Alex’s head lists toward mine. His temple settles, snug against my cheekbone “No. But I’ve heard about it.”
“What have you heard?”
He wraps his hands around my wrists, his thumbs grazing my pulse points. “The gist. You get rid of stuff you have no use for.Keep what you do. Then organize it in a way that you can find and use what you’ve kept. Basically, how I keep my kitchen.”
I smile. “Right. There’s a phrase she uses to guide that discernment process. You only keep what ‘sparks joy.’?” I squeeze him tight. “For me, you spark joy.”
Alex is quiet for a moment, then says, “So that means… you’ll keep me?”
For as long as I can.
“Yep,” I tell him. “But it also means you spark joy.”
Alex’s grip slides up my arm, tugging me around the chair, toward him, onto his lap. I land with my hands on his shoulders to steady myself. His hands settle on my waist, thumbs brushing my hip bones.
Our eyes hold. And then he pulls me close, wraps his arms tight around my waist. I curl mine around his neck and breathe him in. Warm skin, clean spice.
My phone’s timer goes off, but neither of us move.
His voice is hoarse, so quiet, I almost miss it. “You spark my joy, too, Ted.”
“This crème brûlée,” I tell Alex, “sparks my joy.”
“Your ‘crème brûlée sparks my joy’ noises,” Alex says, “spark my joy.”
I peer over at Alex beside me, both of us stretched across the floor in front of the fireplace, heads propped on Mia’s gigantic beanbag. The spoon slips from my mouth. “Oh no. Was I making foodgasm noises again?”
Alex coughs, I’m pretty sure to hide a laugh, then scrunches up his face. “Nah. Not at all.”
“Ughh.” Mortified, I tug up the hood on his sweatshirt that I borrowed and yank the drawstrings tight, until all that’s left is a small circle that I can barely see out of.
A second later, I hear his phone’s shutter-click sound.
“Alex!” I yell.
“No yelling!” he whispers. “Mia’s sleeping.”
I hiss back, “Seriously? A picture?”
I reach for his hand holding his phone, but with my limited vision, I end up half-punching the ceramic ramekin he’s holding in the other.
Alex yells, “Back off my crème brûlée!”
“No yelling!” I parrot in a whisper. “Mia’s sleeping.”
Alex snorts. “You honestly could yell, I’ve got her sound machine blasting, and once she’s out for the night, she’s out. I was just trying to sidetrack you.”
I growl in frustration, lunging for him again. “I want that photo deleted!”
“It sparks my joy!” he yells. “That means I should keep it!”
I yank at my hood to widen my field of vision, set my ramekin on the floor beside me, then dive onto him.
“Ted!” he wheezes as I throw myself across his body, reaching for his phone. “Hold on. Let me—”
He turns enough to set his ramekin on the ground, and as he does, I get a good grip on his phone, then yank it out of his hand.
Alex is breathing heavily as he rolls toward me, his hair poking out everywhere from wrestling against the beanbag. He props himself on an elbow, takes his phone back, unlocks it, then hands it back to me. “Go on,” he says. “Delete it. Unspark my joy.”