Estranged Heart

Fifteen

Elijah

Holding the bottle to my chest, I use my other hand to pound on the door. I glance around me, careful not to step back into the succulents littering the porch, when a loud honk sounds around me. This is the right house, isn’t it? It was the last address Stacey added to her contact info. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone through it, but I didn’t know the next time I’d see Silas and wanted to return his water bottle in case he needed it again for one of his walks around the trail.

On my fourth knock, the door finally pulls open and Silas’s eyebrows bunch together, his cheeks splattered in what I assume is yellow paint. “Elijah?”

“Hey. You left something in my car yesterday.” I lift the water bottle in the air and he slowly takes it from me.

“Oh, thanks. How’d you find out where I lived?”

“Every employee has it in their contact info for emergency purposes.”

“And this was an emergency?”

“You seemed to really need it the other day, so maybe.” I grin, glancing behind him and at his paint covered clothes. “Are you painting or something?”

“I . . . er . . . yeah.” He chuckles. “I got tired of looking at the dark gray in my bedroom, so I decided to go to the hardware store and pick up something a little brighter.”

“I guess you can’t get any brighter than the color yellow.”

“Nope. It reminds me of the sky, and if I could stay all day under the sun I would. I used to try, but then Stacey would force me to come inside after I started to burn. Sunblock doesn’t always work for people with my complexion.” He leans against the doorframe.

“I see. Well, do you need some help? I have a little time to kill if so.”

“Does the bookstore or restaurant not need you today?”

“They can both live without me for an hour or two. It’s supposed to be my day off anyway. I think my employees will be happy to see that I’m actually taking one.” Smiling, I brush a bit of paint from his nose. “Besides, it looks like you need me more than they do. I’d hate to leave and then you paint yourself into the wall.”

Laughter sputters from him and he nods, stepping back enough to give me room to enter the house. “Okay. Come on in then and I’ll find you another roller or paint brush.”

His house is bigger than I imagined, the living room and kitchen both very spacious while interconnecting. He really does like everything bright and colorful, from his baby blue couches to his teal cabinets.

“You really like plants.” I gesture toward more succulents filling the windowsills of the kitchen and the bookshelf near the TV.

“Oh. Those are all Stacey’s. I mean, she got those for me to care for since she’s the one with the green thumb and better with plants that actually require watering.”

I laugh, following him into the last bedroom down a long hall after he grabs what he needs. “Most of the furniture is temporarily moved into the guest room, but the bed was a little more of a challenge so I threw plastic over it and called it a day.”

“Should you really be moving all this stuff by yourself?” I ask, testing the weight of the mattress.

“Probably not, but I’ve been on restrictions practically my whole life.”

“I can help you get the bed out of here. It’ll make it easier to paint around the window.”

Ripping plastic from a new paint brush, he shakes his head. “Sounds like I’m putting you through too much trouble and this is already hardly qualifying as a day off.”

He makes it feel like one all the same. Not only from work either—from everything. Grief, loneliness, and the dark. “Beats being yelled at for food not being hot or cool enough, or for not having the right books on hand.”

His eyes light up as he smiles wider. “If you’re really okay with it, then sure.”

“I really am okay with it.” I peel the plastic off the bed and toss it to the side before tugging the mattress onto the floor in a standing position. He’s painting a corner while I’m pushing the mattress out of the room, and is still slathering the same spot in yellow by the time I get the rest of the bed into the spare room. As I’m covering the rest of the floor in plastic he starts humming, and when he sings the lyrics to “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam, I freeze.

He goes on about him needing and wanting me—not him, it’s part of the lyrics. He didn’t write them. As he continues to sing, I can’t help but gravitate toward him the way a weak, transfixed fool at sea would a siren. I ignore all the warnings and sounding alarms going off inside me all the same. I’m swimming into dangerous waters with him, and the deeper I go the bigger risk I have of drowning.

Preparing to hold my breath when the time comes, I pick up a brush and join him in both singing and painting, our arms brushing together as I touch up spots he missed. He’s horrible at this and I’m happy I stopped by at the right time. The words he’s saying might be part of a song, but he really does need me and I need the constant smiles.

I pull out my phone and play the song from my playlist. We both sing louder, one of us getting more paint on ourselves than the wall. He chose yellow, the color that matches him best. The color of sunshine.

Looking at me while accidentally painting over my fingers, he sings for me to stay with him and I do. Him staining my fingers yellow leads me to painting a stripe on his arm and then we both get a little carried away, leaving the room in fits of laughter while covered in proof of what we did today. To anyone else, we simply painted a room, but for me, we stepped out of the dark and went somewhere only we were allowed.

I wash up in the kitchen sink while he takes a quick shower. Walking by to grab my phone from the room, I don’t realize the bathroom door is open and catch his naked reflection in the mirror as he’s drying off with a towel. His pink scar in the center of his chest and half-hard cock stay at the front of my mind while I help him prepare lunch. His wet, gorgeous body taunts me while we’re eating, and even while he’s showing me old pictures from a photo album on his living room couch. Keeping my legs and hands where they are is a resistance I can’t fight for long. Different parts of our bodies brush on occasion causing a strong energy to vibrate between our skin.

“Where was this at?” I ask, pointing to a picture of him and Stacey in front of a cabin, trying to focus on something else.

“Oh, somewhere in Colorado. It’s a bit of a blur since our trip was cut short. All our trips were, even some of the short ones, like going to the Riverwalk. Never even made it to the lock bridge”

Smiling softly, I flip to the last page. “Sounds like you need a do-over on all accounts.”

“You offering?”

“Maybe.” I bump my shoulder into his and he places a hand over a photo, shifting my attention. His warm skin is all I think about, and his perfect soft hands that have never seen an ounce of hard labor. He has a tiny brown freckle beneath his thumb and I wonder if he has them anywhere else.

“Darn, we’re at the end with nothing more to see. Want to take a walk?” I snap my eyes to his.

Grinning, I slowly pull his fingers from the photo he’s trying so hard to keep me from seeing. I don’t mind because it gives us another reason to stay as we are. Our fingers struggle against each other a little longer before I finally get his away from the photo. I hold them in my grip to keep him from covering the photo again, and because his hand feels too good in mine to let it go. He doesn’t fight as much as I expect him to so I don’t let go, leaning down lower to get a better look at what he was embarrassed for me to see.

Standing in front of a porch covered in pumpkins, he’s dressed as Tinkerbell while Stacey is Peter Pan.

“What’s wrong with this one? Green is a good color on you.” Keeping our hands linked, I yank out the picture and hold it closer to the light entering through the window. He still doesn’t let go. Does he not notice we’re holding hands?

“Stacey said it was too cold so I offered to switch costumes. Thankfully, we mostly stayed inside and my friends only gave me a hard time the first half of the night. Joke’s on them. That costume was comfortable as fuck.”

Laughing, I bring the photo closer to my face and he squeezes my fingers, shifting closer to me. “This is actually a really good photo of you, and the sparkling eyeshadow really brings out the green specks in your eyes.” I leave out the part about how well his small skirt hugs his hips.

Snatching the picture from me, he tosses his head back and laughs. “Better yet, I say we skip the walk and you go home.” Our hands part and I’m already missing the weight.

Huffing out a breath, I scoot to the edge of the couch, turning toward him. “No, you offered me a walk and you can’t take it back. I’m a guest after all.”

“Fine,” he quips. “But a quick one. I’ve kept you long enough and I need to start dinner soon.”

I can’t believe how long I’ve been here. We hung out most of the day and I hardly noticed time passing by. I’ve only noticed him.

Warmth hits my cheeks as I step outside, and the sun is in my eyes until I follow Silas down a sidewalk and to a sea of trees. “This way. I’ve come down here lots of times, only getting through the whole trail once, and recently. I wanted to try somewhere new yesterday.”

Catching up to him, I swivel around a tree to keep from crashing face first into it. “It’s nice out here.” And it was, with beautiful flowers sprouting between trees and the greenest grass surrounding a dirt path, along with him standing in the center of it all.

“Yeah. Sometimes I’d sit on the benches and read, thinking about how I’d be able to walk further down someday.”

“And now you can.”

“Yeah. Now I can.” We walk side by side, talking about books and the ones I recommended to him last time he was in my shop. When we finally get close to the end, I ask him about all the different instruments I saw in the guest room.

“I got bored staying home a lot, so I took up a lot of hobbies. Not all worked out, and all I have to show for most of them are instruments and lots of yarn.”

Chuckling softly, I sweep a loose strand of hair from his eyes. “So what you’re saying is that you can’t play a single one of those instruments in there?”

“I can play two songs on the guitar.”

“Yeah? I’d like to hear them sometime.”

“You say that now. Don’t blame me if you end up gouging your ears out.”

“Why would I?” We both stop walking and face each other.

“I said I could play. Doesn’t mean it will be good.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” The tips of our shoes touch and he leans in close enough for our lips to brush together. That’s all it takes for me to guide him back to the nearest tree and smash my mouth to his. Lighting up inside and feeling five feet off the ground, I kiss him harder. Sliding my hands up his shirt, I’m lost in the warmth of his skin and tongue, and if he doesn’t pull away today, neither will I. I’m not sure if I was ever capable to begin with.

“Elijah,” he says in a gasping breath against my lips. “We can’t. I can’t.” He continues kissing me anyway, and our tongues wrap together as I slide a hand down the front of his sweatpants. He has no underwear on. Rutting against my hand, he moans, and I kiss down his neck, enjoying the taste of his skin.

“I don’t know how to stop,” he says, tears spilling from the corners of his eyes. “You have to do it.”

I rub the head of his cock between my fingers, licking along his clavicle. “What if I can’t either?”

“You have to.”

“Do you really want me to?”

“No.” He shakes his head, his hair messy and eyes wild. “No, but I wish I did.”

“I don’t.” Dropping to my knees, I glance around us to make sure we’re alone before yanking down his pants. He lifts his hands above his head and I kiss his leaking tip before wrapping my mouth around him. More moans and desperate sounds slip from his lips as he bucks his hips, fucking into my mouth. Moving in sync with his hips, I take him deeper, not stopping until he’s hitting the back of my throat. Already addicted to the taste of him, I lap my tongue around his cock and he plunges in and out, causing me to gag a little.

Shaking and gripping my hair, he comes down my throat. Using my tongue, I do my best to catch all of him, before pulling my mouth off with a pop.

Closing his eyes, his head moves from side to side along the bark of the tree and he laughs. “What am I doing? I’m a horrible person. I didn’t deserve to enjoy that.”

I pepper kisses along his half hard cock, pulling up his pants and try to maintain my balance. I feel like the whole earth is spinning and the only way to steady myself is to grab on to him. Once his pants are fully up, I grip his hips and pull myself up until I’m standing in front of him. “I’m glad you did anyway. How about we finish our walk now?”

“I need to remember how to use my legs again first.”

Looping my arm around his waist, I pull him off the tree. “Allow me.”

Leaning on me, his legs wobble as we make our way back to the house. I use the restroom inside before Silas walks me to my car. He doesn’t mention being a bad person again, or anything about Stacey, but he does appear a little detached. Regret settles in his sad blue eyes when he rests a hand on my door.

“Thanks for your help today, with the paint and moving the furniture out of my room. Oh, and for returning my water bottle.” He swallows, his face hardening. “I’ll uh, see you around then.” He looks everywhere but at me and my chest is heavy with guilt. I shouldn’t have put him in this position. What we did really was wrong, though it was hard to see that before when it felt anything but. He’s married to someone else and yet every time we kiss he feels like only mine.

“Yeah. Try not to play with paint unsupervised again.” That at least earns me a half smile from him, and he closes my door, waving me off as I drive away.

Yeah, we did a bad thing. Something I never would have imagined myself doing. I’m trying so hard to feel worse than I do about it, though, to be overtaken with remorse, but my aching emotions don’t come from being with another woman’s husband. They’re because I’m leaving him.

People discover many ways to help themselves cope during a deep loss. Some take up new hobbies, others work more, and me . . . I found Sunshine, and being surrounded by his light makes it easier to carry on.