Page 102 of Weekends with You

The second the words left my mouth, his lips were on mine, like he’d been waiting a year for this moment. I could feel his smile through the kiss, and we were both nearly giddy by the time we pulled away. We savored the moment, forehead to forehead, our collective heartbeat drowning the hum of the garden.

“Please,” he said eventually, handing me the matches, “you do the honors.”

With that, I struck one against the side of the box and held the flame to Henry’s resolution. He slipped it into the lantern, and we sat together in silence as we watched our future, our past, our mistakes, our secrets, our promises, and our love float toward the stars.

July

“Since this is Cal’s last weekend in the flat, I think we should finally do something to memorialize this family,” Jan announced to the rest of us. We were gathered in the living room, arguing over which episode ofBake Offto watch.

“Jan, for the last time, we aren’t getting a flat tattoo,” Liv said. “Even if we are all going to the convention tomorrow, it’s not happening.”

“Bug off, Liv. For once, I have something else in mind.” He got up, and we followed him with our eyes as he disappeared into his room, then reappeared with a paint-splattered duffel and headed toward the stairs to the roof. “Well?” he implored when we didn’t get up right away.

We scrambled to our feet and followed him in a slow procession up to the roof. The night was warm, and a gentle breeze ruffled the plants I’d been desperately trying to keep alive up there.

“Is this where you murder us and stuff our chopped-up bodies into that duffel?” Margot teased. “If so, I’d quite like another beer for that.”

“Everyone’s a comedian,” Jan said, unzipping the duffel to reveal a rainbow of spray paints, everything from neon greens to metallic golds to matte blacks. He gestured to the wall behind him, entirely empty save for the door to the apartment.

“Jan, we don’t own the place,” Liv scolded. “We can’t just be painting it wherever we want. What if we get in trouble?”

“Come on, Liv,” Hen said, taking Jan’s side. “It’s a warehouse. We haven’t heard from the landlord since sometime last year, and if I’m honest, I think he’s got bigger problems than a little art on the roof. I say let’s do it.”

Liv searched our faces for reinforcements in vain. Normally I was also a fan of the rules, but lately none of them seemed to matter. It was a lot more fun to pretend they didn’t exist at all.

“Seven to one, lady. Majority rules.” Finn clucked his tongue in her direction, and she rolled her eyes. Jan tossed everyone a can from the bag and we stood at his back, waiting for him to make the first move.

The only sounds were the metal marbles rattling around inside the cans and the dull roar of the city below. Jan shook a can of bloodred paint back and forth until he deemed it adequately mixed, then pointed it at the wall and pressed the nozzle.

The steady stream of paint whistled into the night, and we watched with bated breath as Jan scrawled2Bin the center of the space, then surrounded it with a cloud. The font bubbled over itself, all round sides and bulging shapes. He switched to a can of glittering silver and highlighted the curves to make it pop off the wall, and we stood in awe of his talent.

“I’m not the only one having proper fun, am I?” he asked, turning to face us. With that, we joined in.

We doodled shapes around the cloud, trading colors, stretching over one another to reach the edges of our designs, admiring and mocking each other’s work in equal measure. I painted a lotus on the perimeter of the chaos, a personal nod to my own new adventure. The deed of the shop was officially in my name now, and Henry and I were due to have a proper celebration next week. I was still afraid to say it aloud, but things really seemed to be falling into place.

I was admiring our work when Henry braced himself over my body, both of us facing the wall, and pressed a gentle kiss to my temple before scribbling anHand anLin a deep, shiny green. I leaned back against his shoulder to take it all in.

It had only been a few weeks since he’d been back at the flat full-time and we’d gotten back together, but it felt like we’d made up for the lost time tenfold. Everything was as exciting and new as it was comfortable and familiar, and I’d long since stopped keeping track of the last time I’d slept in my own bed. Sharing a space even in the monotony of the day-to-day was more intimate than any virtual date could have been, and I sometimes had to pinch myself as a reminder that this was real.

Our initials sat proudly between a lightning bolt and a Union Jack on the edge of Jan’s initial creation, and the indelible nature of the graffiti made me hopeful for what was to come. As if somehow, if our initials were always plastered there on the wall at the site of our first kiss, regardless of what the London weather threw their way, we too could withstand even the harshest rains.

I ran my fingers over the cold paint as it dried, imagining our untouchable future. The chatter of my roommates was merely background noise until an explosion of laughter interrupted my trance.

“Raja, don’t you dare come over here,” Margot said, holding up her hands and trying to turn a smile into a frown.

“Surely a little paint never hurt anybody,” Raja teased, neon-pink palms pointed toward the sky. “What’s wrong, Mar? Scared a little color might actually do you some good?”

Before any of us could process what was happening, Margotgrabbed a can of paint from Cal and smashed the nozzle, slamming Raja square in the chest with a sunburst that matched the deep gold of her eyes.

There was no moment of silence before we laughed. We simply couldn’t have held it in. All eight of us roared in hysterics, thrilled that Margot had put Raja in her place. Everything after descended into madness.

We laughed ourselves to death, tagging each other’s clothes until we looked like a Jackson Pollock. Moans about perfectly straightened hair and new sneakers were drowned out by our collective cackling and teasing. When we were out of breath and nearly out of paint, we stood back and looked at our creation.

“It needs a finishing touch,” declared Jan, motioning for us to turn our palms up. We followed his unspoken order, and he covered eight hands in royal blue. We knew what to do.

At once, we pressed our palms to the wall. It would have taken hardly more than a second for the paint to stick, but we stood for a minute or two, looking at one another down the line. Eight cheeky smiles framed eight handprints beside the doorway in a way that made my heart ache.

Henry was right. As long as we were together, we were home.