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“You’re gonna have to carry me, stud,” she announces, wagging her eyebrows at him as she finishes her (fourth; he’s counted, she hasn’t) glass of Tempranillo wine. He swallows hard as he raises his hand for the bill.
_____________
She gets seven steps out the door before her legs, akin to those of a newborn pony than a sensible detective at the moment, weave and nearly send her face-first onto the cobblestone.
“Okay, okay. I’ll carry you,” he pleads.
Her fingertips reach him before the rest of her does, a giggling, hot-faced mess in the middle of the alleyway. He wants to apologize to the unfortunate onlookers: “sorry, my wife and I are on our honeymoon, she rarely drinks (this much), and despite what it looks like, she’s going straight to bed and to sleep once I get her home, I swear.”
He makes a joke about carrying her bridal style, despite the fact that he did that three days ago-officially, for the first time. She insists on a piggy back ride.
He’s too sober, and she’s too wasted.
So naturally, she wins.
_____________
She’s a mess of olive tangled limbs and knotted raven curls around him. Humid snickers against the nape of his neck. Beads of sweat mixing with his own.
Her head lolls to and fro with the sway of his hips, and he keeps praying that the hem of her claret red dress hasn’t risen up (she'd promised him it hadn’t when she climbed on top of him; he hopes he can trust Dani drunk as much as he can sober), but secretly, he loves this. Quiet moments (apart from her slurred singing) between them in Barcelona’s alleyways. Six minutes back to the hotel feels more like 20 as he keeps trying to steady her weight on his back.
They’ve always been a dysfunctional couple, though usually he's to blame. He doesn’t mind the role reversal tonight.
“Ev-ry time you have to go,” she drunkenly croons against his stubble, “shut my eyes, and you knooo-oo-oow-”
“You singing to yourself,” he asks, knowing he probably won’t get a response, “or to me?”
“I’ll be lyin’ right by your side, in Barcel-ooooona... Who sings this, Malcolm?” He feels her eyebrows raise against his cheek. He rolls his eyes; even after a few glasses of Spanish wine, she still teases him about his lack of knowledge of modern music.
“George Ezra. You quizzed me this morning when you were humming it in the bedroom.”
“Hmmph,” she plops her chin down against his shoulder. “Bullshis, babe.”
He knocks his head lightly against hers in response, every smile line on his face showing. “Sure, babe. ‘Bullshis.’ Whatever you say.” He carries them on.
_____________
About four minutes away now, and the wine in her veins is telling her to trail every inch of his neck with her smudged red lipstick.
If he had Google Maps open, it’d be telling him to stop pausing, that there’s not even foot traffic holding him back. Little would Google know that the hold-up had her lips against his jugular, kissing him the way she just had to right now and not when they were in the comforts of their suite.
He stops once more. “Dani. We’ll be out here all night if you don’t stop.”
Her brow lowers, furrowing against his cheekbone. “Wha?” she slurs. “I can-t show you I lof you?”
If he had a hand free right now, he’d probably use it to push back the hanging strands of hair as he chuckles. “No- Well yes, I mean, you can, when you kiss me goodnight in the hotel room. Which I’m still trying to get us back to, by the way.”
“Oh,” she cocks her head to the side, seemingly processing his logic. She digs her heels under his ribs with a quick “carry on, then,” and begins humming against his collarbone as he walks on.
_____________
They’re two minutes away. From the corner of his eye he notices her fingertips flex up and out in front of both of them, her left ring finger slightly raised above the others. She tilts it ever so slightly, letting the carats of her wedding and engagement rings catch rays off the remaining bands of skylight.
“Like what you see?” Malcolm strokes her thigh with his thumb to get her attention.
“We got married,” she muses.
A laugh escapes his lips. “I know. I was there. You were, too.”
She halts whatever garbled speech she was about to answer with for a moment, continuing to hum the George Ezra song from earlier just under his ear. And then, after gathering her thoughts, she speaks again.
“What wa- was it like?”
His lips curve into a soft smile, but the emotion reaches the crinkles under his eyes. “Amazing. My heart hasn’t stopped feeling this light since.”
Dani resumes humming for a few moments, and he almost wonders if she misheard him. But as they approach the square where their hotel is, he hears the softest whisper escape her, in a voice more tired than anything: “tha’s good, me too.”
_____________
He has to maneuver her off of his back and into his arms-bridal style, for the second time during this trip-but he gets them inside, up flights of stairs and into the cool embrace of the sheets.
He smooths off her makeup with a wipe, (somehow) changes her into pajamas, tucks her hair into her satin bonnet. Then changes and cleans himself up before crawling into bed next to her.
“Dani,” he murmurs, cupping his hand around the edge of her shoulder. “Can I get that goodnight kiss I mentioned earlier?”
She’s (shockingly) still awake enough to oblige before pressing her face into his chest, body flush against his front rather than his back this time, sleep taking her in minutes.
_____________
He breathes a laugh when her snoring turns into a soft whistle coming from her nose, half-smooshed against his sternum. He won’t dare move to check the time, but he knows it’s late as he replays the memories from their evening in his head.
They have another week coming up in the southern region of France after this one, and a week after that in northern Italy. But somehow, thinking about how only four days ago he made his partner, his Dani, his everything his wife, he knows he might always hold the memories of this day closest.
His voice just above a whisper, he finishes her song from earlier:
“Every time you have to go
I shut my mind and you know;
I'll be lying right by your side
In Barcelona...”