“You know how I feel about moving. What do you think about it?”
“I’ll help you,” I said.
“Now you have Hernán’s stuff, so we’re going to have to rent a truck. The house has four bedrooms so there’s plenty of space for him to visit,” Levi continued. “I thought we could invite Lucía to come with him.”
“What do you mean?” I didn’t understand at all, so he spelled it out.
“Would you move with me?” he asked.
“What?”
“Coral wouldn’t like the change at first,” he said, “but we could make her comfortable. I’m asking if we can all live together.” There was a long silence. “I thought you might say yes, since you were offering the same thing to me—”
“I was just remembering what Ava said.”
“What did she blab about me this time?
“Two things,” I answered. “One was about your baby raccoon. Maybe it was Liv who said it.”
“I didn’t get rabies,” he told me quickly. “That was my mom’s big fear—”
“I know that,” I interrupted again. “You definitely would have succumbed by now. When they were talking about it, the story sounded familiar and later I realized that I might be another baby raccoon. Like you feel the need to adopt and care for me, in the same way that you did with August.”
He thought about it for a moment. “I guess I did do that,” he acknowledged. “I can’t protect him anymore, though, and it’s probably better for both of us. But you just offered to let me live with you for free and cover all my expenses.”
I nodded, and he smiled.
“So it seems that in our relationship, nobody would be a baby raccoon, but we could take care of each other. What’s the other thing?”
“Ava, definitely Ava and not Liv, also said that you think I’m not over my ex-boyfriend,” I told him. “It’s not true at all but I’m not sure how I can prove that to you.”
“Well, I’ll say something, and if you say it back, it will give me all the proof I need.” He lifted me a little so that we were face to face.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I love you,” Levi said. “I love you, Emerson.”
“I love you,” I answered. “I love you, too.”
“That’s what I was hoping,” he said. “It was my goal since the day I swallowed like a chicken.”
“Why didn’t you say something months ago, then?” I wondered.
“Because you needed a friend and I wanted to be that person for you. I tried to fix my life so you would want me, too.”
“I want you, there’s no doubt,” I said, and leaned up so I could kiss him. That one lasted for quite a while and ended up with him leaning me back onto the mattress. He shifted, moving to next to me, and the bedside table that I’d gotten from Hernán crashed to the floor. Coral took off for the other room.
“We should go across the hall,” he said, and I agreed. First, he tried to carry me, but the cat darted out from under the couch and directly between his feet so that we almost went down.
“I’ll walk,” I suggested. His bed was so much larger and it did take up most of the floor space, but we fit a lot better on it. There was no problem when we knelt to pull up each other’s shirts and for him to yank off his jeans and then, much more carefully, to remove mine.
He put his hand over the scar on my hip. “Tell me if this hurts you.”
“It won’t unless we get really acrobatic.” I kissed him and then nibbled on his neck, which I had been wanting to do forever.
“I plan to be extremely acrobatic, so tell me…yep, let’s do that,” he agreed. I had pulled down his boxers and he quickly unclasped my bra. There was plenty of room but we didn’t get acrobatic, not yet. Instead, he lay next to me and touched me carefully, stroking the backs of his fingers over my breasts while he kissed my lips and then my ear, and then my neck. “You’re so lovely,” he murmured against my skin, his breath warm. He didn’t seem to mind the scar or that my butt still hadn’t returned to its former condition. It was getting there.
I pushed up against his mouth, trying to direct it toward my breasts. “That would feel good,” I suggested, and he laughed but obliged. And I also did my part, because I skimmed my nails over his ribs and down his sides, then around toward his butt which was, without a doubt, really amazing. I got so involved in touching him that I had to pull away from his wonderful mouth so that I could also used mine to kiss him and murmur my own words. “This is fascinating,” I commented about the V-shaped indentations of muscle in his torso, and then I moved my lips down them.
