I was perfectly not.

I simply couldn’t be. It was too much; he was too much. I would never get used to the feeling of him inside me, stretching me and filling me and being perfectly there. I thrashed, I shimmied, I arched and I flexed. And he stayed perfectly still. The muscles in his arms bunched, his neck corded, his torso gleamed with the sweet strain of not moving. He was like a naughty work of art.

Then he lifted his head and opened his eyes. Singularly focused, dark, and of one mind-set.

Simon was about to fuck.

Pulling out almost entirely, he thrust low. And hard. And serious.

And I came out of my skin.

He rode me, rode my body and my sex, and when he leaned heavy over me and chanted the dirtiest words imaginable in my ear, I came again. Right as he came. Low. And hard. And so serious.

Wrapping my arms around him, I kept him inside as long as I could. Even when he lifted me off the counter I fought that loss, keeping my legs around his waist as he laughed. He unraveled me, threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and slapped my bottom.

He then ate an entire loaf of zucchini bread with his pants around his ankles while he leaned on the counter, resting his head on my bottom.

• • •

“So remind me to never stop baking for you,” I said fifteen minutes later, when I was finally allowed to put my pants back on and start cleaning up the kitchen.

“Would that ever happen?” Simon looked stricken. At the thought that I might stop baking, or perhaps because he’d just eaten an entire loaf of bread?

“Doubtful. It’s a mutually beneficial kind of thing, obviously.”

“I should say.” He smirked as I poured him some coffee and marched him over to the sofa. “Why am I on the couch?”

“Because I’m cleaning and you’re in the way. Plus you just got back, so let me fawn over you a little.”

“But mainly because I was in the way, right?”

“Right.” I grabbed a broom and swept up some raisins. Clive had spirited a few away already; I imagined I’d find those in bed later tonight. He loved to hide them one by one. I’d stopped asking questions.

Simon relaxed on the couch, watching me sweep and commenting when my backside looked particularly fetching. Looking over the rim of his coffee cup, he asked, “Hey, what were you doing sketching on a Saturday? You gotta work today?”

“Kinda sorta.”

“Kinda sorta?”

“Yeah, a big job that Jillian put me on. We’re bidding on it next week, and if I get this job it’ll mean . . . Well, it’d be a big deal.” I hesitated, not even wanting to say it out loud. This would be big giant balls big.

“That’s great! What kind of job?”

“A hotel in Sausalito. Jillian’s given me the lead on it, due to the wedding and her honeymoon. So yeah, big week at work.” I finished the sweeping and threw the raisins into the trash. Grabbing my sketchbook, I headed into the living room and sat next to him, propping my feet in his lap.

“Sounds big. That’s good, babe.”

“Plus, I’m kind of taking over while they’re on their honeymoon. I’m gonna be swamped.”

“You can handle it. I’m proud of you.”

“Well, be proud of me if I get the job. Till then it’s just a bid. But fingers crossed, right?” I laughed, lying back against the cushions as he rubbed my heel.

“I have a good feeling about this. Maybe we’ll have something to celebrate next week,” he said, wiggling my big toe. “Speaking of celebrations, how’d you like to come to Rio with me this December?”

Whuh?

I say again, whuh?

“I love when you drop your consonants,” he murmured, scooting closer and leaning over me.

“I said that out loud?”

“You sure did.”

“Okay. Well, then, answer my whuh.”

“No one on the planet has ever said that exact sentence before.” He chuckled, drawing a line with his fingertip down my nose and pressing it against my mouth.

“Rio? In December?” I mumbled.

“For Christmas.”

“Whuh?”

As he laughed, I scrambled up from beneath him. “Explain, please.”

“Nothing to explain. I booked a job in Brazil—I’ll be working in Rio on Christmas. I want my best girl with me.”

Christmas in Brazil. Sultry warm ocean breeze. Sipping caipirinhas under festival lanterns. Coconut oil. Bikini. Simon.

Second Christmas away from home in a row?

I flashed back to Christmases past, growing up. I had a favorite aunt and uncle— doesn’t everyone? Technically my great-aunt and -uncle, Liz and Lou were legends in our family. They never had kids, and whether that was by design or nature, I never knew; no one ever talked about that. But they led a life that I had always dreamed of.

They traveled every year, and I mean they traveled. Uncle Lou made good money, invested wisely, and when he retired at sixty-five they hit the road. They owned a home in San Diego, but they just used it as a base. They had friends all over the world and spent time in places like Madrid, Athens, Rome, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Caracas, and São Paulo. Rio de Janeiro. They took off whenever they wanted, and went wherever the wind told them to go. They were only occasionally around for Christmas, and I was always excited to see where my present would come from each year, what faraway place the postage would be from.

Did they love their family less because they chose to travel across the globe for Christmas? I never thought so, although some of the more traditional members of the family felt it was strange and a little selfish that they didn’t want to be singing carols at my grandmother’s and eating turkey with everyone else.

I thought it was romantic, exciting, and a little wonderful.

They passed away a few years ago, within three months of each other. After they died I was helping to go through some of their things and I came across their passports. They were battered, worn, and stamped with cities all across the globe, some of which I had never heard of.

And when I went to Salzburg last year to keep Simon company on Christmas, I didn’t feel selfish or strange. I thought it was romantic, exciting, and more than a little wonderful. Furthest thing from traditional, but maybe a Simon and Caroline tradition?

I mentally calculated whether my additional work responsibilities would allow me to take time off. The holidays were a busy period for us, but the week between Christmas and New Year’s was pretty manageable. This invite was out of the blue, but not out of the world of the possible.

I began to hum “The Girl from Ipanema,” a grin slowly spreading across my face.

“Is that a yes to Rio?” he asked.

“It’s a hell yes, Wallbanger—hell yes to Rio!” I squealed, wrapping my legs around his waist and seeing the look of excitement on his face before I brought him down for a big, wet kiss. Last year, I invited myself along. This year, he wanted me with him. Fuck, I loved this man.

We kissed for a moment, then he went back to his side of the couch and resumed my foot rub and I went back to my sketching.

A few minutes later, I got a text. I snorted, then told Simon, “Hey, this just in from Wedding Central. You need to get measured for your tux, pronto. Jillian said you and Benjamin are supposed to go together; she’s freaking out.”

“I know—best man and all; I need to look good.” He rolled his eyes.

When Benjamin asked Simon to stand up for him at the wedding, it was kind of perfect. Since I was one of Jillian’s bridesmaids.

“You’ll look good, no one is worried about that.” I laughed as he tickled the bottoms of my feet. “The one that I’m worried about is Sophia. She’s out of her funk as of this morning, and ready to buy the sexiest dress she can find for this shindig.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he replied, concentrating on my instep.

“I think she really just wants to make sure that she’ll look good if Neil comes, you know? I mean, is he coming? For sure?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he replied again, the tiniest of crinkles appearing on his forehead. I let him rub my feet for another minute.

“So, is he bringing anyone to the wedding?” I asked in the most nonchalant tone possible.

“Caroline,” he warned.

“What? If he’s bringing someone, that’s something that would be good to know ahead of time, don’t you think? It’s not like you’re betraying the guy code just by telling me if he’s bringing anyone, right?” I asked, poking him in the belly with my big toe, eliciting a smile.

“Yes, he’s bringing someone,” he allowed, watching my face carefully. I breathed out just as carefully.

“Okay, see, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” I asked, pushing my foot under his hand again. He resumed his kneading. I let one minute go by.

“So, is she pretty?”

“Not gonna do this,” he said, lifting my feet off his lap and standing up.

“What? I’m just asking if she’s pretty,” I insisted as he turned back toward me.

“I’ve told you, this is not something we can talk about. You get too worked up to be rational, and I—”

“I get worked up? Of course I get worked up! My best friend had her heart ripped out because your best friend was an idiot who cheated on her, and—”

“For the last time, he didn’t cheat!” he snapped.

“Kissing is cheating! Of course it’s cheating!” I snapped back, standing up to face him.

“He kissed an ex-girlfriend once—it happened once. And he told her. He didn’t have to tell her about it at all! He could’ve kept it from her, but he told her!”

“Oh, now he’s supposed to get points for that? For telling her after he cheats on her?” I cried.

When I said Simon and I didn’t fight, we really didn’t. Except for this one thing.

So here’s the full story. When Neil’s ex-girlfriend came to town and their dinner ended with the kiss, Neil told Sophia about it, and she left. And since then, she’s refused to talk to him, refused to see him, refused to have anything to do with him. Erased e-mails and deleted texts. She didn’t want him to try and explain anything, because in her mind there was nothing to explain.

The problem is that all of the guys agreed that what Neil did, wrong as it was, wasn’t enough to break up over. Of course, the girls all agreed that kissing was cheating: dicks didn’t need to be inserted for it to be cheating. Sophia had every right to end things with Neil, and as the cheater, he didn’t get much say in how it went down.

Hence the arguments.

Mimi and Ryan had fought over this as well; it was something that everyone had an opinion on. Opinions that Simon and I had agreed weren’t worth sharing, since it made us argue every time we talked about it, yet the subject kept bubbling up.

What was cheating? Where was that line that, if crossed, you couldn’t come back from? Was it different for every couple, or was it black and white?

“He doesn’t get points for it. That’s not what I meant, and you know that—”

“That kind of thing doesn’t just happen, Simon. He made a choice—”

“A kiss! And that had to end everything? What about Sophia? She won’t even give the guy a chance to explain, she—”

“There’s nothing to explain, don’t you get that?” I yelled, throwing my sketchbook across the room.

Quiet.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I mumbled, crossing the room to pick up my book. He caught my hand as I walked by.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about this from the beginning. There’s no right or wrong here”—he raised his fingers to my lips when I started to explain that yes, in fact there is—“or at least it’s a gray area. But no matter what it is, it’s not worth us getting in a fight over, right?”

I sighed, letting him pull me into his chest. I pressed my face into the exact center. The scent of Downy calmed me.

“Right.”

He held me tight.

“I love you,” he told the top of my head.

“Love you too.”

Being half of a “we” is sometimes hard.

chapter three

“It’s melon.”

“It’s marigold.”

“Marigold! It’s pumpkin way before it’s marigold, but that doesn’t matter—because it’s melon.”

“If you think that’s melon then you need your eyes examined, because it’s obviously—”

“Mimi, what do you think? This is totally melon, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Mimi, look at this and tell me how in the world this is melon.”

“Goldfish,” Mimi said.

“What?” I asked, looking at Jillian.

We were standing in the ladies’ bridal salon at Neiman Marcus. Wait, strike that. I was standing in the ladies’ bridal salon, in my bra and underwear, while Jillian and Mimi sat on giant tufted chairs sipping champagne.

“Goldfish. Your dress is the color of those cheddar Goldfish crackers. And it’s kind of perfect for your skin tone, actually,” Mimi said, pouring another glass and drinking it down. “Now both of you shut up. Honestly, listening to two designers argue about the color of your bridesmaid dress is boring.”

Jillian and I looked at each other in the mirror and we each raised our eyebrows.

“Okay, fine. It’s goldfish. Now can you please try it on?” she said, handing it to me. I agreed, stepping into the dress. As I twisted to zip it up, I distinctly heard her mutter “melon” under her breath.