Chapter 14 #2
He hands me a washcloth to wipe my mouth with as I flush the toilet and close the lid. I rarely throw up more than once during a migraine, since I use this window of time to take my meds and hope they work quickly.
“Apology not accepted.”
He releases my hair as I turn to face him. I’m certain I look like a hot mess right now—pale and sickly. Barely keeping my eyes open.
“But I feel bad.”
“For what?”
“For being sick, for not being able to go on the boat. For inviting you to go with me—and now you’re just watching me puke.”
“I much prefer this to a sunset. They’re overrated.”
My stomach contracts with a laugh, but the exertion causes a painful pulse in my head. “Don’t make me laugh; it hurts,” I say.
“Okay, no more laughing,” he says and holds up two fingers like a Boy Scout. “Scout’s honor.”
I offer him a weak smile, a slight upturn of my lips.
“There’s that beautiful smile,” he says, reaching up to graze his thumb over the corner of my lips.
“Please. I am anything but beautiful right now.”
He pauses, his eyes scanning my face. He drags the back of his hand over my cheek, a tender, light touch. The silence he lets stretch between us shifts the energy.
“You are always beautiful, Abby.”
If he keeps looking at me like that, I am going to kiss him.
“I need my meds,” I say, trying to clear the air of the encroaching intimacy.
“Okay, let’s get them. Do you want to get up?”
I attempt a nod, but all I can manage is a slight up and down movement of my head. Miles gets it, though, and stands, hooking his hands under my armpits and lifting me to my feet as if I weigh nothing.
“Would it hurt you if I picked you up? To carry you to your bed?”
“Just be gentle. Don’t jostle me.”
In any other circumstance, I would fight him on carrying me, but not having to walk sounds nice. And I just don’t have the energy to fight Miles. Which is probably the way he likes it.
He guides my arms around his neck, and I interlace my fingers.
Faint traces of his cologne tickle my nose, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was.
Mostly he just smells like…him, like sweat and laundry detergent.
His white T-shirt is soft under my arms, and I barely notice when he hooks his arm under my legs and sweeps me up against his chest. I rest my head on my own arm as he carries me to bed.
“I don’t want to lie down,” I say. “Just sit me on the edge.”
He does as I ask, setting me on the bed as if I were made of glass. He kneels in front of me, an arm on either side of my hips. “Tell me where your meds are.”
His voice is firm, but gentle. Tears prick against the backs of my eyes and overwhelming gratitude clogs my throat.
“Suitcase,” I croak. “It’s a black…thing.”
He wastes no time finding my small black zipper pouch with my meds. He kneels in front of me again, opening it on my lap so I can pick what I need. Anti-nausea and a cocktail of pain meds.
He’s got a water bottle ready for me and watches me like a hawk as I take all the pills, setting my water bottle on my nightstand when I’m done. He swipes his thumb across my bottom lip to get rid of a droplet of water.
“You used to like ice when you had a migraine in college, right? For your head?”
I tip my head down once, half a nod in confirmation. He wastes no time calling room service from the phone on my nightstand and ordering a bag of ice and a few Gatorades. When he’s done, he climbs onto the bed, resting his back against the headboard and patting the space in front of him.
“Come here.”
“I can’t lay down,” I say.
“I want you to rest. Can you lean against me?”
My chin wobbles, the tears I held back earlier springing to my eyes, dropping before I have the chance to stop them.
It takes energy to stop myself from crying, and I don’t have it right now, so I let the tears come.
I’m so overwhelmed by his care, by his attentiveness.
It reminds me of being a child, before I knew I was making my parents so tired.
They way they would sit with me until I fell asleep.
When I woke up, they would still be there, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep on the floor, an arm outstretched toward mine where they fell asleep and let go of my hand.
Whatever I needed, they would have it ready for me or get it for me.
Hazel did the same through college and after, sitting with me if I wanted the company, though I rarely admitted that I did. She would go get me McDonald’s if I could stomach it, knowing that a Coke and fries sometimes made me feel better.
Todd needed to be asked. He would do things if he was available, and only if I asked. And I hated asking. I only ever did it if I was in really bad shape.
But I asked Miles to leave. I told him to go, and yet here he is, offering to hold me so I can rest. It’s the kind of care I have longed for for years.
“Abby, oh my god, are you okay?”
Miles scoots toward me as I hide my face in my hands. He sits behind me, a leg on either side of my body, and wraps his arms around me. He tucks his face in my neck.
“Are you in pain? Talk to me, baby,” he says, his voice soft and low in my ear.
I’m sure he didn’t mean to use that pet name. I’m sure it just slipped out. I don’t care. Right now, it feels so nice to be loved this way. He can call me whatever he wants.
“Yes, but that’s not…” It’s all I can manage. The crying is making my head feel worse. It’s throbbing, and my sinuses are starting to swell, adding to the pressure.
I wipe my tears, trying to stem the flow of them. “I…I haven’t been taken care of like this in so long.”
Miles plants a kiss on the back of my shoulder. “Come here,” he whispers. “Let me hold you.”
He unwinds his arms from me, grabbing a tissue from the nightstand and handing it to me, leaning against the headboard again.
I scoot back into him, careful not to jostle myself too much, and when I’m close enough, he draws me into him, setting me sideways so my legs are draped over his.
I lean against the squishy part of his chest as he wraps his arms around me.
“Tell me if you’re uncomfortable. We’ll find a better position for you.”
I fold my arms over my stomach and melt into him, my body lifting and lowering with every breath he takes, while the world tilts and the pain in my head keeps me distracted from the things happening in my heart.
The meds will kick in and I will need to face the music, but until then, all I can do is wait and let myself be held.
At some point, I must drift off, because one minute, I’m squinting at the bathroom doorframe in the dark of my room, and the next, I’m opening my eyes. The world is still; there’s no spinning, but I still have pain. Not as much as I did before, though.
I lift my head. I’m still lightheaded, but my meds seemed to have kicked in.
Miles’s arms have slackened. His breathing is deeper, more even, and his head is leaned against the headboard, his throat exposed to me fully. He definitely fell asleep. His mouth is cracked open, unable to keep his jaw closed in his sleep, and light snoring sounds escape from his throat.
As my eyes adjust to the dark, slivers of moonlight peeking through the edges of the curtains provide some light to study my ex-boyfriend.
Up close like this, his beard scruff looks more cleaned up than the other day, and I run a finger along his jawline, just to feel the stubble rough on my skin.
He stirs, and I snap my hand back to my chest, but he doesn’t wake up.
His head lolls to the side, his face closer to mine now.
A bone-deep wanting sparks in my chest and spreads, like ink in water, until it’s stretched from shoulder to shoulder and woven into my ribs.
It spreads through my belly and down my arms, into my fingers.
I nudge my forehead against his jaw, nestling into him.
I place a hand on his chest, hoping that this will ease the yearning in me to touch him.
It doesn’t matter that my entire body is up against his; it doesn’t feel close enough.
I feel safe here, in the quiet dark of my room in Cabo, in the arms of a man I once loved.
I know the sun will rise and Miles will wake up and real life will start again, but right now, cocooned in this moment, everything feels right.
Nothing is complicated by our history or my impending departure; I am just here, being held.
For once, I don’t resist the feelings that bubble up in me.
Maybe it’s our old love, come to visit again.
Maybe it’s a new appreciation for this man.
Whatever it is, it’s impossible to ignore.
I slide my hand up his chest, over the pronounced collarbone, to his neck. He stirs again, waking this time.
“Abby?” he croaks, his hands sliding around my frame to hold me again.
I press my fingers into the back of his neck, closing the space between us to bring his lips to mine.
He groans as our lips meet, the way a person does when they’ve taken a bite of something unexpectedly delicious.
He tightens his arms around me, drawing me against him as if we could possibly be any closer.
We kiss like we’ve been separated for years, and we have.
It doesn’t matter that we kissed like this the other night; he kisses me like he’s missed me.
Like he’s been waiting a decade to do this and he won’t get another chance.
His mouth moves on mine like he means to worship my lips.
There is no urgency, no desperation. There is hunger, but it’s the kind of hunger a man brings to church—a reverent need to pour out devotion—not to take, but to give.
I would never stop if he didn’t, but he does, pressing his forehead to mine.
“That didn’t count,” I say, breathless. I really need to stop kissing him when I know I shouldn’t.
“That didn’t count,” he echoes. “Are you okay? Is your head any better?” His whispered breath is warm against my lips.
“I’m better,” I say. “My medicine kicked in. I still have pain, but I think I can sleep now.”
“Then you should sleep,” he says. “Can you lie down?”
I nod, and before he extracts himself from me, he plants his lips against my forehead. While I readjust in the bed to lie down, he checks the box where room service drops food and takes out a half-melted bag of ice.
“If you need more, I’ll call for some now,” he says.
“It’s like…past midnight,” I say.
“Room service is twenty-four-seven.”
“I’m okay,” I say.
“You better not be just saying you’re okay because you don’t want to make a big deal of it.”
“I promise I’m okay. I just want to sleep,” I say.
Or kiss some more.
I don’t say that.
I still have migraine brain and I can’t do the mental gymnastics about why we shouldn’t kiss or why it’s a bad idea, especially when it felt so right. But I do worry that if I don’t go back to sleep soon, the migraine may not go away.
Miles comes back to bed and sits on the edge, weaving his fingers into my hair and rubbing my scalp.
“Oh my god, that feels so nice,” I mutter.
“What else do you need before I go?”
My heart seizes at his words. I don’t want to be alone. I thought he was going to stay. I open my mouth to say as much, but stop myself.
What if he wants to go? What if he doesn’t want to be here? I already ruined his Saturday evening. And if he wanted to stay, he would. Right?
But I want him to stay.
“You look like you’re going to say something,” he says. “Say it.”
“No, no, it’s okay. You should go.”
“We’re not doing this. You’ve got something to say, so say it. You cannot say the wrong thing to me, Abby.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, wanting desperately to pull the covers over my head and hide until he leaves. But he’s scratching my scalp in a way that feels so nice, and I am still so weak from the migraine. I don’t even know if I have the energy to fight my own demons.
His hand stills and starts to move away, but I catch it, holding it in place against the side of my face. I crack open my eyes to look at him, my pulse racing.
“Stay.”
It comes out as a whisper, but it comes out. I said it. I asked him for what I wanted. Maybe not in as many words, but I did it.
His eyes soften around the edges, a smile dancing on his lips. “You want me to stay?”
I shake my head up and down.
He presses a kiss to my forehead and leaves my side, walking toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Gonna get some sweatpants, so I don’t have to sleep in jeans,” he says.
“Oh. Um, you can just—I mean, you don’t have to if you just want to sleep in…whatever is…under that.”
“As long as you’re comfortable.”
Silhouetted against the slivers of light in the room, he unbuckles his belt and unbuttons and unzips his jeans, letting them drop to the floor. I grip the blankets, watching as he reaches behind his back and pulls off his shirt, tossing it on top of his jeans.
He slides into the bed, under the blankets, and hooks a hand around my stomach, drawing me into him.
“Come here,” he says. When my back is nestled against him, he places a soft kiss on the back of my shoulder. “I didn’t want to leave. I just didn’t want to overstay my welcome.”
“I know I ruined your Saturday night. I didn’t want to ask you to give me more time than you already did.”
“Abigail Ashe, there isn’t another place in the fucking world I’d rather spend my Saturday night than by your side.”
“Holding my hair while I puke?”
“Best part of the night.”
This time when I laugh, it doesn’t hurt my head.
If I thought too hard about what I’m doing right now—cuddling in my bed with my ex-boyfriend on what is supposed to be my honeymoon—I might think my way out of this situation.
But I don’t want to think my way out of it. Letting Miles take care of me felt good. Feels good. And although I know it’s not good for my heart, I can’t bring myself to tell him to leave.
So I’ll wrap my heart in cellophane and let myself be held. And maybe I’ll let whatever happens over the next four days just…happen.