27. Paisley
I startby flexing my foot.
When I don’t hit a warm, solid mass, I creep out a few inches further.
Nothing.
Leg extends. Still nothing.
Opening my eyes confirms what I already knew. Klein isn’t in my bed.
An odd emotion fills me. Not sadness but more… bereft. Did I want to wake up next to him? What does that mean?
The bedroom door creeps open. Klein walks in slowly, a smile spreading across his face when he sees I’m awake.
I push myself to sitting, attempting to work my fingers through my bed head. “Morning.”
“Good morning,” he answers, gently closing the door with his foot. He wears a bright smile and holds two mugs.
He brings me the coffee, my arms already outstretched.
“I hope this is okay,” he says, handing over a cup decorated with brightly painted seashells. “This is how you prepared your coffee yesterday.”
He remembered how I prepared my coffee yesterday? He was paying attention? I blink hard and sip, pushing away the pinches of pleasure assailing my heart.
There’s a lot happening here I’m not used to. Waking up around somebody? That hasn’t happened in years. Having someone pay attention to me so closely they remember the way I made my coffee? Possibly never.
Klein settles onto his side of the bed, facing me. Rumpled hair and sleepy face only makes him more handsome. He’s been wearing a plain white T-shirt to sleep in. Is he doing that for my benefit? How do I tell him it would benefit me more if he lost the shirt? What if I?—
Oh my gosh.
A mouthful of hot coffee threatens to fly onto the white bedspread.
The panic must be evident in my eyes, because Klein says, “It’s all good, Paisley.”
I gather my thoughts as I swallow. “That’s what we always say, isn’t it? We use that word, over and over. Good.”
Klein nods. “We do seem to use that word often.”
“About what I said in the middle of the night,” I hesitate, and Klein says firmly, “Paisley, don’t worry. I won’t hold you to it.”
I lift my coffee cup to my lips, just to have something in front of me, a makeshift shield. I can’t believe I’m about to do this. “What do you think about holding me to it?”
Klein opens his mouth. Closes it. Considers something, then opens his mouth again. “Do you think you’re in a vulnerable place right now?”
“Yes,” I answer honestly.
“That’s what I thought,” he sighs. “It took me an hour to fall back to sleep last night after you said that. I kept going over it in my mind, trying to figure out if your idea was very good, or very bad.” He winces, probably at the poor word choices.
“You can do better than that,” I say, frowning. “You are not very sad, you are morose!” I raise a fist, adopting the call-to-action tone of voice Robin Williams used in Dead Poets Society.
A smile plays on his mouth. “Did I tell you that was one of my top five favorite movies?”
“No, but it doesn’t feel that far a leap to make.”
He stays quiet, doing that thing where he knits his brow. By now I know it means he’s thinking hard about something, and he isn’t likely to say out loud what it is.
“I was trying to figure out if your idea was excellent, or ruinous.” He smirks. “Was that better?”
I nod emphatically.
“I like how you challenge me.”
“I like to challenge you.” My chin tips up. “So, did you come to a conclusion?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing concrete. I don’t want to take advantage of you, though, I know that for sure.”
“I appreciate that, and I don’t think you would be. This is a tough week for me, but it’s nice having you here. It’s nice to have someone on my side, not that sides need to be taken. And I know my grandma would be on my side, if forced to choose.” I shrug, attempting to put into words what I’m feeling. What I’m asking for. “It’s different with you. It’s almost like I have a partner. A... friend?”
Klein nods, telling me that yes, we’re friends.
It feels weird to finally call him my friend, when really that’s what we’ve been for weeks now.
Sipping the last of my coffee, I set the cup on the nightstand and throw back the covers. My nightshirt has ridden up, and my eyes are on Klein the moment he spots the tattoo at the top of my thigh. His eyes flare, his lips part.
Innocently I stand, bunching my hem in my hand and lifting it to reveal the ink. “Surprised?”
His eyes darken, his jaw tenses. There is hunger on his face, a basic instinct to devour. Me.
He remains silent. Internally, I rejoice at having stolen all the words from a wordsmith.
I drop the hem, and he asks, “What does it say? I wasn’t able to read it.”
“I guess you’ll have to find out another time. I need to get ready for hiking Old Baldy.” Through the dresser mirror I watch his eyes follow me.
Am I smug?
Oh yes.
We emergefrom the canopy of deep green leaves to find the sky overhead is dark, the clouds heavy with moisture.
“We’re almost there,” I say to Klein, on his bike beside me.
He nods and glances up at the sky, not a trace of worry in his gaze.
The first raindrops, large and heavy, fall as we’re guiding our bikes into the racks at the visitor center. We pay the fee and make a break for it, running across the grass lawn and up the handful of stairs through the wooden door and into the lighthouse.
Klein tugs a hand through his hair, shaking out the moisture. He looks around, getting his bearings. “This place was built in 1817,” he tells me studiously.
Brushing rain from my face, I say, “Someone’s been reading their History of Bald Head Island book.”
He meanders to a wall, touching it with tentative fingers. “It was made out of red bricks, then covered in stucco and painted white.” His hand moves up and over patches that have been worn away through time to reveal the red brick beneath.
Walking to the middle of the small area, he looks up at the wood plank ceiling. In the center is a rectangle of space that goes all the way up to the very top of the lighthouse. “One hundred and eight stairs,” he says.
I look up with him, surveying all the stairs. “You ready for a butt workout?”
“Never say no to training your glutes,” Klein jokes, starting on the stairs ahead of me.
The lights mounted on the walls give off a yellow-orange hue. During the day when the sun shines, the sunlight filters in through the top.
At the moment I don’t have a preference over electric versus natural light. I’m a friend of any light that allows me to appreciate the fantastic ass two stairs in front of me.
“Do you go to the gym?” I’m trying to keep my tone light, offhand, as if I’m just making conversation.
“My apartment complex has a pretty decent gym. I use that, and then playing soccer helps.” He pauses to glance back at me, smirking. “Why? Do you like what you see?”
“It would be hard not to see it,” I grumble. “Since it’s all up in my face right now.”
We stop at the third landing. Klein motions to the next set of stairs. “Would you like to go first? I’m more than happy to stare at your ass.”
A smile pushes at my lips. “Actually?—”
A crash of thunder bangs into my sentence. I screech, throwing myself into Klein’s arms. I’m not afraid of storms, but that was louder than anything I’ve ever heard.
“It’s okay, Paisley,” Klein soothes, rubbing my back.
“Sorry,” I step back, getting my bearings. “Thunder doesn’t usually bother me, but I felt that one in my bones.”
“It’s probably because we’re inside here. There isn’t anywhere for the sound to travel.” Klein peers up at the top of the lighthouse. “We don’t have to keep going, if you don’t want to.”
“I want to,” I insist. “I’ve never been to the top during a storm.”
“After you,” he gestures.
I take the lead. After two flights, Klein says, “For somebody whose legs are shorter than mine, you seem to cover the same distance as me.”
“I put my head down and power through.”
“Kind of what you’re doing here. At the wedding.”
Huh. Insightful. “I guess you’re right about that.” I stop suddenly, pivoting on the stair. Klein freezes, two stairs down and nearly the same height as me. “But I don’t think I’m putting my head down and powering through as much as I would be if you weren’t here. You make all of this feel less… sharp.”
“Sharp?”
“Yeah. It hurts less.” Maybe even not at all. In fact, I think it might be enjoyable. I like having him around, showing him what I love about the island. And the tension between us? It’s intoxicating.
“Well, Ace,” he offers a half-bow. “I am at your service.”
“That”—I lean closer, our noses separated by only a few inches—“is a place I think I like having you in.”
I half-spin on the stairs, going the rest of the way up without stopping.
“Wow,” Klein breathes in appreciation as he emerges through the small rectangular cutout and onto the top floor. “This is... wow.”
“Cape Fear,” I point east.
Klein joins me at the window, looking out at the darkened water. “Everything is lush. The treetops, so deep and green. Even the water. It’s like a grayish-blue without the sun making it sparkle.”
I like how he sees the world and describes it, and the tone of wonder in his voice as he does so. This is a man who is not afraid to feel awe. And even better, to show it.
The sky rumbles. Raindrops fall harder, tapping the outside of the lighthouse. The air inside is dank, the cobwebs in the corners moving with the breeze as it whips through.
My gaze lowers back to Klein, and I find he is already looking at me. The bruised sky makes his green eyes darker. His tongue slips out to run over his upper lip, then retreats, and he swallows. Hard. The undulation of his throat flips a switch inside of me. Thoughts of running my tongue over his Adam’s apple consume me. I’m flummoxed by how attracted I am to this man. All of me wants to touch all of him. It’s not just his body, either. It’s his mind, the way he thinks. His heart.
I turn into him. He reaches for my hips, and when his hands find my skin, I tremble.
“Paisley,” he says, but that’s it. Just my name, delivered on a husky exhale.
My hands slip over his shoulders, roaming his upper back, converging at his neck and gliding up into his hair. My lips part, and my chin tips up. “Please kiss me, Klein.”
His gaze settles on my mouth. “This wouldn’t be making up for our bad kiss.”
“No.”
“Or kissing in front of people for the sake of our charade.”
“No.”
“This would be for us.”
“Yes.”
He cups my head, holding me, and lowers his mouth to mine.
Our first kiss was terrible, our second was hungry and desperate, our third was him staking a claim, but this one? It’s decadent. Slow. A note of reverence, a touch of relief.
I moan into it, vibrating our lips, and Klein quirks a smile against me. He licks over the seam of my lips, urging me open. My tongue mingles with his, tasting the shock of peppermint and the sting of bitter coffee.
His thumb turns a heavy circle behind my ear as the rest of his palm keeps me secured in place. The heat of him in my mouth, of his hands on me, sends want racing through my body, into every crevice. Fingers curling into his hair, I arch up, desperate to be closer to him.
He pauses to look at me, eyes hooded, before coming back in for more, deeper, rougher, still torturously slow.
One hand leaves his hair, curling around to his neck, where his pulse thrums against my heated palm. His mouth drops, his hand fists my hair, angling my face to the shallow ceiling. His lips skim my neck, sucking delicately over my collarbone. Dropping lower, leaving tiny fires in his wake. His journey halted by the fabric of my top, he pulls it between his teeth and lightly tugs.
I arch higher, desperate for his mouth on me.
“More,” I whisper.
Klein listens, gathering the top swell of my breast in his mouth, sucking and licking and kissing. A single finger dips into my top, finding its way into the cup of my bra.
This is oh so good, and almost painful because this is all that is available to us up here at the top of this lighthouse. If only I could transport us to?—
“Just a few more steps and we’ll be there,” a woman’s voice reaches up from below. “You’ll have to hold it. There isn’t a potty up here.”
The word ‘potty’ may as well be a bucket of ice water. Klein lifts his head from my chest. Drops his hand. His lips are swollen. My fingers rub my lips, finding them swollen, too.
The sounds below us grow louder.
“If we don’t get down now, we’re going to have company up here, and I’m not particularly interested in being in a small space with people right now.”
Klein turns for the rectangle cut out in the floor. “I’m not particularly interested in being in a small space with people ever. After you.”
I lower myself through the cut out, and Klein follows when I reach the last stair.
A woman and two children stand off to the side, waiting. “One more coming down,” I tell her.
She gives me a thumbs up and bends to tie a child’s shoelace.
It’s steep, and we’re slower going down. A broken leg, or worse, would really put a damper on our time here. More and more, I’m starting to want to squeeze every drop of good times from this trip.
We reach the bottom, and Klein peers out. “The storm has passed. We should go. Your dad will be here soon.”
The unbridled happiness falls off my face. My shoulders droop, squashed by an unseen weight. Dread comes over me as I recall the text message I saw just before I hopped on my bike to ride here. “I forgot to tell you. My dad is refusing to go to the house because my mom is there with Ben. I told him we’d meet him at The Beach Club for dinner instead.”
Klein rubs the back of his neck. He looks like he wants to say something, but he’s conflicted.
“What is it?” I ask as we step from the lighthouse and into the grass, slick with the rain clinging to the blades.
“Your grandma’s making cowboy spaghetti for dinner, and you said it’s basically your second favorite meal after tacos.”
We reach our bikes. “Uh-huh.”
Klein swipes a hand over his bike seat, brushing off the water that has pooled. “Why are you giving up your favorite dinner, cooked by one of your favorite people?”
I do the same to my seat. “Because my dad doesn’t want to see my mom with her boyfriend. Nobody else volunteered to meet him, so—” I shrug. “I guess I will.”
Sienna and Spencer simply bowed out, saying I’m not going to accommodate him. I know I could say the same, but there’s a part of me that won’t allow it. No matter what he believes, I never hurt him on purpose, and I won’t start now.
Klein looks at me with tenderness. “You don’t have to.”
I laugh without any sound of happiness. “Yes, I do.”
“I get that, but Paisley,” Klein presses a hand to the small of my back. “Why?”
An uncomfortable huff comes from my throat. “Klein, I said why three seconds ago.”
Klein shakes his head slowly. “You recited the reason your dad gave for not wanting to attend a family dinner. You didn’t say why you agreed to miss out on having one of your favorite meals cooked for you by your grandma.”
I look at my hands, gripping the bike’s handles, knuckles turning white. “I don’t want to force my dad to see something he doesn’t want to see.” I know where Klein is going with this, and I do not want to follow him there.
“So you’re going to accommodate him?”
“Klein, please.” My voice tunnels. “I can’t, okay? I can’t take on all the family dynamics in one week.”
Klein rubs a warm palm over my back. “I hate that you’re going to miss out on something special with your grandma. My grandma passed away when I was a teenager, and I’d do just about anything to make sugar cookies with her again.”
I parse through the jumbled mess of my thoughts, and can only come up with, “I know, I know. I’m the floor.”
“That’s what you said to me that first night we saw each other again. I assumed you were really drunk and that’s why you said that. But unless you have a flask hidden somewhere on your body?—”
“I might,” I supply, to which he grins.
“Please help me understand what you mean by calling yourself the floor.”
“Paloma was trying to tell me that I let my family walk all over me. She called me the floor, but she meant to say doormat.”
“That makes a lot more sense than what I thought.”
“What did you think?”
“That you were mentally unstable, but hot enough to excuse it.”
I stick my tongue out at his joke, and he wraps an arm around me, pulling me in to his side. “You don’t have to be a doormat.”
“If I’m not a doormat, what will they do?”
“If you keep being a doormat, what will you do?”
I’ve never thought about what it does to me. Or what it’s already done. “I just want to keep everyone happy.”
Klein tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “At the expense of your own.”
“I don’t know how to be different.”
“Do you want to be?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I don’t want to feel like I’m responsible for keeping them happy when they’re doing something shitty. I never wanted to. I hated it every single time.” Tears press at the backs of my eyes.
“It doesn’t have to happen this week. Or this year. It takes time to implement change.” He picks up my hand, pressing his lips to my knuckles. It’s a soft kiss, yet it manages to sear me nonetheless. “Realizing it is the first step. Wanting to is the second.”
I gaze up. Klein knows what I want, and meets me halfway. The kiss is slow, sweet, a gentle pressing of lips.
“Are we still meeting your dad tonight?” he asks when I pull away. “You can say yes. No judgment from me.”
My answering nod is small. “I already told him I would, and it’s almost too late to cancel.”
“Then we’d better get back and get changed.”