Happy anniversary! I hope you’ve made each other smile at least once every day.
I’m poring over a station with note cards and a large vintage milk can to deposit them in. We’re supposed to jot down wise marital advice (as if I’d have any) or congratulatory sentiments for Kristin and Daniel to read together next year. Most of the guests who’ve contributed so far have tossed in white envelopes containing money, as well. I feel a presence at my back. The tiny hairs on my neck stand on end.
“Have I mentioned that I like you in a suit?” I say without turning.
Hands smooth up my arms to my shoulders, where they rest. The clasp of another necklace is unhooked, a slight weight lifted as the cool chain snakes across my chest and disappears. I twirl.
Alex’s face is innocent as he drops the chain into his pocket.
“Care to explain why you’re stealing my jewelry?”
“I’m undressing you very slowly. Watch out, your dress is next.”
I glance at Kristin and Daniel, who are pouring tea at the head table and serving it to their siblings. Pouring tea and serving it to the bride’s and groom’s parents, Kristin told me, is traditional at Korean weddings. Since their parents have passed away, the bride and groom are serving their siblings. Another tradition they’re sort of incorporating is the practice of having relatives toss dates and chestnuts at them. When you’re a younger Korean couple getting married, you’re supposed to catch the dates and chestnuts with the fabric of your clothes. If you catch dates, you’ll have sons; if you catch chestnuts, you’ll have daughters. Kristin and Daniel won’t be having children together, so Kristin asked me to add chestnuts and dates to her bouquet for the flower toss, to let somebody else catch the fertility.
“Are you okay?” I ask Alex. “You sure you don’t want to talk? Or need a hug?”
“I’m fine, but I’ll never say no to a hug.”
I try to embrace him with minimal squeeze action, like how you’d greet an old family friend you haven’t seen in a long time and don’t remember too well, but my body loves the way he feels and I find myself sniffling into his suit, thinking about his father and Alex’s feelings, which must be very mixed. He bites back a smile.
“Are you crying on my behalf?”
“Shush.” I half-heartedly shove his shoulder. “Yes.”
“That is . . . incredibly sweet. But I’m fine, Romina. Better than fine.”
He regards Kristin, who’s raising her bouquet above her head, getting ready to throw. Megan and Allison run away from the spectacle. “Not gonna try to catch it?”
“I’m pretty sure you need to have sex first in order to have kids.”
He coughs into his arm, eyebrows high. “What?”
“The dates and chestnuts? Fertility.”
Teyonna catches the bouquet. The room explodes with claps and cheers.
“Oh.” He backs up a step, hand on his heart. “I forgot about that part. I was referring to the whole ‘catch the bouquet and you’ll get married next’ thing.”
I purse my lips. “Alexander, I don’t even have a boyfriend.”
“Darling, if you want one, all you have to do is ask. It’s your turn to do the asking.”
I shoo him aside so that I can plunk my note card into the milk can, then wander to the popcorn bar. I’m still full from dinner—the buffet was enormous—but Alex is observing me intently, which makes me nervous. I have to keep moving.
He’s still hovering at my back when I grab a cupcake, hesitating with it halfway to my mouth. “You’re following me.”
“I’m getting up my nerve.”
“For what?”
Alex sets my cupcake back down on the table. “I believe you owe me a wedding dance.”
He swallows, pupils so wide that I can see myself mirrored in them. Sweat gleams at the hollow of his throat where he’s unbuttoned his shirt, tie loosened.
I’m not the only one who’s nervous.
Relaxing slightly, I offer him my hand, which he grasps. But then he doesn’t move.
“Are we going to dance?” I prompt.
“Uh, yeah, in a . . .” His gaze slides to the deejay. “You ever think about colors and themes and that sort of thing? I mean, back then? Probably not.”
“What are you talking about?”
The song changes. He says hastily, “Never mind, let’s go,” then captures my waist and tugs me toward him, tight against his body.
“Easy, tiger. We can’t be this close.”
“Why not?” His firm hold on my lower back agrees with his question. Then, a rumble in my ear, “You’re so beautiful that it kills me a little. I’m putting you in my pocket next, to take home.”
I blink at a floral centerpiece nearby, the barn fluttering soft and out of focus. I think I am being properly romanced?
We dance to “My Girl,” which I am certain he requested, as we’ve danced to this song before, long ago at the Moonville Fair. The slow tempo is followed by a more upbeat number, one of his mother’s all-time favorites, “Lay Down Sally.” I try to spin him; he tries not to elbow anyone. Lifts me off the ground and holds me close, our heartbeats a rapid clip. I am half delirious.
“Fifty men,” he muses, coiling a lock of my hair around his finger. “They’re going to be jealous when they hear about me.” He nuzzles my neck.
“No neck kissing,” I say quickly. “Not here.”
“So mean.”
Kristin dances by with a giggling Miles standing on her shoes. She throws us an interested look, and it’s automatic, how deeply I blush. Alex is being so obvious about . . . whatever this is. I’m not one hundred percent certain what he’s up to here, and I don’t like the idea of other people taking guesses.
“Look at me, Daddy!” Miles calls. He is utterly unfazed by the sight of his dad and a woman he hardly knows with their arms around each other, leaving no room for the holy spirit between them.
“You’ve got great moves!” Alex tells him.
“I’m dancing better than even you!”
Alex laughs, says under his breath, “Doesn’t take much.” Then louder: “You having fun?”
“Yeah!”
As Kristin and Miles whirl away, we edge closer to the wide-open barn doors, moonlight slanting through. One song flows into another, another, and I know when I climb into bed tonight that my feet will be killing me, but right now I could be swaying on a cloud. A few aunts have been casting looks at us, at Trevor and Teyonna, plainly wondering when this development occurred. A drunken, dreamy magic threads its way into the fabric of time, slackening its stitches; the longer he holds me, the less real reality becomes.
“Yo, everybody! Listen to me, I gotta get something off my chest!”
We all whirl to see Trevor in the deejay booth.
“Oh, no,” I groan.
“I love Romina Tempest!”
I wave.
“But just as a friend!” He extends an arm and points directly at me, forehead damp and glistening. “Girl, you’re my number one bro!”
I cup my hands around my mouth. “I love you, too, Trevor Yoon!”
“Teyonna Johnson!” he shouts at the top of his voice. I pan the crowd for Teyonna’s face, finding her frozen in shock under the flower arbor. “I fucking love you! Not in a bro way! I wanna be with you all the time! I’m sorry to everybody I lied to about dating Romina, she and I are just pals. Allison, you suck so hard but I love you, too. I love everyone in the world, except for murderers and people like that, obviously. But everybody else!” He spreads his arms. “Circle of love! I’ve gotta be real!” He jumps into the audience, absently passing off the microphone to Alex, who doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. Trevor high-fives me, then grabs Teyonna and kisses her. Screams of delight spark the air. Most folks are extremely drunk by now.
“Well, uh.” Alex taps the mic, laughing awkwardly. “If Romina is unattached, I think I might go ahead and try to capture her for myself.” He returns the microphone to the booth. Smiles shyly at me on his walk back. My heart flips on a balance beam. Misses the landing.
“Your mom’s going to be upset.” I fiddle with the hem of my skirt.
“Nah.” He doesn’t say it like No, she won’t, but rather like I don’t care.
But No, she won’t turns out to be accurate. Kristin dances with Alex, possessed by happy-go-lucky wedding spirits who forgive all transgressions. Trevor steals me for a fast song. Then Miles and Trevor dance until Trevor tires him out and Miles curls up beside Patricia on a bench to fall asleep. Somehow, I end up dancing with Daniel. Kristin guides me over to him, insisting that we “must, as family.” Trevor is busy rocking Teyonna in his arms, staring at her with a goofy, lovestruck grin.
“No hard feelings,” Daniel says to his son. “Love makes you do strange things.” Not that he has anything against me, but I think Daniel’s always preferred Teyonna for his son above anyone else.
Kristin’s veil is ripped. She’s red-cheeked, glasses askew, curls on their last hurrah. Frosting’s melting off the cupcakes, which were positioned too close to a speaker that’s been hooked up since this morning and has overheated. Both of her hands are in the air. Daniel’s hair is a mess from dancing with his brothers.
“Kristin, I’m sorry,” I confess. “I didn’t mean to trick you . . . it was a little white lie that got out of control.”
“I know that, sweetie, I overheard Trevor explain it all to Teyonna days ago. He doesn’t have an indoor voice.” She twirls a hand. “Life is short! Have fun.”
I’m still dumbstruck when Alex finds me again—it’s an automatic snap, our bodies locking into their proper positions. His hands go here, and mine go there, and it was always meant to be that way. How does one possibly fight fate?
But how does one trust it, when fate has burned them before?
“I dreamed this up,” he tells me, pulling back just enough to admire my face.
“Get your own dream. This one’s mine.” I stretch on tiptoes, so close to kissing him—I think he waits for it, eyelids lowering. But I hold back, because this doesn’t feel like it did during our last kiss, when I was only aware of what was between us. This time, I’m distracted by all that’s around us.
He’s framed by filaments of hot gold shooting from sparklers that guests are passing around. Trevor flies by with two in each hand, high overhead. Someone wreaths glow-in-the-dark hoops over our heads like necklaces, mine red, Alex’s blue. My senses buzz with the fire and laughter, the impossibility of those hands skating all over my skin, burning me through my dress. He thieves one of my diamond flower earrings, adding it to his collection.
“Mmm, don’t think so,” Alex tells me. “From this angle, I can see down the top of your dress. This dream’s all mine, gorgeous.” His sinful dimple, which appears only when his guard is down, was surely designed by a female higher power.
“That may be so, but this . . .” I drag a fingernail down his tie. “Is my fantasy, thank you very much. I want to strip you and tie up your hands with this.”
Alex stiffens, and down low I feel him instantly harden against me. His hands stroke languidly up and down my spine, the curve of my hip. “You can’t talk like that,” he murmurs, eyes glittering black. “I’m in dress pants. We’re in public.”
“That’s the best part.”
“You evil creature.” But even as he says it, he begins to dance us outside, away from witnesses.
“You started it.”
He carries me out behind the barn and pins me to the smooth wood, music reverberating through the boards. We’re invisible in the cool shadows, safe from prying eyes. Alex positions his hands flat against the barn on either side of my head and bends his head close, hips aligning with mine. I arch to feel him, nails digging into his back.
“Shhh,” he half laughs, burying his lips against the base of my throat. Releases a tender little sigh that sweeps over the swell of my breast. The straps of my dress are well past my shoulders, traveling south. I didn’t say anything to earn a shhh, but I know what he means by it and try to rein in my enthusiasm.
It’s a struggle.
“Don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you.” Alex groans. Slips his fingers in my hair, dropping kisses on my cheeks, jaw. Then his eyes fall closed and his mouth is covering mine, my head spinning with a delightful combination of the new and familiar; I can taste his eagerness, but I also taste his resolve. He’s being methodical about this.
His touch is a slow burn, tongue exploring my mouth with the agonizing sweetness of someone who knows his power but knows how to dampen it, too, slowing time. An intoxicating rush pounds through me, fading to gray, to quiet, to feel these arms, and these lips, right where they belong.
He strokes a finger along my spine to make my back arch. Smiles against my skin. I make a noise of desperation, moving against him again. Alex laughs. “Romina.”
“Sorry.”
“Let me enjoy you without losing my ability to focus. Keep going like that and you’ll lose another pair of underwear.”
I consider it. “I’m fine with that. You undress me too slowly.”
He bats my hand away from his belt. “Let me kiss you. Kiss me. I want you to kiss me.”
“I can do that.” I hook a leg around his hip, sucking his lower lip between my teeth. Let it go. He brushes the hair away from my face, mouth curving.
So we kiss, long and slow. We have all the time in the world, his touch says.
But I’m not sure if that’s true.
He hums with pleasure, deep down in his throat, unaware that I’m not entirely present. Kissing him like this is tumbling through a void, tethered to him with nothing to find purchase on, not knowing when or where we’ll land, how punishing the impact will be. I’m going to crash. It’s going to bruise.
I hook my fingers in his belt loops, pinning us together, and although his eyes remain closed, his forehead furrows like he’s clinging to grounding forces, mind made up. “Tomorrow,” he says, eyes flashing open again, words fluttery, “we’ll have breakfast together, play Go Fish with Miles. I’ll look the other way when you cheat.” Then he kisses me again, blazing trails of heat. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much, you have no idea, I can’t describe it. It’s like I’d forgotten what it feels like to be warm.” His words are breaking. “I thought I’d never get to touch you again.”
I peer up at him, his words sinking into the earth around my feet. I feel as if this moment sits next to our real lives without overlapping. I feel like I’m compressing into a tight coil that could spring up in surprise at any moment. A ticking clock strapped to dynamite.
He unhooks my other earring; I watch it sparkle in his palm before it joins the rest.
“Touch me now,” I whisper, but he takes me by the hand abruptly, tugging me back into the barn, into the lights and the noise. It’s as if he only peeled off one of my layers when he led me away, and the other half of me is still leaning against the back of the barn, staring up at the stars, that knot of dread drawing tighter, tighter.