Page 14 of Give In

So right now, in this moment, when my sister is staring at me with the triumphant expression of someone who already knows the answer, I weigh my options. I could try to play it cool. I could be breezy. I could deflect with a question about her wedding timeline or the floral arrangements or literally anything else.

What actually happens is that I smile so wide my face hurts.

“Yes,” I say. “I met someone. Yes, we had all of the hot sex. But this weekend is about you, not me. Tell me more about Leo. I can’t wait to meet him, and seriously, how have I not met him already?”

Juniper points a finger at me. “Nope. That is not happening.” She leans closer, nearly sloshing her mimosa, eyes alight with amusement. “You are not changing the subject. I want to know more information about the man who has you looking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like a woman who has been properly... managed.” She waves her hand at my general aura. “You’re luminous, Clo. Who is he?”

I roll my eyes, but there is no wiping the smile from my face. I couldn’t even if I tried, and frankly I’ve stopped trying. “He’s so super hot,” I say.

“Woo! That’s what I’m talking about!” My sister makes grabby hands at me. “Give me more!”

I glance around the salon area of the spa to see how many people are within earshot. The women in the chairs nearby are engaged in their own conversations; the attendants move quietly and with the professional discretion of people who have heard everything. I lean toward Juniper slightly anyway, because some things are still better said quietly.

“The sex was unreal.” I make an explosion gesture with my hands. “Mind-blowing.”

Juniper sighs with her entire body. “That’s how it is between me and Leo too. It’s like fireworks and a parade and magic and intimacy all at the same time. I never knew it could be like that.”

“Exactly.” I stare at my feet in the warm water for a moment. The attendant has moved on to the scrub portion of events and I watch the bubbles form and dissolve while I try to sort through what I want to say. What I can say. What I even understand about last night well enough to put into words. “Do you think you can fall in love with someone right away?” I ask.

Juniper doesn’t hesitate. She turns to look at me with an expression so certain it makes something in my chest ache.

“I do,” she says. “I think it probably happens more than people realize and maybe they’re just not paying attention or they’re too afraid to recognize it. I know that’s how it happened for me and Leo. I was reluctant, but he didn’t let me walk away, and I’m so thankful.” She pauses. “Is that what happened?”

“I mean I don’t know if that’s what this was,” I say, which is a lie. I’m certain my face immediately broadcasts this to anyone paying attention. “But I know it was amazing and intense and wonderful.” I reach for my mimosa and take a long sip. “It’s likely I’ll never see him again, though. We didn’t exactly exchange contact information.”

This is the part that sits in my chest like a stone. Warm and heavy at the same time.

Juniper puts her hand over mine on the armrest between us. “If it’s meant to be, you’ll find each other again.”

I look at her. My sister, who ran headlong into a whirlwind romance and came out the other side engaged, happy, rosemary-garnished, and certain. She has always known things I’m still learning. “I hope you’re right.”

“Me too.” She squeezes my hand once, then releases it and picks up her mimosa. “Now,” she says, settling back into her chair, “I’m going to need at minimum three more details. Start with the hair. Does he have good hair?”

I think of Heath’s brown hair shot through with grey, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, the rumbly voice that made my insides feel like warm caramel. “The best hair,” I say. “Silver fox energy.”

Juniper’s eyes go round. “Oh, Clover.”

I wince, fully acknowledging that I have it bad. So very, very bad. “I know.”

“Tell me everything.”

So I do. I tell her the edited version, the version where I skip the Mile High Club thoughts and the part where I talked to myself out loud, and he may or may not have heard me. I tell her about his laugh and the way he listened and the feeling of being near him, like standing in a patch of sunlight that had decided to take a specific interest in you.

I do not tell her his name. Something makes me keep that close, like a thing that still belongs only to me, at least for now.

By the time the facials begin, we have moved on to wedding logistics. Juniper talks about the ceremony on the beach, about the way the coordinator has choreographed the whole thing, about Leo’s insistence on going barefoot, which she finds both charming and a little bit unhinged. I listen and laugh and feel the tightness in my shoulders slowly unknit itself under a series of warm towels and something that smells like neroli and possibility.

For a couple of hours, the stone in my chest lightens.

It comes back when we’re leaving. When Juniper links her arm through mine in the lobby and I catch a glimpse of a broad-shouldered figure at the far end of the corridor. He’s too far away and gone too fast for me to be sure, but my whole body goes electric for the three seconds I’m looking.

I stare at the empty hallway.

“You okay?” Juniper asks.