great tagline for the doc.”
She grins but then looks off. “And then some of it is actually horrifying, like leaving us young kids waiting in the car while he popped into a woman’s house to hook up with her.
Or counseling this couple in his congregation, the woman of which he was sleeping with.
Or using church finances to fund his affairs. ”
I clench my jaw to keep my reaction even. I’ve seen all manner of abuse in the church, but nothing affects me more than hearing how it was done to her.
“We’re over halfway through TJL,” I finally say, when she continues to mull in silence. “Tell my dad to fuck off is the only item we haven’t scheduled.”
She knows this, obviously. I’m bringing it up rather selfishly because all I want to do right now is tell her father to fuck off.
She just hums at me and twirls a strand of my hair around her finger. I can’t quite parse her emotions—some sadness, exhaustion, perhaps uncertainty. This is the item on TJL that stings for her. It’s not about joy or exploration like the others. It’s about closure.
“Hey.” I take her face in my hands again and she meets my eyes. “Whatever feels right when it feels right, yeah?”
She holds my gaze another beat. “Yeah, baby.”
My pulse is off to the races as I pull her in for a kiss, gentle and tender.
Three loud bangs rattle her door.
“I hear y’all giggling in there! Put your libidos away and face the music.”
Christina laughs against my mouth. “We may need to set better boundaries with our friends.”
As soon as we step out of Christina’s bedroom, applause greets us.
Runzhou and K are in the kitchen craning over various sizzling pots and pans, and the people I recognize from Christina’s videos and photos as Ally and Reese have swiveled their bar stools at the kitchen island scattered with in-use cooking paraphernalia to face us.
“Brava, brava!” K yells over their applause.
Amused but bewildered, I turn to Christina, who is bowing deeply. When she straightens and notices my confusion, she snickers. “I may have texted them that the lingerie was a smashing success.”
“Ah, yes,” I announce to the group. “Christina is determined to defend her title of Sex Goddess Supreme.”
The group explodes in cheering and laughter. Christina hugs me tightly around my middle.