I smirk. I take Aya’s long hair and wind it around my hand like a rope, giving it a little tug.
“I like pulling it too much,” I admit.
She inhales sharply as I pull. “I like that too,” she says, and I start working the conditioner through her hair.
“I like your hair the way it is,” I tell her. “But it’s up to you. Blue, black, pink. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Thanks. It’s just… after the wedding, being all prim and proper and styled in a way that was so not me…”
“You feel like you need to rebel or something?” I wonder.
“Maybe.”
“Gonna get yourself a pair of combat boots and some heavy black eyeliner?” I tease her. “Get a bunch of tattoos?”
I rub my fingertips up her ribs, tracing an intricate tiger design.
“Already did that,” she jokes.
“I like them.”
“Me too.”
“Well, that’s a relief. You’re kind of stuck with them.”
She laughs for a second. Then pauses. “You know what I mean though, right?”
I finish rinsing the conditioner from her hair.
“Yeah,” I assure her. “When we do this thing up at the lake, we’ll do it our way. If you want to wear jeans and sneakers, that’s what we’ll do.”
“What if I want to wear my Pleasers?” she asks, referring to the eight-inch high platform faux-leather boots she wears to teach pole dancing classes.
I cock an eyebrow, trying not to let on how hot that would be.
“If you wanted,” I tell her, coolly. “If you wanted to do a naked wedding in the middle of the woods…”
“Yeah, everybody would be really on board with that,” she says.
She’s being sarcastic. They would not.
We finish up in the shower, towel off and climb into bed. Neither of us bother putting on clothes. Aya pushes me to my back to have her way with me. She rides me until her head rolls back and she cries out my name.
When she comes, I take her by the waist and pull her underneath me, snapping my hips up into her until I come, groaning into her neck and panting wildly.
“Let’s not do a wedding,” she says, and I’m not sure I hear her correctly.
“Let’s not? What?”
“Let’s just get a cabin by the lake and stay in bed for two days,” she laughs.
I kiss her cheek, smiling against her soft skin. “What’s the point of inviting our friends, then?” I wonder.
“They’ll figure out how to amuse themselves.”
I laugh. Aya’s got that post-orgasm goofy smile on her face, and it’s so damn cute. I kiss her until she stops giggling and then try to clean up before we both fall asleep.
I pull the covers up over the pair of us and wrap my arms around her.
“Whatever you want, sweetheart,” I tell her.
Five
Aya
A few days later, Shawn and I make the drive up to a small town about three hours outside of Los Angeles on the river valley. We’ve been camping there a few times before, but thankfully Shawn opted to book rooms in a lodge. I was definitely not going to spend my wedding night in a tent.
“Thanks,” I tell the desk attendant as he hands us the room key.
I look around the cute, little lobby as the attendant tells Shawn about the barbecue pits, the general store down the road, and the best place to start if you’re planning to float down the river in an inner tube.
“Sounds fun,” he says.
Suddenly, I hear buzzing. It’s not my phone, so it must be Shawn’s. He silences it while he speaks to the desk attendant, but whoever is calling him is persistent. They keep calling and Shawn keeps ignoring it until they finally give up.
When we get to the room, I ask him about it.
“Who was that?” I ask him. “Who keeps calling you?”
Shawn sighs. It’s that one particular sigh that lets me know exactly who’s calling.
“Donna?”
He nods. It’s his mother.
Shawn’s mother has been making some feeble attempts to get back into his life for a while now. A few calls here and there. Maybe a text message or two. But she didn’t come to the wedding and she’s been hesitant to meet in person.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Shawn shrugs. He’s not. His mother calling and texting but refusing to sit down and talk in person messes with his head. I know that he has a lot to say to her, and he wants to say it to her face.
He doesn’t say anything. He just takes our bags and lugs them towards the cabin.
As he throws his duffel bag on the bed, I grab his hand.
“Please don’t shut me out,” I beg him. “I know it’s a lot, but…”
Shawn takes my hand and squeezes it. “I won’t shut you out Aya,” he says, softly. “Not intentionally. It’s just…” He struggles to find the words. “She’s had years. Why now?”
“I don’t know.”
“She chose alcohol over me. Hundreds of times,” he continues. “And I still offered her a place in my life.”
“I know, Shawn.”
“She didn’t come to my high school graduation or any of the shows when the band was finally making it big. Or even come to the wedding. But she’ll call and text like it’s no big deal. I just don’t understand it.”
“I mean, if I chose my addiction over my family, I wouldn’t be too keen on facing them any time soon,” I tell him. “I would probably think they wanted to yell at me and rub my nose in it.”
“I do want to yell at her,” he confesses.
“Really?”
“Yes. God help me, but a lot of the things I want to say to her aren’t going to be nice. She left me when I needed her. She left my dad to get sober on his own. I… I need her to hear that. I need to know that she understands how deeply she hurt us.”
“I get that,” I concede.
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where she lives?”
“Mobile home park about half an hour from here,” he answers.
“That’s not too far,” I tell him. “And the others won’t be here till tomorrow. I mean… we could…”
He shakes his head no. “Come on, Aya. Tonight is supposed to be our night.”
“Answer me honestly,” I order him. “Are you gonna be totally present here for our night? Or are you going to be here with me, but your mind is somewhere else?”
He smirks. “You got me.”
“Shawn, it’s not that I want to be right,” I assure him. “I just don’t want this looming over us.”
He starts unpacking. “We can go in the morning.”
“Or we can go now.”
Six
Shawn
The drive to the mobile home park from the lodge is short and uneventful. Aya drives, even though she hates driving, because I’m too tightly wound to be behind the wheel again.
We’re quiet, too. We’re never quiet in the car. Especially Aya. Her ability to talk about nothing and keep me laughing even when I’m stressed is one of my favorite things about her.