Tori|
"Where are we going?"
"Do you need to hear the definition of a surprise again?"
"Maybe."
"Siri, define surprise."
"A noun that means: an unexpected or astonishing event, fact, or thing."
I laugh, blindly reaching for her until her fingers slide like connecting puzzle pieces into the spaces between my own. Pulling her hand back into my lap, I follow the hills and valleys of her knuckles with habitual fondness.
"Since when is Jade West into surprises?" I ask with a cheeky grin. I don't need to see to know she's rolling her eyes at me; blindfold and all, I can perfectly picture her emerald eyes tracing a circle out the windshield.
"I mean, if you don't want the surprise I guess we can just turn around and go home -" The car begins to slow as Jade applies the break, and I think of the place we both call our home: our seaside apartment hugging the shoreline, California sunlight spilling into our room, our bed, our bodies - I think of the animal skeletons on our shelves beside our collection of playbills, a dentist's model of teeth next to a vase of flowers, these two seemingly opposing aesthetics so seamlessly woven together and so normal to me now that they are no longer Jade's things and my things occupying the same space; they are our things in our home.
It is my favorite place in the entire world, but I laugh and raise the back of her hand to my mouth, peppering it with kisses until I hear her laugh.
"No! By all means, romance me."
"Oh, I'm going to romance the shit out of you, Tori Vega."
It's my turn to laugh. She releases my hand and a moment later I find out why - the radio turns up, and when Jade's hand finds mine again she does it in song.
With eternal love, the stars above
All there is and ever was
I want it all, I want it all
I want it all, I want it all
Her voice has always been the siren I can't ignore. I would follow it to the depths of the ocean. Giggling, heart pounding, I fumble to lower the window and sing loud and blind into the wind for anyone around to listen.
A blade of grass, a grain of sand
The moonlit sea, to hold your hand
I want it all, I want it all
I want it all, I want it all
We serenade the street until the song ends, my cheeks sore from smiling. "Are we pleasing the crowd?"
"You don't even know if there is a crowd," Jade says, a smirk in her voice. "For all you know, these past six years have been an elaborate ruse that all leads to this: me driving you out into the desert so I can finally sacrifice you to the Dark Lord."
"Does the Dark Lord enjoy Taco Bell? Because I definitely smell a Taco Bell around here. Wait, is that the surprise? I love Taco Bell."
"My romantic surprise isn't fucking Taco Bell," she says, but she's laughing, and this my favorite of Jade's moods; playful and profane. "You're making me hungry."
"We could always get Taco Bell after the surprise, you know."
"I really am going to dump you in the desert if you don't shut up about Taco Bell."
I laugh and draw a number on the back of her hand. "Six."
"What?"
"Six years." I take a deep breath. "We've been together six years."
"You say that like you can't believe it."
"Can you?"
There are a few beats of silence; it shouldn't be possible, I know, but I can feel her eyes slip away from the road to study me, and even after all this time I still flush under her gaze. Sometimes the weight of her looking at me is enough to wake me from sleep in the gray hours just before dawn. I always try to keep up the illusion that I'm sleeping for as long as possible but I think she knows, anyway, because her hand will find my waist under the covers, following the slope of my hip until I bite my lip and my eyes flutter open. Her face is always softest then, so calm and beautiful that I can't stand it, and when she kisses me it feels like time slows down; when we make love it feels like a dream.
