He smiles down at me. “I took the liberty of telling Davis he was staying at the uncles’ tonight.”

I close my eyes and imagine being alone with him later, undressing him and kissing every bit of smooth, exposed skin. I imagine the feel of the mattress at my back, the view of him falling over me, moving down my body, mouth open and wet.

I can practically feel the electricity of his first kiss between my legs, the clamp of his hands around my thighs, and the weight of him when he moves back up over me.

“What are you thinking about?” His lips move against my earlobe.

“Being home with you later.”

“You’re thinking about fucking me right now?”

I look up at him, with a joke on the tip of my tongue, but it dissolves away at the fever in his gaze. “Yeah.” I stretch, kissing him in a slow slide of my mouth over his. “Specifically about your mouth and how it feels to have you on top of me.”

“You’re not sleeping,” he warns, and I laugh until a wave of relief hits me, so enormous that I wrap my arms around his neck, pressing my cheek to his.

When the song ends, he leads me back over to my brother and the bar. I know people are watching us, but I no longer feel like they’re wondering what Calvin is doing with me. With his octopus hands all over me, and the way Davis is making us both double over in laughter, I feel for the first time like our love looks as easy and genuine from the outside as it feels from the inside.

In tiny stolen moments, my husband pulls me into dark corners for a kiss, or down onto his lap on a couch. Between sips of our drinks and conversation with people around us, we volley a hundred questions back and forth.

Should we have another wedding? A real one?

When should we go visit my family?

Are we both moving temporarily to L.A.?

And most important: I won the meat bet, so . . . when is he officially taking my last name?

We can debate that one for a while. Thankfully, we’re not cramming to convince anyone else anymore. We have time.