Addicted for Now (Addicted)

Of all the days in the month, I have to be stuck in traffic on the one that means the most to me. I try not to badger Nola, my family's driver, on our ETA to the house I share with Rose. Instead, I anxiously shift on the leather seat and rapidly text mysister. Is he already there? Please say no, please tell me I haven't missed his homecoming. I'm supposed to wait on the white wrap-around porch of our secluded house in Princeton, New Jersey: many acres of lush land, a crystal blue pool, black shutters. The only thing it's missing is the picket fence. I'm supposed to give him a tour of the cozy living room and the granite kitchen, leading him upstairs to the bedrooms where I sleep. He won't be in one of the two guestrooms. Nope, he'll be making residencein mine for the first time ever. And maybe awkwardness will linger at the idea of sharing a bed and a bathroom day and night, at the idea of cohabitating beyond a kitchen. Our relationship will be one-hundred percent real, and there'll be no nightcaps ofbourbon or whiskey. I'll be able to say don't do that. And he'll be able to grip my wrists, keeping me from compulsively climaxing until I pass out. We're supposed to help each other--