Ten. Nine. Eight.
I’m standing with Evan and Bouch. Collette is across the room with the girls. We’re twenty feet apart, surrounded by people, and I can’t kiss my wife at midnight.
Seven. Six. Five.
She looks at me, and I look at her. The room is counting down, and we’re having an entire conversation without saying a word.
Four. Three. Two. One.
“Happy New Year!” The room explodes with champagne, cheers, and confetti. Couples are kissing everywhere. Pierre dips Issy, and the crowd goes wild.
My phone buzzes.
Collette: Happy New Year, husband. I wish I was kissing you right now.
Fish: Happy New Year, wife. Meet me in the hallway now!
Collette: Justin ...
Fish: East corridor. The one by the coat check.
I excuse myself from the boys. “Bathroom,” I tell Evan, who gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me but won’t push it. Thankfully, the east corridor is empty. The music from the ballroom is muffled through the walls. I lean against the wall and wait for my wife. Thirty seconds later, she rounds the corner, champagne glass in hand, cheeks flushed, eyes bright.
“We have about two minutes before someone notices we’re both gone,” she says.
“Then let’s not waste it.” I pull her to me and kiss her.My wife.At midnight on New Year’s Eve, in a corridor of a hotel, while her brother celebrates his engagement on the other side of the wall. She tastes like champagne and happiness and home. Her hand cups my face, and I feel the cold band of her ring through the chain she’s pulled out from under her dress, and everything in the world is right.
“Happy New Year, Lettie,” I whisper against her mouth.
“Happy New Year, Justin.”
“This year is going to be our year,” I tell her.
“I know.” She kisses me one more time, quick and fierce, before she has to go. She slips back into the ballroom. I wait sixty seconds, straighten my collar, and follow.
Evan is exactly where I left him. He takes one look at my face.
“Bathroom, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“You have lipstick on your collar.”
I look down.Fuck.I rub at it with my thumb.
“Happy New Year, Fish.” He smirks, raising his glass.
“Happy New Year, Evan.”
We clink glasses, and I watch my wife across the room, laughing with her brothers, wearing my ring where nobody can see it, carrying our secret into a new year.
It’s going to be one hell of a year.
35
FISH
Or so I thought.