All the Best Nights

by Hanna Earnest

  “No, I’m not,” he said, completely serious. Under the bar, his free hand found the back of her knee, fingertips pressing a chord into her herringbone tights as he strummed up, down, up her spine with the other hand. “I’ll start tomorrow.”

  The room seemed to grow hotter as the coil of attraction between them tightened. If he was winding her up, she might need to warn him that she was liable to snap.

  Nelle traced his wrist, fitting her fingers around the soft skin beneath his heavy watch, her rings clicking against the hardware. She guided his hand farther up her leg, the gentle scrape of friction loud as microphone feedback to her heightened senses.

  Bran licked at the corner of his mouth. His voice lowered an octave. “I think we just discussed how this can’t happen.”

  “Because of your celibacy? You said you were starting tomorrow. Plenty of time left tonight.”

  His grip tightened around her leg. “Because no matter how aggressively pleasant you are to that bartender, and no matter what we tip, he isn’t doing his job if he doesn’t get the free publicity of a picture of us walking out of here together. Same thing anywhere we’d go.”

  “You don’t want them to know about us?”

  “I don’t want to give them anything else.”

  A shiver rolled through her and Nelle found herself in the middle of a deep, involuntary blink. A moment of respite, having stared too long at something bright, something solar.

  What Bran wanted—it just wasn’t how it worked. Not for them. Even if Nelle understood the impulse, the desire to keep something for herself, it just wasn’t possible. For instance, she’d agreed to a press release about her dad because Mina thought it was the best way to keep people from prying: tell them, and then request the gift of privacy.

  “We traded in our right to anonymity,” she told him, not fighting the resignation in her tone. “If we tried to date, someone would find out.”

  “Unless—” He clamped his mouth shut.

  His hand stopped inching upwards but she remained trapped in his heat. Heavy-lidded and literally brought to the edge of her seat waiting for his next words.

  “What?” Nelle asked him breathlessly.

  “Unless we only let it happen once. A blip, too fast for them to catch on their radar.”

  “Get in and out. Real quick, before anyone notices?”

  His mouth quirked up. “I mean. Not that quick. You’ll notice. Or we could think outside the box.”

  “No, we definitely need to be thinking about getting inside the box.” She was almost close enough to taste the bacon jam on his tongue. That errant hair of his tickled her forehead. “I’d like to have a secret.”

  “What if we...” He hesitated, biting his lip like he was trying to stop himself from saying it. “What if we took it further? Kept a bigger secret? That we were both willing to protect? Just to have something they’d never know about?”

  Nelle put one hand on his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin through the thinned T-shirt. She angled her face in front of his and closed her eyes. “Are you proposing a murder pact?”

  “No. I think—I think I’m just proposing.”

  Nelle jumped back, her eyes popping open like they’d been interrupted by the high-pitched screech of a record scratch. “You’re what?”

  “If we got married—”

  “And how would that not make the news?”

  Bran Kelly was unstable—she’d read that somewhere, right? This was the proof.

  “My gran—she told me people used to elope to Michigan. The state allows secret marriages. Just a judge. Then they seal the file.”

  “Your gran?” Nelle’s head spun—what was in that French 75? Gasoline? She fumbled with her phone, just to prove him wrong. Derail the crazy train. “You have to have a license. And wait three days. I’m going home tomorrow.”

  He took the phone out of her hand. “No—it says right here they’ll waive it under some circumstances.”

  “You think we are those circumstances?”

  “I think we can afford it. People don’t often tell me no.”

  She tugged the phone back. “What do you think they tell me?”

  “Whatever you want to hear.”

  She’d leaned in again and sprang back with a sky-high, nervous cackle. “You know I was lying—I was still going to sleep with you—right? I never tied my honor to waiting for marriage.”

  “Yes—I mean, no—I know how it sounds—”

  Nelle covered Bran’s fumbling mouth with her hand. Her pulse drummed a timpani roll, cresting louder and faster in her veins. Because a moment ago he’d twisted his hand in his own hair and looked so boyish and bashful and different from every public image she’d ever seen of him that it nearly floored her.

  “Shut up. I’m trying to figure out how we just went from one-night stand to secret marriage.”

  Bran Kelly wanted to marry her.

  What kind of vision board black magic was this.

  They stared at each other, Bran breathing through her fingers. Nelle let her hand drop.

  He rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a weird day. I thought that made sense. That it would feel good to know they’d missed something that big. In my head it—forget I said it. Do you want a lobster roll?”

  It was a bad idea. A terrible idea. Anybody she told would agree. Absolutely unadvisable.

  Do you have clearance for that?

  Nelle’s lacquered nails dug into her palm.

  But if it was a secret, she didn’t have to tell anybody. Her parents flashed in her mind. A year ago, she had sobbed over the idea that her father wouldn’t walk her down the aisle. Considering it a choice not to have him there was practically therapeutic. But Max and Mina would—

  Max and Mina wouldn’t need to know either. And that thought was pure liberation. She’d fought hard for this time off, to spend on the things that mattered in her real life. That was what it was like being a product, having to fight for your own time.

  Bran’s reasoning was jaded as hell, but it made sense to her. I don’t want to give them anything else.

  Maybe it was possible—that he had found a loophole. And he was hopeless enough to suggest it. She almost felt bad for him. How would she feel after three more years of this? Worn thin like his shirt by the constant attention? At least she’d still have a safe haven, she’d still have home.

  The point was: Bran Kelly wanted to marry her. Did it matter why? She wasn’t delusional. This wasn’t love at first sight—lust, definitely. All the lust. She’d learned to lust on Bran Kelly. But it was something, wasn’t it? That Bran Kelly wanted a little piece of her too?

  And this didn’t feel like a bad thing. She had a sense for when the universe was telling her to push forward, when to pull back. This felt like flow. An opportunity to leap, not something that would trip her up.

  “Okay.”

  “Lobster roll? I think that’s the right choice. Lots of butter, you know, fat for brain health. Get us thinking straight.”

  Nelle knocked back the rest of her drink and locked her eyes on Bran’s. “Not the lobster roll. The check. Let’s get married.”

  Chapter Three

  Bran paused with one hand on the door, the other hovering low on Nelle’s wool peacoat. He braced himself for the flash of lights that would put an end to this before they could go any further. “Do you have security waiting outside?”

  Nelle shook her head. “Not tonight. Benj is the only one who knows I’m here. Well. Besides Andre.”

  Bran opened the door, relieved to discover her faith in the bartender had not been misplaced. They were alone in the night. The snow glowed in the blue-tinged shadows, and he’d have done better to brace for the cold that bit at his face. Nelle jogged diagonally across the street to where he’d parked, the red Ferrari highlighted from above by a s
treetlamp’s triangular beam.

  What were they doing?

  What was he doing?

  Why had she agreed?

  Bran had always been impulsive, had the kind of all-or-nothing personality that left no room for middle ground. Like when he’d become obsessed with learning guitar and nearly flunked out of school. Or when he’d wanted to keep touring, writing, touring, even as the other guys were telling him they needed a break. Bran pushed. Bran had always pushed for more.

  He pushed away the thought of exactly where he’d picked up that particular trait.

  He couldn’t see Nelle clearly in the dark car but he imagined her washed out, pale under her rosy painted cheeks. That’s how she sounded when she asked to pull over in the next alley. Faint.

  He had pushed. Instead of just accepting a night of sex with a pop goddess. And now no need for a last name Nelle was going to lean out of his sports car and vomit.

  “Here?” He sidled the car up next to a dumpster.

  “That works.”

  The seat belt clicked as she unbuckled it.

  Bran leaned forward to crank the heat in anticipation of the door opening when her warm hands caught his cheeks, tugging his face towards hers. His brain stalled out as she pressed her mouth to his, freezing on the image of that lipstick print on the rim of his glass. Then he was reacting, leaning farther into her, parting her lips with his and tasting her fancy lemonade tongue. His foot eased off the brake and the car rolled forward.

  The car lurched as Bran slammed his foot back down, fumbling with the clutch in between them, unwilling to break away from the sweet tang of her. But she was pulling back, her breath hitting his face in hot puffs. She nodded with her eyes closed, released him, and buckled herself back in.

  They both stared straight ahead.

  His hands gripped the steering wheel. “What was that?”

  She sifted a hand through her hair and tossed it at the window, exposing the skin behind her ear. Skin he wanted to press his mouth against, feel the tremble of sound from her throat on his lips.

  “I had to check.”

  “Check what?”

  “That this wasn’t a waste of time. But you can kiss. And I want to kiss you more. I’m good now.”

  “You didn’t want to agree to a one-night stand slash secret marriage if I was going to fish-mouth you?”

  “Right. And you didn’t. So, we’re all set.”

  “Just based on a kiss? What if I’m bad in bed?”

  She shook her head. “There was a Reddit thread about you. Consensus is you have a big dick and you know how to use it.”

  He’d assumed it was nerves, the way she said what she was thinking so unguardedly. But maybe it was just her. And she was completely comfortable bringing his dick up in conversation. Completely capable of bringing his dick up in general.

  Bran was suddenly less comfortable, aware of the limited room in his fitted pants. “That’s not at all degrading. When did you look that up?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m good—are you good?”

  “Apparently, yes.” He knocked the car back in Drive but didn’t release the brake. “Do you need anything else? Before we go?”

  “We left without dessert.”

  “So you want to—” fuck in this alley didn’t sound great. Except that it sounded so great.

  She pulled out her phone. “There’s a Magnolia Bakery on State and Randolph, it’s a couple blocks—here.”

  He pushed the phone down, the lit map glaring through his fingers. “I don’t need directions. I know how to get there.”

  “You grew up around here? I thought I’d heard it was outside the city.”

  She was full of questions, and seemed to have a knack for narrowing in on the ones he was most reluctant to answer. Still, something about her compelled him to do it, to reveal more of himself than he would normally like—maybe he was afraid she’d walk out or kick him in the shins again if he didn’t.

  “My gran’s house was South Side. In the Ks. I spent a lot of time there.”

  “So why don’t you tell people that?”

  “Because I didn’t want them to bother her.” He tapped his teeth together, considering how much more to say. “When I was eighteen some people broke into my dad’s house.” His dad had said it was fans. Judith hadn’t even been that popular yet. For the first time it crossed Bran’s mind that his dad might have been lying. Bran shook his head. “She collected, she saved everything. That house is full of memories—memories to us that would be memorabilia in someone else’s hands. You know what it’s like—everyone thinks it’s just one touch, their touch, but it’s more than just them. And it’s your features that are worn away.”

  His jaw tensed and he couldn’t look over at her, where he felt her stare like a beam of light on his face.

  “Bran—”

  “We should go.”

  He eased the car back onto the road. Beside him Nelle exhaled. He hoped she wouldn’t press him more on what he’d said. And she must have picked up on his desire to stop talking about it, because she turned her focus to the bag resting on her lap. She tugged a white cloth from a pack and wiped her face clean as he navigated through the busy downtown streets. He inched through a gap in the crowded crosswalk and turned onto State Street. A line of gold trumpets ran along the Marshall Field’s building between two big green clocks, forming a festive arch. Red bows decorated the street posts, and fairy lights twinkled from every direction. Bran double-parked while Nelle peeled a fringe of fake lashes from her eyelids and crumpled them in the soiled wipe.

  He eyed the bustling sidewalk, the bright lights. “There’s a line. This isn’t a good idea. We’re not exactly incognito together.” They were never going to get away with this. The secret would be out before he’d have a chance to revel in it.

  “Just stay here. It’ll be fine as long as I’m quick.”

  “You’re gonna be mobbed. We don’t have security—”

  “Bran, relax. I’ve done this before. You just have to neutralize your distinguishing characteristics. It would be harder for you—because you have a recognizable jaw. There’s no time for you to grow a beard. But I just removed my entire face. I could probably do less, really. To most people I’m completely unrecognizable without all that makeup. You’ve got—here.”

  Nelle raised the cloth to his lips, bringing with it the chemical bite of makeup remover. She leaned close, rubbing away the evidence of their kiss in the alley and he used the proximity to study her face. Scrubbed of that professionally even coverage, light freckles dusted the skin under her eyes. Her cheeks, without the contouring, were fuller, rounder. Her eyes, less defined, held no less light and gleamed back at him.

  “I can still see you,” he said.

  Her mouth lifted up to the side. And then she was sitting back, gathering her hair on top of her head, containing those signature waves.

  “Give me your coat.”

  Bran blinked himself out of a daze. “Why?”

  “Because mine is nice. I’m a fashion icon. Style is one of my giveaways. Do you need anything?”

  “From in there? No.”

  When she stepped out and climbed the high curb all he saw were the red bottoms of her shoes, the detail of her tights. This was a mistake. He rolled the window down, bending to call her back in. How could no one tell that she was—

  Nelle hauled the glass door open, his jacket hanging loose on her body, her hair messy. She smiled at him. She looked normal—perfectly normal. Like she belonged there. Nobody batted an eye when she joined the line. Nobody even looked up from Instagram long enough to see that the woman with the fourth-most followers on the platform was standing in their midst.

  His thumb smoothed over the glossy emblem on the wheel as he checked the rearview mirror. A train rattled across the street behind vertical bubble lett
ers spelling CHICAGO. He scanned the storefronts on either side of the bakery.

  Light sparkled in the brightest window down the block.

  Oh.

  He reached for the blue canvas duffel behind the driver’s seat.

  He did need something.

  Chapter Four

  Nelle spun in a slow circle next to the empty car. She hadn’t been in Magnolia that long. Nobody had recognized her. There was no need for Bran to pull his chute and bail on her. Unless... She bit her lip. Unless he was completely rethinking this. Because he should be. She should be. Someone should be.

  But it wasn’t her. She’d read too many books that started with a carriage ride to Gretna Green. She’d spent too many nights imagining Bran Kelly had picked her out of a crowd and was singing just to her.

  Was it impatience or fear, anxiety or excitement, that shook her nerves?

  There—she breathed out. Bran jogged towards her on the sidewalk, a worn Sox cap pulled low over his eyes, a dark hoodie pulled up over top of that, and a scarf covering the lower half of his face.

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Remembered something.”

  “What are you wearing? You look ridiculous.”

  “Making myself indistinguishable—I’m neutralizing.” He ducked his chin into the scarf to prove his point. And he was right, he didn’t look like Bran Kelly. He looked more like Damian going incognito in Mean Girls.

  A smile pulled at her mouth. “You couldn’t find any sunglasses? Better yet, a pair of Groucho’s? I think they’d complete the ensemble.”

  “Hey. It worked. In and out, no problem. You ready?” He hopped off the high curb, peeled a ticket off the car’s dash, and slid into the driver’s seat.

  Nelle frowned, climbing in the car’s other side. “You parked in a bus lane.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not. There are rules.” She refused to take the orange-and-white envelope he held out. “That’s not my fault. I’m not paying for that.”