“And I went out with him too the night of our girls night out.”
“You broke the golden rule of a girls night out,” she says admonishing me. Then she rolls her eyes. “Besides, I figured you were talking to someone you liked that night. Even though I’m so totally bothered and completely annoyed that my best friend has f**king fallen in love.”
* * *
But I don’t hear from Chris all through the evening. I don’t hear from him even after I forward him today’s episode of The Fashion Hound. I don’t hear from him as I walk Ms. Pac-Man, as I give her dinner, as I heat up pasta for myself. As each minute of radio silence from him passes, I want to rewind the day, to do it over, to do something, anything, differently.
I brace myself for the inevitable – for more silence as I read through emails, and comments and posts from viewers of The Fashion Hound. Most of them are thrilled, they love love, and stories of love, and big showy declarations, and they’re dying to know what Chris said.
But naturally with my luck, my efforts fell on deaf ears, and I’m back where I started. Alone, with a six-pack of Diet Coke and a bad attitude for company. I open the fridge and crack open a can when my phone rings. I feel that burst of hope that it might be him, then the fear that I’ll be disappointed.
When I grab it from the table, I see his name, and I know that at the very least I’ll have an answer.
“Hello?” I ask nervously as I put the can down on the table.
He doesn’t respond. Instead, I hear the notes of a song I know so well, a song I want to live in, a song I want to feel inside and out. It used to be torture. Now it feels like joy, and you’d need industrial strength cleaner to wipe the ridiculous grin off my face. Then I realize where the song is coming from. Outside my window.
I drop my phone, run down the stairs, my dog following close behind, and open the door. He’s here. At my house. On my steps. Looking casual and cool in cargo shorts and an orange faded tee-shirt that fits him well as he holds his phone up high and plays my favorite song. To me. For me. I want to hug him. I want to kiss him. I want to be with him in every way. Because he’s here. He found me. He came to me. I’m so damn happy right now I could power a rocket to Jupiter and back.
“So you really like this guy, huh?”
“Totally.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s crazy in love with you too.”
“I was about to chew off my leg if I didn’t hear from you.”
He laughs. “I would have called sooner, I swear. I was in the studio all evening and there’s no cell reception, so I didn’t see your email til just now. Then I watched your show, and –” he stops, and gestures to the dog, who’s wagging her tail. “I think she wants me to come inside.”
“I want you to come inside.”
We don’t make it to my bedroom. I place my hands on his cheeks and start kissing him on the stairs the second I shut the door. He responds fiercely and we are all lips and tongue and teeth crashing into each other in an anthemic song of kissing, a big epic tune of music, and passion, and hope. Of falling in love again. Of letting go and starting over. He lifts me up and I wrap my legs around his waist, and he carries me up the steps, and lays me down on the couch.
He looks at me, appraising me, and I feel so vulnerable, but so right about this, about him, about us, as he trails his hand down my bare leg. I sigh, as he kisses my ankle, then makes his way to my calf, stopping to plant a tender, but hot kiss behind my knee, and soon I am wriggling, and wanting, and needing so desperately to feel him.
“I am so incredibly in love with you, McKenna. You have no idea how awesome it was to watch that segment. It was the coolest thing ever because I totally feel the same. You are everything I have ever wanted in a chick, and I’m so glad you’re mine.”
I am flying high right now. “I am totally madly in love with you, Chris,” I say, just because I can. Then, in a lower voice, I breathe out his name. “Chris.” I don’t have to ask. He knows it’s time. He knows I’m ready.
He strips off my skirt and I pull off my top, not caring where they wind up.
His hand makes it way from my waist up to my hair again. I move closer to kiss him and find myself sighing when my lips meet his again, in a new kiss, a slower kiss than the one by the door, the kind of kiss that’s a promise of what’s to come. He tastes so good, these sweet soft lips of his. I touch the soft fabric of his tee-shirt and my right hand drifts down to his abdomen, to the waistband of his shorts. I feel his hands exploring too, as he reaches around to my back, unsnapping my bra. He tosses my bra to the side of the coffee table and places his hands on my br**sts.
“Mmm, these are great,” he says, like a kid in a candy store.
“They’re real, you know,” I say, a little boastfully.
“Oh, I know. And I like it that way.” He plays with them more, cupping them, licking them, kneading them, pretty much unable to take his hands off of them. “Ever since I met you I have wanted to get your shirt off.”
“Don’t take this the the wrong way, but I should tell you I have felt the same about getting your shirt off.” Then I lift his shirt up and over his head. I run my hands across his arms, his chest, his trim waistline with just the right amount of cut to his belly. I trace the outline of his abs with my fingers. He’s firm and toned and I want to keep running my fingers across him, sort of like when you can’t stop touching a rabbit’s coat, and the sensation, the feeling, the touch draws you back for more. Then I make my way down to his boxer briefs.
“I’m going to need to take these off.”
“Be my guest,” he says as I strip off his underwear. He’s na**d next to me, reaching for my panties, taking them off swiftly too.
“I hope you have a condom because I don’t,” I say.
“I had a feeling we might need one,” he says and reaches for his wallet inside his shorts, and I’m so glad he had the foresight to bring one, because I can’t wait a moment longer. He rolls it on as I watch him. God, he’s beautiful, all of him, every inch of him, and he’s here with me. He wants to be with me, and he’s so f**king sexy as he prepares to enter me. I place my hands on his shoulders, but then he shifts so he’s on his back and he moves me on top of him.
“I have a feeling you like to be on top.”
“However did you know?”
“Just a wild guess.”