Savor It

Chapter 22. Sage

I think I’ve got the yips.

I remember when we were young and the boys still played sports. They’d go through a growth spurt or some random phase that’d disrupt their normal functionality. Dropped balls, tripping over nothing—silly, asinine mistakes. They called it the yips.

I think this is similar to whatever’s happening to me. On Saturday, I dropped an entire bag of opened chicken feed in the garage, caught my belt loop on the door handle three times, stepped on a rake outside of Bud’s stall and knocked myself pretty decently—some real Stooges-level shit. When Indy and I got to the farmers market on Sunday, I realized I’d forgotten the dozens of extra eggs I’d planned to bring, forgot string for the bouquets, and forgot to put water in the hydrangea buckets. Thankfully, Indy caught that last one early enough in the day. We sprinted over to the harbor fish-cleaning station, filled the buckets, and dunked the hydrangeas headfirst to revive them.

I delivered flowers to Savvy’s this morning for her summer cakes—nasturtiums and violas and cornflowers for pressing into frosting because they retain their color best. And I was trying to engage in something cheerful with Savannah herself when we were remarking on summer and all the bright flavors, but I think I got jumbled up in my brain while fingering some honeycomb brittle, and said something moony about “the birds and the bees.” I looked at her fascinated face in horror before I turned and fled.

I think I used up any suave I had when I told Fisher I was interested in or something. Like, now I’ve built it up and put a date to it instead of just letting things happen. I’d felt too comfortable and easy, sitting there in the attic together, and now I have to get through another week of knowing he’s next door, imagining the feel of his head between my legs or the sight of him in my hand. The sounds he made when I brought him his release. His taste. I’ve never had a relationship where I felt this safe to be curious and adventurous sexually before.

Our training “schedule” is going to have to remain pliable, we’ve quickly realized. He’d texted last night to ask if I’d mind him pushing us back to the afternoon so he could jump on a phone meeting this morning with Carlie, Frankie, and Walter’s nephew who owns the portables company. And I’m glad, because I needed time to get my thoughts together on how to approach the rest of our summer successfully, anyway.

I think I’d like to take a page out of his playbook and try to control the ingredients in this arrangement however I can. It sounds callous in theory, but smart in the end. No hooking up when we should be practicing, and limiting those hookups to once a week.

I’m immediately questioning my wisdom, however, when Fisher shows up on the beach to meet me today, his wet suit half rolled down and bare-chested yet again. He looks so good it makes my teeth ache.

“Hi,” he greets me happily. His eyes look lighter in his suntanned face.

“Yay.” Damn yips. “I mean,” I say, “hey.” I need a time-out.

He breathes a laugh. “Ready?”

“Rules,” I say. It’s like I need smelling salts, I swear to god. “I think we should talk about having some training rules. We still didn’t actually… establish any the other day.”

He rakes a hand through his hair and squints at me. The corners of my vision pulse black when I notice one of his earrings is missing and wonder if he lost it when he was with me, the last time I tried to have this discussion in earnest.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says. “Sorry if I got a bit ahead of myself.”

“No!” I blurt. “No, don’t apologize.” Don’t you dare reconsider, either, I want to say. “I did the same thing at the library.” I feel my face and neck get hot, the memory of his heavy-lidded gaze slipping through. “I just think it would be smart to say that when we’re training, we keep it to only that. And maybe we limit… other stuff… to once a week.” I’ve avoided looking at his face while saying this, but jolt when I realize I’ve chosen to speak to his nipple instead. I look at his hand, but then it flexes, and I decide that’s not safe, either, then look at his water shoes. Okay, there’s the relief. In exactly no world will water shoes ever do anything for me.

“Training will stay training,” he agrees. “But I don’t feel like I can agree to your once-a-week proposal,” he adds calmly.

I frown at his placid face. “What would you agree to?”

“I’m a grown man. I can control myself and stay on task while we’re working toward something. But outside of that, I think we stay… illimitable.”

I cough a surprised sound. “So just no, then?” I don’t know why I expected this to be more of a discussion.

“Well,” he says, leaning onto his paddle. “No is a complete sentence.” He chews his lip in a grin. “But I agreed to your first rule, and I propose that we let part two stay fluid.” He starts toward the canoe. “For you as much as for me, Byrd.”

My mouth falls open in a scoff. “The ego, really,” I say.

“It is big,” he declares. Blasé and stupidly beautiful and definitely aware of the double entendre. “And by the way, your nipple slipped out of your bikini top.” He steps into the water while I curse the yips again and sort myself out. “Surprisingly hot today, and yet…”

Ultimately, he is the one who keeps training on course, in spite of my accidental areola flash. We row for two hours with few breaks, until our arms are lead and we’re drenched in sweat and too spent by the end for me to even worry about any awkwardness. We slip the canoe behind the blind and trudge back up the cliff, with little room for chatter in between trying to recover.

When we make our way to the meadow, I spot Indy and Gary lying in the grass in his pen.

“For the way she acts like he’s a pest, she sure visits him a lot,” I say.

“I won’t pretend to understand her yet,” he replies.

I shrug. “Trying has to count for something.”

He raises his shoulders like he’s unsure. “You, uh, want to join us for dinner tonight?” he asks. “We’re bound to have extras.”

Legoless marches up from somewhere and winds himself through Fisher’s legs. In the distance, Sable bays a goofy ahrooo. It feels like some kind of omen. I get instantly afraid that this all feels far too comfortable for us.

Fisher may not have believed in setting firm restrictions, but it feels prudent to at least put some limitations on myself in place.

“No, that’s okay, thank you,” I say.

He nods—in understanding, I think. And turns to head back to his place.

On Tuesday, training is all business again. He’s not impolite and he’s not exactly cold, but he’s definitely not warm, either. He seems rushed, and it’s as if he avoids meeting my eyes. I laugh when I spot a pair of sea lions with their bellies distended toward the sky, wailing out their ridiculous-sounding barks, and his only response is a tight smile that’s short-lived.

On Wednesday, I send him a text asking him if he wants me to show him where to pick the marionberries. He sends me back a photo of his handsomely rumpled face, half-obscured by a mixing bowl brimming with them. The caption says: “Sniffed them out. Thanks.”

When I reply and ask him what he plans to make with them, he leaves me on Read. I decide to go tackle some weeding when it cools off in the evening, and spot him at my fence, letting Legs rub his head against his scruff. I pivot to walk his way with a laugh, and his head pops up. He spots me, waves, then turns and jogs back inside. I spend the remainder of the evening in the garden, giving myself mental and emotional whiplash over the whole thing, snipping aggressively with each warring thought. I hate that I’ve even acquired this acute awareness of his distance. Snip. I hate that I turned down having dinner with them. Snip. I hate that I’ve wanted to invite them over since. Snip. I hate that I know that this is why it is probably best that I didn’t. Snip, snip.

Sable wants to be let out sometime in the night, and I should be suspicious, but I’m too sleep-addled to think clearly. She comes back howling and gagging, skunked and reeking to high heaven. She needs multiple multistep hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap baths. The ordeal does not brighten my outlook.

A few hours later on Thursday morning, I wake up feeling dejected, muscles tender and inflamed from all the previous training and the lack of decent rest. I doggedly shove myself all the way into my wet suit, and at once lose the last ounce of my motivation for the day. I text Fisher and tell him he’s off the hook.

Shortly thereafter, I’m staring down at my couch and looking for some sort of inspiration to go through the trouble of uncasing myself from the suit before I crawl back to bed, when Sable lets out an excited whimper and skids across the floor.

I hear Fisher let himself in through the sunroom door and make his way through the kitchen. When he finds me in my living room, he braces himself with an arm on the frame.

“You sick?” he asks.

“No?”

He pins me with an unflinching glare, a lock of his hair flopping forward to fall across his brow. “So what do you mean I’m off the hook, then?”

“I mean,” I say, “exactly that. We don’t have to train today.”

He blinks slowly, plants his feet, and crosses his arms. “Listen, Byrd,” he says. “I’m not really a water guy.”

“Of course you’re not,” I say grouchily. “Otherwise, you’d have gills and webbed toes like Kevin Costner in that Waterworld film.”

“Precisely,” he parries, undeterred. “And I’m not much of a boat guy, either. But I am a winning guy. I told you if we did this, I wouldn’t want to lose. We can take it easy, but I think we should still go.”

There’s something so set in his expression—in his stance and the determined gleam in his eye. It makes me remember how I wanted to do this for me, and his warmth or his apathy toward me shouldn’t get in my way.

“You’re right,” I say. “Let’s row.” I couldn’t decide if I was saying roll or go, and it came out as row. I roll my eyes at myself. Maybe being pun-prone is inborn when you’re from Spunes.

Still, I’m irritated with him for having this kind of pull over me. Even more annoyed with myself for feeling this way. Silly, too-soft Sage yet again. I let the annoyance fuel me, and I throw myself into the task at hand.

By the time we hit the one-hour mark, I am still rattled but admittedly glad he made us go. It’s as if my brain is almost curtailed into focusing on the present again. Into the feel of my paddle splitting through the water and the stinging sweat I blink out of my eyes, the air that charges in and out of my lungs. There are a million aches along my spine, my hands feel raw, and the weather feels like being inside of a slightly undercooked Hot Pocket, with weird spots of cold between the warm.

“Must be a storm coming,” I eventually choke out between dragging breaths when we’re on our final break.

“How do you figure?” he asks, panting just as heavily from his seat behind me. “I don’t see a cloud anywhere.”

“Just can tell,” I say.

His snort of laughter nettles me—the mix of the adrenaline, exhaustion, and insecurity blending into something acerbic.

“What?” I clip and spin around. “Think I’m being silly again?” It lilts at the end enough that it could be a joke, but his chin still jerks back in surprise.

“When did I ever call you silly?” he asks, brows darting down above his eyes.

Frustrated embarrassment clogs my throat. I’m the only one who is actually telling myself that. He already apologized for his earlier remarks and implications all those weeks before. He’s here for me now, and he’s sticking to his end of the deal. It’s me working myself into these knots, and me alone.

“You didn’t,” I admit, voice hollow. “Sorry. I’m—” I inhale a shaky breath. “I’m having a weird day. Let’s just get back, okay?” I don’t face him, not wanting him to see the misery I’m sure I’m wearing.

“Okay,” comes his soft reply.

By some unspoken agreement, we take it slow the rest of the way back, and I use the time to get my thoughts in order. The fact of the matter is that I don’t have it in me to maintain some sort of detached, cool reserve. I never have. My mom recognized this about me before I was six. Even wrote it in her book of sage advice. “I’ve never seen someone instinctively go headfirst into things all the time,” she wrote. “Walking, swimming, it took us forever to teach you how to use utensils because you kept trying to eat like the dogs—mouth to food directly. Watching your dad teach you to swim gave me the very specific nightmare of you diving into shallow water, though. I’m not telling you not to jump into unfamiliar waters. Just please go feetfirst.”

She may have meant this one in the most literal sense, but it’s one of those things I too often find I can apply.

We work in silence when we paddle into shore, dragging up the canoe and settling it behind the blind. “I’m sorry,” I tell him again. “My brain and I are fighting, I think.” I offer him an apologetic shrug.

“Yeah? What’s that bitch trying to say?” he replies. It’s playful and indulgent of him to meet me inside my metaphor, and I can’t help a grateful smile. It makes it easier to talk about this way.

“She’s confused, and worried, and fucking tired.” I laugh. “Sable went out and got skunked around one A.M. It was a long night.”

“That explains the smell,” he jokes, wide-eyed and wincing. “But what, exactly, is the worry?”

I jump on into it, feetfirst. “You’ve been—different, this week. I know I said I wanted us to train, but… you barely even make eye contact, and I’m worried since I said no to dinner that you’re trying to, like, avoid me? Outside of this, of course.” I raise my hand toward the water. “You keep turning away when I laugh.” I didn’t mean to include that last point, and now I’m the one looking away.

I hold myself still as I feel him step into my space.

“Look at me,” he says.

When I do, his expression is stern and concentrated, and I think I’ve officially exasperated the man. But then his hand comes up to my throat, thumb charting a line along the hollow of my jaw.

“First, I feel bad for calling even your mean brain a bitch. I take it back. I like your mind,” he says. “And second, I talked a big game about staying focused.” He lets out a sigh. “And it’s made it so the tiniest things you do feel fucking erotic to me, and it is torture. I’m hanging on by a damn thread and trying to stick to that, but it’s so much harder than I’d thought.”

My face breaks into a happy beam that his shines right back at me.

“Glad you’re still enjoying my pain,” he adds. “But, I’m serious. There are the obvious things—the heavy breathing, the more vocal noises you make while exerting yourself. The sound of the zipper on this skin-fucking-tight wet suit.” He flicks it with the tip of his finger. “Then there’s the nonsense things, too. Like, last night I was taking out the trash and saw you in the sunroom with the light on, painting your toenails, and I swear, Sage, for no sensible reason, it felt pornographic. From, like, fifty yards away.”

My head dips back to cackle harder at this, and he nods animatedly above me.

“I almost called the cops on you! Public indecency and all that. But then I remembered that one of those cops was your ex, and I worked myself into a jealous rage over that. Over an entirely imaginary scenario, Byrd.”

Oh, I’m squeezing myself against him now, powerless, I can’t help it. Big, stupid smiles on both of our faces.

“Your laugh is… I don’t know what it is, Sage, but your laugh…” I feel the muscles in his back bunch beneath my hands, the ones in his stomach contracting and relaxing against mine. “I think your laugh could maybe defibrillate me.”

Oh no. I can hear giddiness buzzing in my veins, even in the silence. The muted whoosh of jumping into the deep end and everything else going quiet and distant from above.

He kisses me with short, tasting, teasing kisses. “Please let me cook for you tomorrow, still,” he says, nose skimming mine. I’m prevented from answering when he takes my lips again, urgent and just shy of rough.

“Yes,” I say into his mouth. One of his hands spreads and presses firmer behind my ribs, our hips digging into each other. When he breaks away, I feel bereft.

His nostrils flare, and he looks at me like he’s in pain. “Tomorrow,” he says, a promise to himself, I think, as much as it is to me, before he turns and marches off.