Teach me how

Now

Now

We're able to salvage some of the berries and fruit. Home-made whipped cream has been chilling in the fridge and we get that out too. It stands in perfect peaks, begging for something to be dipped in it.

Lee pulls the French door open for me, and I step outside. He's right behind me. I can smell him. He never used to wear cologne, and he still doesn't, but his scent envelops me. I inhale, trying to be inconspicuous about it.

Outside, the party is in full swing. Another bottle of champagne has been opened while we were gone, some of it apparently spilled and wasted, judging from the fizzing foamy liquid on the table cloth and the ground. The air smells faintly of smoke, like someone in the neighborhood has a fireplace going, and it momentarily kills the smell of sex in my nose.

Smell of sex in my nose. You're just insane, I tell myself.

"Look who it is!" Chris cries. "The man of the hour, just in from the West Coast!"

"I've been in New York, actually," Lee says, and I look at him sharply. New York? That's not far. For how long? He doesn't return the look.

Chris doesn't get up, mostly because Ella is sprawled half in her own chair, and half in his lap. She got a jar of bubbles somewhere and is blowing them into the night sky, then trying to pop them with her index finger. Mostly, she's successful, but some manage to escape. They float away until we can't see them any more.

"Are you finally back stateside for good?" Miles asks.

Lee shrugs. "Maybe."

Handshakes make their way around the table.

"Wow," Lee says. "None of you guys changed a single bit."

He's not looking in my direction, but for some reason, my ears start burning. It feels like the words were directed at me, and I fight the urge to answer something coy, like "oh, you liar."

He picks up an empty glass and serves himself sparkling wine from the half-full bottle. He raises the glass and says, "Has anyone toasted to the reunion yet?"

"Yes!" Everyone says in unison, and Ella adds, "But let's toast again! And then will someone please toast to us? Your hosts and guests of honor? No one has toasted to us yet!" She pouts, like she used to do when she was nineteen. She sets the jar of bubbles down on the table.

I sit back in my chair. The only other empty chair is next to me, and Lee takes it.

"To the reunion!" Miles says.

"Hear, hear!"

We drink. The champagne is brutally brut, as my mom likes to say; it burns my throat going down, but the cold trailing my esophagus into the stomach feels good; it cools me from the inside even as on the outside I burn with the heat I feel coming off Lee.

Lee's elbow grazes mine, searing my skin like heated metal. I put my hands in my lap.