Page 83 of What's in a Kiss?

“We’re still going,” I tell him, running my fingers through his hair, breathing in the eucalyptus soap on his warm skin.

“Are you sure?” His mouth finds my neck, his tongue drawing the lightest line down my throat. “Because it could also be Sex O’Clock all day—”

“No,” I say, laughing. “If we don’t take a break, we’re going to become conjoined. Then we’ll have to pose for medical photos and have a painful operation—”

“We could join the circus,” Jake says, slipping an arm around me.

“The clock strikes Sex O’Clock tonight at the Wrigley, after you wriggle out of your tux. Are you packed?”

“Yes.” One kiss from Jake, one slip of his tongue between my lips has me ready to perish all thoughts of ever leaving our bed. I moan, then push him back a little to look into his eyes.

“Wait,” I say. “Is this what we do?”

“Iswhatwhat we do?”

“Use sex to avoid our problems?”

He squints at me, confused.

“Not just parties we don’t want to go to,” I say, gaining steam, “but also this fight with my mom. Do you and I fuck to cope? We... fope?”

“Olivia, we’re in love. We fove.”

“Oh,” my voice comes out a little squeak, far more thrilled to hear his words than either of us expected me to be. We’re in love.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Dr. Kenyon and all the relationship podcasts I listen to,” Jake says, “it’s that married people having sex isnevera problem.”

“That’s kind of my point,” I say. “Maybe sex is a safe place for us to hide.”

“But half the time we discuss our problemswhilewe do it!” Jake says. “Remember last month when we had to decide on a new toilet for the half bathroom?”

“When you’re having sex more often than not,” I say, “things are bound to come up in the middle of it. Ding-dong! It’s the FedEx guy! Let’s have a four-legged race to sign for the package!”

“The way I see it, we’ve learned by now which problems are worth fixing, and which ones are better left alone.” He says this tenderly, but it’s a shock. Jake thinks my mom is a problembetter left alone.

Before I can argue, he glances at his watch. “Let’s leave here in ten so we don’t miss the boat?” He doesn’t wait for my answer—and it takes me a moment to realize he isn’t being rude. He simply doesn’t think I’ll have more to say on this subject. There’s a marital shorthand he knows and I don’t.

As I head toward my closet, I think about how everything Jake’s accustomed to is alien to me. The moments where I’m best at blending in are when it’s just the two of us. But life isn’t just one relationship—even when that relationship is as wonderful as ours seems to be.

A suitcase is spread open on my closet floor, half of it filled with Jake’s clothes. I run my hand over his T-shirts, his socks, his red leather dopp kit.

I open the drawers in my closet, looking for clothes to add. As I dig around for a bathing suit, my hands find a stack of books buried at the bottom of a drawer. I take them out and spread them on the floor.

They’re self-help books about repairing broken relationships with loved ones. Lorena and I reviewed a couple of these on her real-world podcast. In that realm I never dreamed of reading one for guidance in my life.

I flip throughClosing the Open Borders of Your Heart.A year ago, I couldn’t even open this one. I judged it as the height of woo-woo cheese. But High Life Olivia? She read the fuck out of this. And dog-eared dozens of pages. And highlighted things. And made notes in the margins.

Original wound = the mirror?

Don’t expect infinity from an hourglass.

Häagen-Dazs can’t satiate Mother Hunger.

Are these the ravings of a lunatic? Or simply another me grieving for her mom?

High Life Olivia may havetoldJake that Lorena was a problem best left alone. But tucked away deep inside her closet, she was stockpiling self-help books like food in a fallout shelter. She was studying each one like it might be a map to guide her home.

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