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Twenty-four is one year too young for a quarter-life crisis, but hey, Colin's always been an overachiever. He's got a degree in Sustainable Tourism, which he's wasting as a barista, an annoying anxiety disorder, and no freaking...
I'd cleaned, okay? I just want that to be clear. I knew he was coming over, and I'd cleaned. While Dav helps himself to the kitchen cabinets, I order a pizza. It's not what we planned, but good enough is good enough.
He meets me in the living room with the only two soap-spotted but perfectly usable wine glasses I own, and the Grape & Wine Festival promotional "yay guy" opener. (Because the arms go up as the little neck twists down and he goes Yay! Wine Time!) From the tote Dav produces a dark wine bottle with a hand-printed label that reads 2017 Pinot Noir in one color of sharpie, and Miracle Year in another, a later addition. The lettering is elegant and old-fashioned, as even and beautiful as my old nan's, and I realize with a surge of warmth that I'm seeing Dav's handwriting for the first time.
Dav sits primly on the wonky sofa and makes the wine guy go yay. His socks today are boogying grapes. Onatah is already my new best friend and I've never even met her. I slide over until there's no space between our thighs, and Dav un-prims and slumps against me.
"Hi," I say. "You brought me wine from your cellar?"
"Yes. I hope that's okay?"
"It's fucking hot is what it is." I slide my nearest hand up the inside of his thigh, stopping just south enough that I can feel the edge of his underwear. He's a briefs man. Nice. "Look at my dragon, providing for me and shit."
Dav shudders once all over, eyelids fluttering. That's a reaction that I last saw in a boyfriend when he was trying not to come too fast during a blowjob.
Very nice.
"Really?" I ask, delighted.
"Hush. You'll make me spill."
He does this fancy bartender thing with his wrist as he pours, and the wine leaps into the glass with a mid-air twist and holy shit.
"Not to be horny on main," I say, holding very still so I won't jostle him. "But do that the fuck again."
Dav laughs and pours the second glass with the same sexy flourish. I want to appreciate it, but there's something else I want to appreciate more first.
"Oh my god, put that bottle down, come here."
I flop back, yanking him on top of me. Dav laughs joyously. It makes his stomach bounce against mine. He's heavy, and real, and it's wonderful. I want to leave bruises on his hips, grab greedy handfuls of his gorgeous ass, lick all the way up his spine. All I can reach right now is his mouth, though, so I bite it. Dav groans and props himself up on his elbows, hands carding through my hair, and I fist hands in his shirt so he can't get away.
"Colin?" he moans, and I fucking love the way he says my name.
"Just kissing for now," I reassure. I like knowing the endgame when it comes to being naked and vulnerable. That way, I can enjoy what's happening instead of worrying myself over what may or may not be coming next. I trace the slutty, slutty vee of skin revealed by his collar with my thumbs.
"Hm, yes," Dav agrees, and gets to it with a fervor.
Holy shit, he has not kissed me like this before. Like he wants to thoroughly map all the vectors of what just kissing can entail. I'd dragged him into the cradle of my thighs, but he props his hips back, polite. I'm already half-mast, but I can't tell if he's getting hard, and the fact that he's not making that my problem by grinding it against me makes me want to grope his polite ass even more. Goddamn.
"Unk," I manage to moan when he slides that beautiful forked tongue around my ear. There's going to be a hickey high enough up for everyone to see tomorrow and I don't even care.
"Budge back," Dav says an eternity of warm, wet, soft later.
I'm too high on the taste, and feel, and smell of him to do anything but obey. Propped up against the sofa arm, Dav lifts one of the glasses to my lips.
"Drink." His voice is like smoke and fire. I give one of those full-body shudders of my own.
The wine is like his voice—deep and smoky. Also kind of like blackberry jam? I know a lot about growing wine, but not a lot about tasting it. But I know what I like, and this is good.
"That's amazing."
"I'm glad you think so." He kisses a spilled drop from the corner of my mouth. My brain flashes to every romance novel I've ever read where the love interest does the same. It's much nicer in person than on the page.
"You brought me wine from your own cellar," I repeat. He offers another sip, and this is so fucking romantic my whole body is buzzing.
"I thought we could try it with this." He sets the wine down and retrieves something else from the crumpled tote bag. It's a small box with a purple ribbon that reads Laura Secord Chocolates.
"What if it was a fluke?" I sit up all the way now. "You don't want to spend all night holding my hair back."
"I would, if you wanted," Dav says, sitting back. "I thought perhaps you've never had the opportunity to experience quality chocolates before."
"I'm curious as hell, I'm not gonna lie."
He hands over the box. Inside, two small truffles nestled in purple paper grass shine like glossy stones. Then the smell hits me. It's the scent of childhood misery and hours in the bathroom.
"I can't do it," I say, handing it back.
He ties the box back up. "I'll give them to Hadi."
"I just don't want to risk it. This—" I gesture between us, and he licks his lower lip, which is still kiss-bitten and that is illegal, sir, you cannot just do that in front of me. "This is too nice to fuck up with puking."
And once he's seen how gross and pathetic I am, curled up on the tile and praying for death, he won't ever want to kiss me again. That's something I absolutely can't allow.
"Understandable," he concedes.
"I've been tracking my food intake, and nothing's different. I'm eating the same stuff, using the same condiments. Except for the lunch at the boardgame pub, but I don't think a burger can cure a food allergy."
"I don't know of anything that can," Dav agrees. We tap our wine glasses together and sip in tandem. "It's funny, I don't recall food allergies being so severe."
"What, a thousand years ago?"
"Hush." He taps my thigh with a teasing grin. "You're wretched."
"Ouch!" I pantomime pain. "So cruel. So old, and decrepit, and cruel, and ancient—"
"I'll show you ancient, you brat." He pulls the glass out of my hands, places it on the coffee table, and pushes me back down into the flat throw pillows. "Just kissing?" he checks in as he slides his legs over mine, trapping my knees between his on the cushions.
"Roger, roger."
"Dav," he says, with that silly, eye-crinkling grin as he lowers his face. "In case you've forgotten."
"Yeah, no, that's not very likely."
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