Chapter 12
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I’m alone when the alarm on my phone goes off at seven.
There’s no sound from the bathroom, no sound anywhere in the room really, except for the steady hum of the air conditioner.
Hollis must be elsewhere already this morning.
The lace curtains do little to block out the sunlight, which floods the room and illuminates all of the Jesus paintings.
Really, how the hell did we do what we did last night with all of these eyes on us?
I’ve never been so retroactively thankful for a power outage.
As I sit up and stretch, I become increasingly, painfully, aware of how sore my limbs are.
Not from the sex, but because I kept my body rigid as I slept, balancing on the edge of the mattress to avoid accidentally touching Hollis.
The last thing I wanted was him thinking I was trying to cuddle.
I might not know much about how this is supposed to work, but I know it’s wham, bam, thank you ma’am , not wham, bam, thank you; now do you want to be the big spoon or the little spoon?
My phone has a handful of work emails that can wait a few days and a text notification from Dani that she sent a few hours after our brief conversation.
It says: It’s only complicated if you make it complicated, cuz.
Dani’s straightforward advice is so different from the way Mrs. Nash helped me navigate the gray areas of my problems that the grief that sits dormant inside my heart like a daffodil bulb in winter threatens to send up a tender green shoot.
I try to conjure in my head an image of my best friend, sitting in her favorite palm tree–patterned chair by the apartment’s picture window.
But while I can imagine her in perfect detail, she only smiles back at me, not saying a word.
I’m as lost as I was all those times I came to her seeking advice, except now I can’t even hope that she’ll help me find my way.
I glance over at my backpack, slung across the back of the desk chair.
Mrs. Nash can’t help me anymore, but I can still help her one last time.
That’s why I’m going to ride two miles per hour in a convertible and wave to people later this morning.
So I should probably shower now because it’s going to take a good three hours to locate an outfit worthy of a parade grand marshal.
Except I guess while I was blow-drying my hair, Hollis snuck back into the room, because there’s suddenly a Kelly green sheath dress hanging from the front of the armoire.
I clutch my towel tighter around my body as I approach it.
The tag inside is faded, like it might be vintage.
It looks close to my size, but the only way to know is to try it.
My underwear and bra are sitting on top of my suitcase where I left them before my shower, so I drop the towel and put them on.
Then I gently remove the green dress from the hanger and step into it.
The door opens when the dress is covering only my bottom half. For a second I startle, trying to cover my chest with my arms. But Hollis appears in the doorway, leaning on the frame as his eyes sweep slowly from my bare feet up to my eyes.
“I’ve seen you naked, Millicent,” he says. “You don’t need to hide your bra from me.”
“You’ve felt me naked. You couldn’t see much of anything last night.”
“Semantics. The point is, I already know what’s going on under there.” He latches the door and pads over to where I’m standing by the armoire. “Turn around.”
When I do, he coaxes the dress up until my arms are through the holes. Then he zips me up. But none of it is especially sensual. His movements aren’t slow and deliberate so much as efficient. It’s more reminiscent of how one would dress a toddler than seduce a lover.
“Hollis,” I say, deciding honesty is the only way I’m going to get through this, “I don’t understand how this works.”
“It’s a dress. It covers your body. There’s not much more to it.”
“No. Not— I understand clothing, thanks. I do not understand how this works between us now.”
“Oh. I told you last night. Nothing’s changed.”
“Maybe not emotionally, but something has changed. You didn’t dress me yesterday morning.”
“I would have if you asked.”
“You know what I mean. Like you said, you know what’s going on under here.” I gesture wildly in the direction of my chest. “You stroll over and touch me in a way you never would have done before we...”
“Before we fucked. It’s okay to say it, you know.”
“Before we fucked,” I say, trying to say every syllable as precisely as I can to show I’m unafraid.
“I understand how to talk to you. But I don’t know what the rules are for the physical parts of this.
How do we know if or when we’re going to do it again?
Who can touch whom and in what contexts?
I’ve never done the casual-sex thing. And you do it constantly.
I need guidance so I don’t get it wrong and do irreparable damage to our friendship. ”
“I do it constantly ?” He huff-laughs. “Just how much game do you think I have?”
“Hollis. Please. Tell me the rules.”
“The rules?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He dips his head to position his lips close to my ear.
His voice is low, intimate. “Rule one. Open communication—always. For example, if I want to get you out of this nice dress that Connie thought you might want to wear for the parade today, and then make you come on my tongue, I will communicate that to you and ask if that’s something you’re up for.
And then you will say yes or no or maybe propose something different.
Consent is never assumed, and we can each change our minds at any time and for any reason. ”
“W-what’s rule two?”
“Rule two is be safe. And rule three is have fun. That’s about it.” He lightly nibbles my earlobe. “So what do you say, Mill? Can I find out how you taste?”
I squeeze my eyes closed, overwhelmed by the liquid heat pooling between my legs. “Oh. Shit. I thought that was hypothetical.”
“No, I meant it as an actual right-now proposition.”
“Oh.” It’s only complicated if you make it complicated .
Dani’s text flashes in my brain. I wait for Mrs. Nash’s words to do the same, my memory searching for some past advice that might apply enough to act as the angel to the devil Dani on my shoulder.
But the only thing I find is always do what is right for you.
And what is right for me at this moment—according to my body, if not my brain—is Hollis’s mouth.
I reach back and grab his wrist, then turn it so I can read the time on his watch.
Hours and hours still before I have to be ready for the parade. “Yes, I am amenable to that.”
The dress’s zipper slides back down, this time with Hollis’s lips on the back of my neck and his other hand caressing my exposed skin. With a little shimmying, the green fabric puddles at my feet.
“Is this you finally being nice?” I ask.
“No,” he whispers into my ear. “This is me being extremely, extremely selfish.”
I’m fully naked with little fanfare, Hollis pausing only long enough to confirm that yes, those are dogs wearing sunglasses printed on my underwear.
He guides me toward the bed, gently pushing me onto my back before dragging me by the hips to the edge of the mattress.
After setting his glasses on the chest at the foot of the bed, his tongue skims along my inner thigh and makes my legs turn to jelly in anticipation.
But inches from his ultimate destination, he pauses and stands abruptly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. This is really not the reaction you want someone having when confronted with your vagina.
“Sorry. I was raised Southern Baptist and I...” Hollis mutters as he climbs onto the bed behind me and reaches up.
“Can’t with the... them staring.” He flips the Jesus paintings over, then moves on to the next grouping of them, and the next, until all twenty-five have been forced to avert their eyes.
I laugh the entire time, deep belly laughs as he frowns in his very Hollis way as he encounters each one. “Now,” he says when he sinks to his knees beside the bed again, “let’s make that worth the trouble it’s going to be to flip them all back around again.”