Chapter 19
The last thing Puck wants to do after another long night of strenuous extracurricular activity with Robyn is leave their room, especially when they’re still recovering from their close call with Zander.
Robyn showed up two minutes after Zander left, which means the two of them probably barely missed each other in the hallway—a possibility Puck has spent the last two hours retroactively worrying about, even though it’s already been averted, the adrenaline lingering in their body long after it served its purpose.
So when Robyn suggests venturing out onto the back lawn of the Athenian sometime after her third or fourth orgasm of the night—they’ve lost count—Puck’s first reaction is to whine.
“What do I have to do to tire you out?” they ask in mock exasperation. “Run you around on a leash?”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Robyn quips without a moment’s hesitation. “But my bite is worse than my bark, unfortunately.”
“Don’t worry, I’m an experienced handler,” Puck says, not nearly as quickly, but still trying to participate despite their tiredness.
“Good.”
Even though it was mere days ago, Puck can’t remember what it was like to think Robyn was some normative straight girl.
It feels like one minute she was yelling at them about the rules of croquet, and the next she was here, completely naked, loose strands of hair matted against her sweaty forehead, casually firing off kinky repartee.
But that’s not the only way Puck has misjudged her.
Her shell, once so prickly, was hiding a surprisingly tender freak beneath it the entire time.
When she showed up at Puck’s room a couple of hours ago, the first thing she said was “Where were you? I missed you,” and her tone suggested she didn’t just mean the sex, though it certainly wasn’t off the table.
Could this thing they’ve so quickly built together—Puck doesn’t even know how to describe it—ever survive outside of the Athenian?
Puck catches themself assuming that Robyn would even want that.
The subject of what happens after the wedding has loomed at the edges of their postcoital conversations.
Earlier tonight, Robyn asked Puck to give them an “oral tour” of their studio apartment, and they managed to resist the obvious double entendre long enough to tell her about the little balcony overlooking the square, the built-in bookshelf where Puck keeps the Emmy they stole from Ron’s house, and the ficus that will never die, no matter how infrequently it gets watered.
As they idly run a finger from Robyn’s sternum down to her belly button, Puck tries to imagine this tornado of a woman there, in their home.
She wouldn’t have asked if she couldn’t foresee visiting one day, right?
But that would mean eventually telling Mia about all this.
And besides, when the wedding is canceled, will Robyn feel bad about this being where she met Puck?
Surely any minute now she’s going to get an emergency text from Mia, summoning the bridesmaids to battle stations.
That’d hardly be an auspicious start to a real relationship, if Puck is even ready for that.
Their life back in Atlanta doesn’t have much room for lazy coffee dates or strolling through Piedmont Park on Sunday afternoons.
And they certainly don’t want to do barre, though maybe they should try it if Robyn still has this much energy after her body has already been pushed to the limit for hours on end.
“Why do you want to go outside at two in the morning?” Puck asks her, bracing themself for the excursion.
“Perseids.”
The word doesn’t mean anything. “Did I fuck you so hard you forgot English?”
Robyn sits up on the bed, gathering the down comforter around herself. “There’s a meteor shower and it’s a clear night. C’mon, we’re already awake.”
Stargazing feels like such an adolescent activity compared to what they were just doing, but Robyn’s enthusiasm is endearing.
This must be what Mia was drawn to: not her particularities or her persnicketiness, but the sheer joy she can feel.
In a world full of people who act like it’s uncool to enjoy the things they enjoy, Robyn pursues what she desires, and is pleased when she gets it.
Cats don’t feel guilty when they sneak a lick of ice cream off the counter, and why should they?
No excuse Puck can come up with to remain in bed—like the fact that they’d need to put on clothes, or the lateness of the hour, or their fear of getting eaten by coyotes—can stand up to the beautiful simplicity of Robyn’s want.
“I’m surprised this didn’t make it onto your very detailed wedding itinerary,” they tell her. “‘Two a.m. Purr-Seeds. Dress code: Jammies.’”
Puck is joking, of course, but Robyn answers seriously anyway. “I thought about it,” she says. “But I figured keeping everyone up late the night before the wedding was a bad idea. The bride can’t have bags under her eyes when she walks down the aisle.”
Puck leaves aside the fact that Mia could stay awake for an entire week and still look as fresh as a rose.
Because the truth is they wouldn’t want to see anyone else right now.
Only Robyn. This strange beauty in their bed.
Especially if this is the last night they get to spend with her.
They surprise themself by kissing her on the forehead before standing up to pull on a pair of pants and an undershirt.
“Well, are you coming?” they ask after getting dressed, turning to find Robyn still clinging to the comforter, regarding them with a kindness that hits places inside Puck that haven’t been touched in years. But just as quickly as Puck notices the expression, it shifts.
“I just did,” Robyn smirks. “A bunch.”
“That was too obvious,” Puck deadpans. “You should be embarrassed.”
“You should be embarrassed for not knowing what the Perseids are. I thought you were gay.”
Only then does Robyn leave the bed to put her yoga pants back on along with one of Puck’s oversize pajama tees.
Puck thinks about the compassion they saw in Robyn’s eyes as they walk down the halls of the Athenian.
It’s been a while since someone caught feelings for them, but it’s been even longer since Puck wanted to reciprocate them.
Love isn’t like riding a bike. It’s more like trying to do long division after leaving grade school; one day, with no warning, you completely forget the order of operations.
Through all these years on Homewreckers, and during their handful of ill-fated relationships, Puck has struggled to understand why companionship even matters.
If they can derive purpose from work and pleasure from the bar, do they really need someone for the moments in between?
For the sad weekday takeout meals and the Target runs and all the myriad errands that make up a modern life?
Previously, whenever Puck has plugged an imaginary girlfriend into those scenarios, it’s never felt right.
But now, as they slip out the back exit of the lobby with Robyn, they visualize this particular woman in all of those moments and something feels …
different. The humdrum would be less humdrum.
The cold noodles would taste better. All that upkeep would maybe mean something.
It would be for a world in which Robyn could be this excited by the prospect of lights streaking through the night sky.
It was so easy for Puck to kiss Robyn in the sauna that first day, and almost easier to fuck her.
But they feel their heart thump against their ribs as they grab Robyn’s hand and walk deeper into the darkness.
She doesn’t pull away, but there’s some awkwardness as Puck tries to remember whether they like to interlace digits or clasp palms. Fumbling for the right position, they scan Robyn’s face for a reaction and detect what could be a small smile, but without the benefit of moonlight, it’s hard to tell.
“Here, let’s lie down,” Robyn says, picking a seemingly arbitrary spot on the grass.
Is she that eager to stop holding hands?
Did Puck make things too tender too soon?
That hasn’t been a problem of theirs for years.
The excitement of feeling like a lovesick teenager may not be worth all this anxiety.
They exhale as they sit next to Robyn, trying to calm down, and then recline all the way, feeling blades of grass brush against their scalp.
The sensation brings them back to buzzing their head during senior year at Emory.
It was Mia who ran the clippers for them.
She was obsessed with petting Puck’s “fuzz” for weeks afterward, always bordering on being too supportive of them, if anything.
Even some queer kids at Emory asked Puck if they were really sure they wanted to chop all their hair off, but all Mia said was “That’s cool,” followed quickly by “Can I do it?” Puck hopes that what they’ve done this week has been enough to rescue that version of Mia. It must be.
For now, they can relax. The summer air is thick and warm, even more so than a typical August, like a weighted blanket on Puck’s chest. “What exactly am I looking for now?” they ask Robyn after a minute of staring at nothing but a few familiar constellations: the Big Dipper, Leo, and is that Cassiopeia, too?
“Just wait,” Robyn says. “You have to let your eyes adjust first.”
“I was promised meteors.”
“How can you be such a patient lover but such an impatient everything else?”
Puck is startled by the flutter they feel in their chest at Robyn using a variant of that word. But they try not to let their excitement show. It is, in fact, a good question—one Puck struggles to answer even after turning it around in their head for a silent moment.
“I guess I spend most of my time making things happen,” they finally tell her. “So it’s hard for me to sit around and wait for things to happen.”
“At your job, you mean?” Robyn asks. “Homewreckers?”