Page 113 of For Pleasure Or Worse

Me

I can’t sleep without you

Tally

Me either, I don’t like rolling over and not feeling you

Me

I’m going to instinctually try to cop a feel and end up with a hand full of beanbags

I swore I heard her laughter spill out from the floor above. That or I was consciously trying to materialize her next to me.

Me

Go out on the balcony

Throwing the covers off my body without so much as a stir from Angelo, I draped myself in his hotel robe and slipped quietly out onto the stone deck and into the warm, salty air. It was so tranquil the only sound was the wind blowing through the palm trees, shaking their leaves, and the ocean crashing onto the shallow sand. I walked over to the edge and put my elbows on the railing, taking it all in. The whole resort sprawled out in front of me in a U-shape, pool deck, cabanas, and lounges where we’d sat earlier with our friends down below. The lights inside the restaurant on the ground floor opposite me were dim. A trail of wooden fence posts marked a path to the beach access and disappeared behind a dune, poking back out at the open wedding ceremony space where Tally and I would be standing tomorrow.

The sliding glass door a floor above me opened and shut. I could sense the hesitation in Tally’s steps as she trekked onto the balcony. “Mateo?”

“Down here,” I called out.

“Have you been underneath me this whole time?”

“God, I fucking wish.”

I glanced up and saw her fingers curled over the banister, but the architecture of the patios was designed to give every guest ample privacy and the rest of her was obstructed by the angle. “Don’t worry, we can’t see each other. I know it’s technically our wedding day.”

“I always said tomorrow doesn’t start until you go to sleep.”

“Did you work everything out with Bridesmaidzilla? I mean Camilla?”

“Thankfully. Did you dance your little heart out?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“It’s keeping me awake.”

I smirked, running my fingers over my dry knuckles and the calluses on my palms. “I’ve had a lot of time to think while I was staring at the ceiling and I’m wondering how we’re doing the kiss.”

“Is that why you called me out here?” A sweet laugh trickled out of her. “We can’t exactly practice.”

“Are we keeping it PG for the parents? Throwing a little tongue action in there? Should I dip you? We only have one chance for the cameras. We can’t fuck it up.”

“I don’t know.” She giggled again, soft and dreamy. I could tell how tired she was by how loosely her words flowed, the muddled sound of her voice. “We should do whatever feels natural. Not stick to any scripts. Let’s just be us. We’re generally very good in front of a camera lens.”

“Can’t argue with that, Ms. Duran.”

“I can’t believe it’s our wedding day,” she marveled. “Or that we’re all still in one piece. It’s crazy how much planning goes into a day of your life, and then it's there and gone in a blink. Even crazier, after all this, I don’t care if every single thing goes wrong tomorrow. I already have what I always wanted.”

My chest warmed and swelled. I was desperate to reach out and touch her, bring her into my body, smell the fruity shampoo she used on her hair. Tangle my fingers in it.

“You put together an unbelievable wedding, Tal. We’re going to enjoy every minute of it, and the guests are going to be talking about it for the rest of the century. But getting married to you in that little chapel, just the two of us in a moment as raw as that, was exactly how it was meant to play out. I have no regrets.”

“Not even tipping Elvis a thousand dollars?”

I tilted my head. That momentary lapse of judgment had been stuffed into the back of my mind like a discarded tissue. He had caught me in the most vulnerable and ecstatic hour of my life, and naturally I wanted to spread the love. Schmear it, generously. “I regretted that a little bit when I found out how much Angelo’s bail was.”

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