Well, I did want to roll around on him like a baby seal… “I just had another orgasm. Does what we’re doing count as sex?”
“I’m not exactly proud of my performance, but sure. Let’s say it was sex and get a fucking cab.”
“This is some hot, hot, snowy street sex if you ask me.”
“Legendary.”
I try to stabilize myself so I can plant a kiss on his lips and then roll off him and help him up. We dust snow off ourselves and each other. There’s no one else around to either ignore us or ask us if we’re okay, so we just pick everything up and then trudge up to Sixth Avenue to get a cab to the hotel.
As soon as we’re in the hotel elevator alone together, I am so eager to get naked, I frantically start trying to unzip my coat, but the zipper’s stuck. I attempt to pull it off over my head and get lost in the dark puffiness of it, and now strands of my hair are hair stuck in the zipper. So that’s wonderful.
I can hear Eddie laughing, which is not cool.
I’ve managed to remove my arms from the sleeves, so I twist around, trying to slap him with them. Within seconds, he has pulled the coat up over my head, but I warn him that my hair is caught now.
The elevator dings, the doors slide open, and Eddie carries all of the bags, while laughing, and I hold my puffy coat up over my head like the world’s worst headdress. “Are you turned on right now?”
“More than words can say.” He has to stop walking so he can laugh even harder.
Ten minutes later, we’re in the room, at the edge of the king-size bed, and he has gently freed my frizzy locks from their captor. As soon as he has, I push him down, climb on top of him, and try to unzip his coat, but the stupid zipper gets stuck on his sweater.
“What the fuck, coat?!”
Eddie is laughing harder than ever now, the silent kind that’s giving his abs a workout, and he is completely useless to me as I try to wrestle his coat and sweater up off over his head.
By the time the whole ordeal is over, I actually am covered in flop sweat and so exhausted I don’t even remember how sex works. Something goes in something, there’s movement involved, and that just sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.
I toss our coats to the floor, grab two pillows for us and stretch out beside him, sighing. “Short nap then sex?”
He grunts quietly, but his eyes are already closed.
We’re together, and that’s all that matters.
We wordlessly settle into a spooning position. He nuzzles the back of my neck. I swear I have another little orgasm before drifting off to sleep.
27
Eddie
The One Before the One with the Valentines
I remember when I was sixteen, going to school on Valentine’s Day and getting candy grams from twenty-seven different girls. I had a crush on a really hot senior, so I gave all twenty-seven heart-shaped lollipops to her at lunch. She then thanked me by giving me a blow job, under a blanket, in the back seat of her Honda Civic. We both blew off the school dance that night and went to the seven-thirty showing of The Wolfman because that chick movie Valentine’s Day was sold out, and she gave me a hand job in the back row of the theater.
I thought that was a great Valentine’s Day.
But it was a steaming pile of horse shit compared to this one because I woke up with Birdie Beckett in my arms. I love her a lot when she’s awake, but I really love to watch her sleep. In a non-creepy, appreciative way. I’m pretty sure she dreams about rapping Degas ballerinas, Egon Spengler, and me. I’m very sure that that brain of hers will never stop thrilling and delighting and confounding me.
We spent most of yesterday in this hotel room, and neither one of us has any regrets about it. All of New York is out there waiting for us, but there was so much of each other that we needed to explore once we woke up from our five-hour nap. This hotel is library-themed, and I couldn’t have designed a more perfect room for her if I tried. I fully intend to take her to Central Park and The Met museum later this morning, after ordering room service. But first, I’m going to let Birdie do this thing that she seems really intent on doing.
It involves her mouth and her hands and my cock, and I am all for it.
She treats my body the way she has always treated the rest of me—with studious attention to detail, a keen understanding of my sensitivities and needs, affection, and an enjoyment of certain aspects of me that many women don’t pay enough attention to.
The way she slides one soft hand up and down my shaft, along with her mouth, while cupping my balls, for instance.
“Fuck. Baby. That feels so good.”
She groans with pleasure, and it just about does me in.
I reach behind myself to grab on to the headboard. There’s a sense of discovery in the way she does things, but she is so bold, and it turns me on like nothing else ever has. She wants to make me feel good, like the best kind of friend and lover.
“Birdie…” It pains me to say this, but… “Baby, you need to stop. I want to fuck you and I need to do it now.”
She sucks and licks me one more time before kissing her way up my abdomen, my chest. She kisses along my jaw and nibbles on my ear lobe, and then she straddles me, adjusts herself so my erection is nestled between her ass cheeks, wiggles around, and goddammit. “You are the hottest woman I’ve ever been with, and you need to know that.”
She laughs quietly, smirking. She doesn’t believe me, and it’s killing me.
I take her face in my hands. Her mane of wavy hair hangs loose around her. She looks wild and demure at the same time, and I am mad for her. “You are. Your hair. This hair.” I comb my fingers through it, massage her scalp, and then tug on the strands. “Your beautiful crazy hair.” I kiss her lips. “This beautiful puffy mouth and all the things you say with it.” I stroke her dark eyebrows with my thumbs. “These beautiful blue eyes and the way you see through me.” I kiss her neck, from her shoulder up to that spot behind her ears, until her head tilts back and she sighs. “This beautiful long neck.” I catch her earlobe between my teeth. “The way you actually listen to what I say.” And then my tongue finds her breasts, and I forget to tell her how beautiful they are with words, but she gets my meaning.
I can feel exactly how much she gets it. She sits up, the covers fall from her shoulders. I glide one of my hands from her hip, up the side of her, to her face. She tilts her head and takes my thumb into her mouth, sucking on it. With a kind of gentle passion and urgency that makes me want to take care of her and fuck her senseless for the rest of my life.
That’s how it is with us. This easy, comfortable camaraderie. A desire to do what’s right for both of us—whatever it takes for us to be together—underscored with a restrained yearning. And then all of a sudden, an undeniable ache and longing, followed by an intense need to just fucking do it already.
I flip her onto her back. Her legs bend and spread apart, feet flat on the mattress. She is breathing heavily, and she is hungry for me. “This right here—the way your body opens up for me.” I position myself at her entrance, skin-to-skin, because that’s how we do it now. “That’s beautiful, and it’s so hot.”
She grabs my face, pulls herself up to kiss me, and then drops back down. “I get it, I’m hot. I’m hot and I’m so wet for you—just fuck me already.”
“You got it.” I press inside her. Slowly at first and then hard, and the way she squeezes her eyes shut and sucks in her breath when she feels the hot sting of my hard cock entering her is so sexy. I want to hear it again, so I do it again. Her back arches. She reaches for my shoulders, wraps her legs around mine, takes me in deeper. “I love you.” There’s nothing else I need to say to her right now and I don’t have to hold those words back anymore.
“I love you.” She says it like it feels so good and hurts just a little, and that’s about right.
I can fuck her slow and steady or I can fuck her hard and fast, and she’ll still know that I love her.
So, I do both.
I
make love to Birdie Beckett, slow and steady.
And then I fuck her hard and fast like our lives depend on it.
I fuck her until we’re both slick with sweat and hoarse from gasping and groaning and screaming. I fuck her until she’s come apart beneath me, on top of me, in front of me. And then I come inside her when she begs me to, because it’s what we both want and need and because I have to give everything to her, in every way possible.
I don’t know how else to do it anymore.
There’s the flash of awareness, the darkness and the nothingness, and then there’s just Birdie, calling me home.
As much as I love the sex, I think it’s the after part that I used to wonder about with her. With other women, I always wanted to leave as soon as the sex was over. But with Birdie, I want to stay. It’s as simple as that.
She faces me. Our heads share a pillow. I kiss her forehead, stroke her hair. She traces circles around my pecs with her fingertip, staring at my chest.
“So, I went ahead and booked us first-class tickets back to LA. On a plane. Will you be okay with that?”
“I think I’ll be okay with it if I’m with you…” She buries her face in my chest.
Goddammit, I don’t know if my heart can take much more of this.
“I’m not afraid of much of anything anymore, to be honest. Maybe because of the orgasms you gave me?” She looks up at me, grinning.
“Yes. You can go ahead and make ‘Because of the orgasms Eddie gave me’ the standard reason for all the positive things in your life, going forward.”
She holds her index finger up in declaration. “This steak is perfect and delicious—because of the orgasms Eddie gave me.”
“Hey, it says here your Amazon package will be delivered a day early—because of the orgasms I gave you.”
“Every single Amtrak train is arriving on time today, for the first time in history—because of the orgasms you gave me.”
“‘I don’t even feel like watching Sherlock ever again because of the orgasms Eddie gave me.’”
“Okay, you need to get over yourself, because nothing will ever make me stop watching Sherlock.”
“Fair enough.” I kiss the top of her head. “Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.” Five words I never imagined I’d hear myself saying unless someone else wrote them and I was paid to say them.
“Happy Valentine’s Day… Did you know that the first known Valentine card was sent by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife? His second wife. He wrote her a poem when he was being held prisoner in the Tower of London. During the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. He used the term Valentine, to refer to his wife.”
“I did not know that.” I kiss her forehead again because I love that brain behind it.
“Mmhmm. It’s in the manuscript collection at the British Library.”
“Well then, I must take you there. We’ll have to fly to London, though. Gonna have to insist on that.”
“Okay.”
“I made you a bunch of Valentines. They’re in my coat pockets. Wanna see?”
“I made you some too. They’re in my bag.”
“Should we get out of bed and get them?”
She nuzzles up against me, and I pull the covers up over our shoulders. “Eventually.”
28
* The One with the Valentines *
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Your butt is fantastic,
And your abs are nice too.
-- Birdie
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Your nipples are like rosebuds,
And now that’s all I can think about.
-- Eddie
R4 is red,
R2 is blue,
I am the Force
And I be with you.
-- Birdie
Baby, Yoda one for me.
-- Eddie
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Your Penis Station is my first stop
And the last stop too.
-- Birdie
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
My love life is finally on track,
Now that I’m railing you.
-- Eddie
Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be arriving at our destination late, because Eddie Cannavale’s caboose is smokin’.
-- Birdie
Baby, I missed you even more than I missed that train in Chicago.
-- Eddie
You must be the Hogwarts Express, because when I ride you, I’m transported to a magical place.
-- Birdie
You must be a Dementor, because it feels like I’m dying a little every time you kiss me.
-- Eddie
My vagina is a Horcrux and you’re the only one who can destroy it.
-- Birdie
I was going to give you a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, but you already have a sweet box.
-- Eddie
Archivists do it with gloves on, but I’m taking mine off for you.
-- Birdie
If you were an art history book, I’d need a magnifying glass to read you because your print would be fine.
-- Eddie
I’m going to catalog you under “Boyfriend.”
-- Birdie
You have a degree in Library Sciences? Baby, I’m gonna check you out and never return you.
-- Eddie
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
P.S. I finished reading Infinite Jest
What the actual fuck?!
-- Eddie
Chapter Twenty-Nine
DECLAN: You crazy kids make it home okay?
EDDIE: If by “kids” you mean two high-functioning twenty-six-year-old adults and by “crazy” you mean “crazy in-love” and by “okay” you mean “barfed only once on the plane” and “barfed twice at LAX because she drank so much on the plane,” then yes. We made it home okay. Although, we are currently in two separate apartments, so she might still be barfing and not telling me.
BIRDIE: I am not barfing! Declan, I would just like to point out that your brother held my hand during the entire plane ride, from taxiing to landing. Even when he was holding the barf bag for me.
DECLAN: That doesn’t sound like him.
EDDIE: And also while I did something under a strategically placed blanket. To help her relax.
DECLAN: That’s more like it.
MADDIE: Ahhh, the ol’ Cannavale “let me help you relax” move. I’m familiar with that one.
MADDIE: Absolutely loved meeting you, Birdie!
BIRDIE: I want to be you when I grow up, Maddie!
MADDIE: I want to come to LA so you can be my guide at the museums there too! I loved experiencing The Met and MOMA with you.
BIRDIE: Yes! I can give you a special VIP tour of the archives at the Getty! I know exactly where I can take you for lunch after! I’m so excited!
MADDIE: I’ll look at the calendar and see what works!
DECLAN: Am I invited on this trip to LA, or is this a girl thing? It feels like a girl thing.
EDDIE: I definitely feel left out of this conversation… Baseball. Beer. Boobs.
DECLAN: Fiduciary relationship. Annual reports. Indemnification.
MADDIE: I’ll start another text convo with you, Birdie.
BIRDIE: Just sent you a text, Maddie!
EDDIE: Let’s just bump Declan off this one.
DECLAN: That would be stupid because I’m hilarious.
EDDIE: Way to clear a room, bro.
DECLAN: I’ll just keep writing awesome texts until you people realize how awesome I am.
EDDIE: Seriously, though. How great is my girlfriend?
DECLAN: She’s amazing. I’m so glad you finally took my ducking advice.
EDDIE: You never actually gave me any ducking advice about her, but thanks.
DECLAN: It was implied.
EDDIE: Right. Like your awesomeness.
DECLAN: Precisely. If you would like direct advice, you must ask for it directly. And you might get charged for billable hours.
EDDIE: I’m thinking it feels weird not being in the same apartment as Birdie now. Is it too soon to tell her we should move in together?
DECLAN: Yes.
BIRDIE: No! Let’s discuss!
MADDIE: You’re asking for advice from the man who asked his assistant to be his fake girlfriend?
DECLAN: All right, that’s it. I’m charging all of you for billable hours starting ten minutes ago.
BIRDIE: I’m still here, Declan. But I don’t think it’s too soon for Eddie and me to discuss moving in together.
DECLAN: Birdie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
BIRDIE: Well, I am awfully good at being friends with Cannavale boys…
A Very Friendly Valentine's Day Page 17