Paper Dolls

by Emma Chamberlain

  “Serious about what?” I asked.

  She gripped my hand and I reached out to satisfy my earlier need by touching her chin and lingering there with my fingers.

  “Everything,” she breathed heavily, chest tight as she continued to stare off.

  “Hmm, can I help?” I let my finger trail down her neck and over her chest, ending up by setting it back in my lap. As I touched her she let out an uncontrolled gasp, mouth falling open as air escaped. I changed my position so that I was facing her, my back to the car door and my legs pulled up to my body.

  “You always help,” she said solemnly. She looked over at last and gave me a somewhat complex smile. We’d stopped at a light. She had a real chance to stare back and she took it.

  It wasn’t until the car in front of her began to move away that she finally turned. Every moment was intense.

  “When you look at me like that I forget where we are.” I smiled and turned down the music a little.

  I was kind of sad that the drive back wasn’t a little longer. I liked this. Both of us just feeling what it was like to be here, both in the moment. When she was thinking I could watch her closer and see all the little things she did.

  “Do you realize that sometimes you grab the right side of your bottom lip with your teeth when you’re all thinky?”

  I could see her face relax since I’d reminded her. “I do,” she answered smiling a bit more calm.

  Ever since her last meeting with Vivianne she’d been a little internal again but I could tell it wasn’t a bad thing. She was more her old self actually. The girl I first met.

  “It’s sexy,” I shrugged. “Just saying.”

  I looked out as we turned down our street. “Shame we’re already here.” I could see the perfect landscaping of the main house coming up.

  She was thinking again and driving on autopilot but she was good, turning in all the right places and going the right speed. When she turned into the driveway I turned around, letting go of her hand.

  She parked around the back, in her usual spot and, I jumped out first, eager to grab my dress from the backseat. I opened the door and grabbed it by the hanger, shutting the door when I was back outside.

  “Look, what are the odds that we would happen upon the perfect dress like this? We’ve only been looking for a few weeks.”

  I waved the dress in the air as we walked to the house.

  Olivia laughed and used her hands to stop my waving. “If you ruin that I will be upset,” she said facing me. We were almost inside. “Unless, of course, you’d rather go garbage-bag couture.”

  I stopped, lowering my head and narrowing my eyes. “Don’t even jinx us. I will tickle you until you pass out.” She was to the door by now and had it unlocked.

  I tossed the dress over my shoulder and bent a little at the waist, putting my index fingers out on either side of my head. I pawed the ground like a bull.

  I was being ridiculous but I wanted to get her to laugh. “You better go. I’m giving you a head start, Holbrook.”

  “Oh God!” She nearly jumped, a bit scared as she laughed, turned, and made a beeline for the room.

  I chased her, making sure to set the dress down nicely on the couch on our way to the bedroom. By the time I caught up with her I was in perfect line to jump her and toss her on the bed.

  “Mmm, gotcha now.”

  I ran my fingers up and down her sides, poking and wiggling them as she writhed under me.

  “You doubted my ability to keep my perfect dress pristine and had the gall to suggest I wear a garbage bag to marry you… This is what you get.”

  She was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe and I let up a little, not actually wanting her to get to the point where she passed out.

  I stopped moving my hands and just watched her recover. Her dark hair was splayed out on the bed, some of it lying on her forehead. I pushed it away and put my finger on her parted lips, dragging it down to pull her mouth open a little.

  “Fuck,” I murmured, leaning down and kissing her and feeling her immediately respond.

  She didn’t even have to try. Playing my heartstrings came naturally to her. Every touch was a symphony.

  Her hands came to my face and she pulled me into her, still breathless but wanting me. After a second I gasped and pulled away.

  “We’ve only got two more weeks of the technically single life left. Do you have any wild oats to sew before you put on the ball and chain?” I teased.

  I had used every wedding and marriage bad joke metaphor I could think of in one sentence but somehow I figured she’d be less than impressed.

  “If you’re already thinking about us like that you can go right ahead and forget the wedding,” she warned. “I’ll not be reducing you to some horrid unnecessary weight on my body that keeps me down.” She didn’t like when I joked like she was some ungrateful guy who just wanted an endless supply of sex. In reality, we’d already dealt with these thoughts. I guess I’d be mad too if she really joked about that with me. “You know there are recent psychological studies that suggest about 50 to 70 percent of the jokes people make spring directly from their truth and what they secretly believe?” She panted, still trying to come back from my little tickle fest.

  “Well, those fall in the 30 to 50 percent that aren't what I secretly believe. They do fall into the 90% of my humor that is dorky though.”

  She was a little perturbed with me, not altogether unusual. That look she was giving me was half challenge and half amusement.

  “We are good. This is happening and we are going to be disgustingly happy. Really, it'll be sickening.”

  “You’re sickening,” she bit. “Ball and chain…” She muttered right after, annoyed. I felt her fingers tighten cruelly in my hair as her legs tightened around my back and she gasped from the pressure.

  “Mmmm, you can totally keep doing that.”

  I leaned into her and tilted my head.

  She tugged a little harder and kicked my ass with one of her heels.

  Lips touched down on my neck and then her tongue as she kissed me there. “I always seem to be rewarding you for bad behavior,” she noted. “If only you weren’t so constantly irresistible. Maybe then I could breathe.”

  I let out a laugh but she was taking my humor away with mind scrambling attention with her mouth.

  “I know. I'm terrible,” I said.

  When I regained myself I sighed and rolled my eyes.

  “What are you gonna do with me?”

  I didn't move, letting her control me physically. I wanted her to have the power right now.

  I felt her body as every part of her seemed to move to smooth and caress me all generous and needy. The way she cherished me was always quite thorough. Her breathing was slow and loud because touching me did so many things to her and when she felt me she felt it everywhere.

  I rolled off of her and laid there open to whatever she wanted to do.

  “I'm yours.”

  She hovered over me and looked down. I could see the change in her instantly. As soon as I made us switch places she was soft again, tentative. That look in her eyes from the dress shop before came right back. It was wonder again, awe.

  Her hand came up to my face but she didn’t just touch me. Only two or three of her fingertips touched down as her mouth hung open just a bit and she shallowly gasped when they touched down and slowly dragged down my cheek with light pressure and her eyes flared.

  I could see in her now, how young she was for this world, how scared and how open. We were so much the same and yet so much was different. When she was like this I knew, she couldn’t see or feel time, only me. It wasn’t just her body that slowed down. Her thoughts did too. I could see her gears working slower, see how much she wanted to stop time and just feel me. It was deathly serious, every time that it happened. It didn’t matter that it happened often. Every time would be important and new.

  “I like when you look at me like that.”

  She held me wi
th her eyes and I lingered there, wanting to stay in her. I took a deep breath and I reached up to touch her cheek.

  Her mouth opened wider as she tilted her head back a bit, leading my thumb to her jaw but keeping my gaze. That familiar flicker of her eyes happened right then. Somehow, just seeing me, it always became a little too heavy for her. She turned her lips into my thumb and kissed it before coming back to stare at me unfazed.

  We didn't need it to escalate into anything. This was perfect. It was why we were solid even when it didn't seem to be the case. Under all the layers we had a basic understanding that this was our journey and we would both never leave it.

  “I'm obsessed with your jawline.”

  It was one of those things I'd never said out loud but I assumed she knew.

  “Yeah,” she gasped a laugh. “I’ve kinda noticed that.”

  She kept on staring as she took my wrist and led my fingertips to touch her jawline again starting from one end and slowly traveling round to the other. She held my hand still and moved her head so I wouldn’t have to do anything. “I like when you lick it,” she said, finally leaning her head back and shutting her eyes to break our on-going staring contest. “But when you touch and stare. That’s good too.”

  She shook her hair back and smiled as she looked back down. This time though she only caught my eyes a second before dancing her gaze over the rest of me. I felt her hands come down and put my wrists back into the bed as she leaned into me and breathed loud.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Everything about you is sexy.”

  She seemed pained by that as her hands traveled down my forearms, to my elbows, and back up into my hands. She entwined her fingers with mine and pushed all of her weight down into our hands so the backs of mine had to press hard into the comforter and sink, taking all of her upper-body weight. My eyes instinctively flew down to her chest. Her tank clung tight about her body and from this angle I could see her bra holding her breasts in safe and tight right beneath.

  When she got dressed this morning I was already turned on. She never had to try. Her clothes were so simple and yet they always killed me. She’d nothing on except a smooth white spaghetti-strap tank and a high-waisted black skirt that naturally flared. It was the kind of outfit that seemed sort of fancy yet only half-way there. The kind of thing someone would wear before or after performing in a symphony, her tank a little thin so you could see her perfect black bra right through it. Embellishments could be added to make it completely formal but she didn’t care. Until then she just breathed sex. And it was an accident. I knew her well enough to know that. She hadn’t thought on it at all but I did, I thought on it all day.

  In a lot of ways she was just like a dream. That effortless girl who seemed to walk on a cloud until you got inside and saw all the heavy weight in her.

  Then she rained down on you and the water helped you grow.

  “I'll remember that,” I told her.

  The feeling of her hands holding mine down was magnetic. They wouldn't separate without being forced.

  Tomorrow we would have a whole day to hang out with nowhere to be and nothing to do.

  My parents were going to be leaving for a surprise cruise that my dad had been planning for awhile so I didn't have dinner with them.

  We had time until the wedding fever ramped up next week. My birthday was two weeks from today and then I would legally be considered an adult.

  That meant a lot of different things to me but the technical freedom of it excited me.

  I could marry Olivia and no one had the right to say I couldn't. Even though my parents were on board it still meant something.

  As she pressed her body into mine I smiled, knowing that we had thousands of nights like this ahead of us, dates willing.

  The Bachelorette

  Chapter 9

  Olivia

  I’m not quite sure how we got into this. Natalie and Skylar made us meet them on Monday night. well after Avery’s usual swim practice. Avery thought for sure it was about their relationship but I knew better. Why on Earth would Natalie find it necessary to brief me on whatever sexcapades she and Skylar were into now? Nat was all about discretion until it came to a challenge and, better yet, foreplay.

  Our days with that were done. I was no longer going to tease her or allow her to think I was unaware of her feelings. And she was no longer going to pretend there hadn’t been feelings in the first place. We had an unofficial understanding. We never talked about it but we never needed too. As I’ve said before, we have a code.

  Often, I worried that I knew what was happening while she wasn’t aware. But last time I saw Nat, things were pretty much calm and supportive on both sides. We weren’t as touchy as we were at the golf place and there wasn’t as much unresolved tension. It was actually really fucking nice.

  “So… We're just… We’re just going to let this happen?”

  Avery was worried.

  I wasn’t sure if that worry had been something bubbling up since we met with our friends on Monday. All I knew was, right now, for sure, she was scared.

  “Babe, what do you mean?” I laughed. She was acting so stressed out.

  It was Thursday now. We had decided that we would consider Thursday our last single night.

  The wedding was this Saturday. We planned on going to the house early and alone on Friday night to just sink into the space and make ourselves feel a little more ready.

  It was Thursday now and Thursday was to be our very last single night.

  On Monday, when Nat and Sky sat us down at that place, and Nat cleared her throat, I swear I already knew what was coming. That look on Nat’s face was pure evil and I knew exactly what it meant: Trouble.

  “You’re getting married in less than a week.”

  Those were her first words. I swear they nearly hit me, they were so intense.

  “Okay?” I laughed awkwardly. “And?”

  What did that have to do with anything else? That wasn’t new.

  “And we weren’t exactly sure what kind of bachelorette party the two of you would want.”

  “What?!” Avery scoffed, nearly spitting her water out as she half-choked on it.

  I stared over at Sky. This was certainly interesting. I was entirely amused that she would be in on this. Avery didn’t exactly strike me as the kind of person who could enjoy something like a bachelorette party. But then, in a lot of ways, Sky knew Avery a lot better than I did. Maybe I was wrong? It all intrigued me, all of it.

  “Well, you know us,” I teased, turning my gaze back to Nat as I sat back and crossed my arms. “Avery and I are all about trashy cliché parties and secretly fucking other girls…” I stared daggers into Nat before switching my gaze over to Skylar. Were they kidding? It was a fun joke.

  “It’s tradition. You have to do something, Livia,” Nat said, throwing a sugar packet at me.

  The way she was sitting with Skylar was cute. I could tell Skylar wasn’t comfortable but Nat sure as hell was. Whatever Avery thought about all of this I couldn’t tell. I’ll tell you one thing though, I couldn’t wait to find out.

  “I’m fine doing nothing,” I said, looking over at the love of my life. I was pretty sure Avery would NOT be interested in the idea of me and some strippers. She couldn’t even take me and a chaste kiss with my ex.

  “Umm, same. I’m not really into anything that could be remotely considered bachelorette-ish.” Avery broke her silence.

  “Well, it’s not up to you,” Natalie said. “Your wedding party is supposed to take care of these things. Your bridesmaids, to be exact.”

  “Oh god,” Avery said, covering her face.

  “Right,” Skylar said, a little nervous but obviously a little curious too. “So, Holland’s not here and this was sort of her idea. We talked about it.” She seemed a little scared to piss Avery off. “Thursday’s your last single night so we have to do it then.”

  “Wait, this was Holland’s idea?” Avery started to pull out her phone. That knowledge
changed things for her. “She should know better.”

  “Well, sort of,” Skylar shrugged. “Neither of us really knew what we should do. But Natalie’s right, isn’t she? You can’t just… Get married without a bachelorette party. And you can’t really have a party with you both together. So of course the idea of a strip club made the most sense.”

  I laughed without meaning to. “This is… This is fun,” I said, feeling more than amused. I was probably blushing. My smile was surely undeniable.

  “Oh, you’re going somewhere else,” Natalie said, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head as she stared right at me.