Page 90 of Vera Stein Is Fine
“Oh, Eli, come on. You can’t even be in the same room with me without making a face. I get that I’m not your favorite person, but you’ve never even pretended to like me.”
I took the decimated cake from her lap and set it on the bedside table before crossing my legs and turning to face her.
She shifted a little so that she was doing the same, our knees touching. I knew I couldn’t have her. I knew that. But I couldn’t let her wake up in the morning with this thought in her head.
“I don’thateyou, Vera. You piss me off sometimes because you can’t let an argument die. And you don’t see how smart you are. In big groups, you say smart things under your breath instead of out loud. Sometimes your hair gets so frizzy that I wonder if it’s a cry for help. I also wish you’d put yourself first.” I nearly addedover Brody, but that wasn’t going to help anything.
“Sounds like you have a growing list there.” She twirled her finger around a loose curl. Her veil sat discarded next to the TV, but she still wore the ring. “I don’t hate you either.”
“Well, that’s good, because we’re legally bound together.”
Her finger danced along the blanket and then across my kneecap, tracing circles there. I didn’t know a knee could have so many nerve endings, but I felt her touch coursing up my leg like a rapidly spreading burn.
I cleared my throat. “Um, I just wanted to say that I can call my familyattorney tomorrow and I’ll cover the cost of the annulment. You don’t need to worry about that.”
She nodded and then looked up at me, her brown eyes heavy with something that felt like curiosity. “Let’s not worry about that tonight, okay?”
“Okay.”
Her touch expanded from one finger to her whole hand as her palm slid up my thigh.
I watched the path she made and inhaled sharply.
“Itisour wedding night,” she said, and then glanced behind me to the closed door of the bedroom.
I agreed with a nod, because if I spoke, my voice just might crack like that of a boy in the throes of puberty.
The truth was some days I didn’t like Vera. Some days I was so angry with her for making me feel this uncertain and uncontrollable. My whole life had fit into tidy boxes before her. My feelings took up just enough space without becoming tyrannical. My dreams were given to me the moment I was born, and I didn’t feel the need to consider much beyond that.
And then Vera appeared in my life on Halloween and she was everything I wasn’t supposed to be interested in. She was aimless and unrefined and I thought I was jealous of her. But that wasn’t the case at all. I wasn’t jealous of Vera. I was jealous of everyone who knew her better than I did. Who held more pieces of the puzzle that made her.
Her other hand, the one with my ring—the ring that promised she was mine, if only for a night—slid up my thigh until both hands were at the critical juncture of my hips. Just inches from the fly of my baby-blue trousers.
“Some people say a marriage isn’t legitimate until it’s consummated.”
“I think the whole point of the annulment is to prove—”
She pressed a finger to my lips like I’d done to her earlier tonight in the souvenir shop. The moment felt like a decade ago. Like we’d lived a hundred lives since I’d bought that display case of crystal trinkets.
“Vera, I need you to know that I’m not a good person and if you areimplying what I think you’re implying, you shouldn’t expect me to be a gentleman. I won’t say no.”
She rocked forward onto her knees and braced herself on my shoulders so that I was at eye level with her breasts. I nearly leaned forward and ghosted my lips over the fabric covering her nipples, but I needed to know first if she was certain.
I tilted my head back, looking for a response.
“Good,” she said. “I’m not saying no either.”
With that last bit of encouragement, I reached up and snaked my arms around her, and pulled her into my lap. I pressed my face into the crevice of her cleavage and breathed her scent in. Cucumber melon and the slightest bit of sweat.
Her back arched forward as she surrendered to me.
I lay back and pulled her on top of me so that she straddled my hips.
“I don’t want to put too much weight on you,” she whispered.
I held her glorious, full hips in my hands and looked into her eyes with the utmost sincerity. “I cannot stress this enough, Vera. I want to feel you everywhere. I want you to let go.”
Her brow creased as she considered the possibility.
