Chapter 42
Sawyer
Kissing Morgan consumes me. I feel remade, renewed by the combination of expectation and culmination we shaped on each other’s mouths.
I think of kintsugi pottery, of how the style doesn’t just mean repairing something broken. The imperative ingredient is something new. Something clay could never have imagined on its own. It’s not just restoration. It’s transcendence.
We return to the fire, hand in hand, fingers loosely entwined.
From there, the night surrounding us stretches long.
Zach resumes his post on the beer cooler, looking, if possible, even more delighted than he did during his friends’ reminiscences.
The conversation moves on, returning sometimes to Zach but reaching out to other lives, other recollections, other plans and possibilities.
Zach drinks them in, looking reassured by the evidence of life continuing on.
Eventually, the fire starts to die down. Layla turns to me and Morgan, inquiring whether we’re camping overnight.
Of course, our hotel reservation waits for us. Separate rooms, we insisted when we decided to drive out here with Zach.
Right.
Morgan does not mention the hotel. Her eyes meet mine. The question in them is obvious.
“Yes,” I reply to Layla, soft and clear. “We’ll sleep here in the van.”
Morgan smiles. Her cheeks pinken with eagerness in the fading firelight, and god, I want to go over there, wasting not even a moment, and kiss her right now.
Instead, we let anticipation smolder like the fire while we borrow some supplies from the group and find some pillows and a blanket in the back of Zach’s van. Ana was outfitted for Perfect Weekend overnights, obviously.
I brush my teeth at the communal bathrooms, knowing exactly where this night is headed.
I’m determined to enjoy every single second of it.
Of Morgan, who, despite everything, has become the most vital part of my world.
Life is precious—she’s precious—and I won’t waste even one moment.
I won’t waste a single gift I’m given, especially when said gift’s laughter sounds like sunshine and her joy shines like gold.
When I return to the van, Morgan is under the blanket, partially reclined and half exposed. Her hair is loose, her tresses ocean-wild. Her tank top is desperately thin.
I’m lucky I need to crawl into the van on all fours. Otherwise, my knees might give out.
Morgan smiles shyly when I come closer. The moonlight makes her skin glow, urging my heartbeat faster.
I wasn’t lying when I confessed to some rustiness with flirtation, and Morgan has me overwhelmingly self-conscious.
I wish I could sculpt her my feelings, somehow, instead of…
What’s the perfect way to tell her I need her, now, with every part of me?
To tell her I want to give her everything.
“So, what do you guys want to do tonight? Swap ghost stories?”
Zach’s voice startles me. Morgan looks similarly rattled. Our ghost watches us from the front seat, where he’s just materialized, grinning his grandest Zach Harrison, Cheshire Cat grin.
Morgan and I lock eyes. Quite honestly, ghost stories were not part of our conjugal plans tonight, but—
“Oh, um.” Morgan recovers first, finding her footing unevenly, like I imagine Zach did on their now infamous rock-climbing outing. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
I force myself to look at my paranormal friend and not the beautiful girl half dressed right in front of me.
“Yeah, Zach, this is your weekend,” I say in a passable imitation of Morgan’s good cheer.
Zach looks from me to Morgan, Morgan to me, carefully considering how to keep the Perfect Weekend vibes going. Then he bursts out laughing. “You guys are the best. Honestly,” he proclaims, “willing to give up this freaking perfect romantic night just to talk to me.”
Relief crashes over me when I understand, which makes me embarrassed.
Morgan looks like she feels the same way. She straightens up from her reclining position on the pillows. “Seriously, Zach, we’d love to spend time with you,” she insists. “Sawyer and I can…” She clears her throat, blushing intensely, not meeting my eyes.
Zach’s brows rise in interest.
“We’ll have other nights,” she says, rerouting.
“No,” Zach says firmly. He holds up one finger in pontificating urgency. “No. No other nights shit. A meteor could barrel down here at any moment. Live every day like it’s your last,” he demands. “I mean it. I lived that way, and I had the most beautiful life.”
The peaceful weight of this statement seems to reach Zach only when he speaks it. The serenity in his expression isn’t happy, exactly. Not many people get to reckon with the beauty of their life only once it’s over. In fact, I’ve only met two. It can’t be easy.
But Zach doesn’t look mournful, either. He sees his spectral retrospective for what it is—a gift.
“So, you two definitely should bone tonight,” he concludes.
I cough. Now my cheeks match Morgan’s bashful color, I have no doubt. But I’m touched, too. We just heard for hours how selfless Zach Harrison is, how earnestly loyal. Encouraging his friends to “bone” during his last night on earth—yeah, he is.
“Zach, really,” I plead weakly. “We don’t need to.”
Smiling, Zach starts to fade. “Ben stays up all night watching the waves. I’m going to sit with him,” he informs us. “I want to be near the sea. Oh, and”—his visibility diminishing, he nods to the dashboard—“I left something in the glove compartment for you. Otto always has extras.”
Then he’s gone, leaving Morgan and me alone. The hushed sanctuary inside the van is comforting. The quiet shrouds us in a near-physical embrace. The beach is empty, everyone having set up tents or driven their vans to more secluded parking spaces.
Morgan is silent. She looks expectant, or—or maybe she’s trepidatious. Maybe Zach’s intrusion, humorously intended though it was, has reminded her of impending loss or inexplicable guilt.
“You know we don’t have to, um, bone, right?” I say.
I feel a rush of emotion when Morgan’s expression clears. She smirks; there’s no mistaking her meaning.
She rises to her knees, the blanket slipping off her, revealing more of the transparency of the worn material of her top.
Holy shit, my mind murmurs in jumbled ecstasy.
I can’t think straight. Morgan in her goddamn semitransparent top is delivering sweet, shattering punishment to the coherence of my nervous system.
I’m going to have to sit on the beach with Ben all night just to stay sane.
Maybe I’ll drift into the ocean for good measure.
Morgan is merciless. I want her so fucking bad. Her eyes half lidded, she crawls over to me. The closeness is…consuming. “Who are we,” she murmurs, “to deny Zach’s last wishes?”
I have to smile. When Morgan is inches from me, her scent overwhelming—florals, the sea, the complicated sweetness of her body—I put a hand on her shoulder, caressing her while holding her still. “Morgan,” I insist.
“I want to,” she promises me, her exhalation hardening and weakening me at once. “I understand if you’re not ready, though,” she says gently. “We can take this as slow as you want.”
I look down, drawing her gaze to the prominent pressure in the front of my pants. “Oh, I’m ready,” I reply.
Morgan laughs, and it’s with her sunshine sound filling the van’s cozy interior that I crash my mouth to hers. I want to capture that happiness, snare it in a kiss, swallow it in a drunken dream. I want Morgan’s intoxicating joy to fill me up, and I want to give her the night of her life in return.
She meets me unhesitatingly, kissing me furiously, surging to her knees with her whole body coming to meet me.
My other hand finds her, gripping her hips, pulling her into me while our tongues clash and devour.
The obliterating power of one thought rips through my skull, hurtling down the empty freeway of my chest, past my heart, into where my desire swells for her. I love this woman. I love her so much.
Now it’s Morgan shattering me, and it feels good.
I move fast, laying her down on the blankets to pin her beneath me. Morgan gasps from the sudden movement. I lose my shirt in supernatural haste, then reach for Morgan’s. Her whisper-thin top falls to the floor, revealing her bare breasts, pure and soft and waiting.
I press my chest to hers, and she moans. Running my hand down the length of her, I want to touch her everywhere. She’s so warm. Her heartbeat thrums in her chest, in her neck, pounding when I kiss the soft skin there. She’s so alive, and with her, I’m so alive.
My heartbeat is fighting to catch up with hers, my mouth moving lower from her neck while my hand rises to cup her curvature when—
The glove compartment pops open.
We stop, startled, each of us simultaneously noticing the condom Zach left behind.
Otto always has extras. I laugh, grateful, reaching for the thin package.
“Having a ghost for a wingman really is useful,” Morgan comments.
She takes it from my hands, while I undress her in the dark. Moonlight shapes the shadows inside the van, contouring our sanctuary in welcoming darkness with soft edges of pale white. Fighting the urge to rush, I draw Morgan’s shorts down, her underwear coming with them.
When I move forward to kiss her once more, she puts her hands on me.
Warm, impossibly gentle. Loving, like every caress I’ve given her.
The wonderful rush of her familiar grasp on the length of me makes me lightheaded, nearly to collapsing.
I haven’t been touched in so long. Knowing it’s Morgan’s hands on me—finally—is overpowering.
Only by focusing on her do I stay within myself. I kiss her and kiss her and kiss her. I want to surrender to her completely, but in her tender grasp, I feel she’s still hesitant to rush me.
I can’t blame her. I’ve given her enough reasons to doubt that I’m ready for this. But god, I’m ready.
I urge her in every way I know how. With my mouth on her neck, tracing her pulse with my tongue, I reach down, putting my fingers to her, losing myself in her warmth.
The whimpering encouragement she utters is enough to frenzy me, but I stay in control.
I don’t want to waste this night. No, I want to delve deep into every single one of these moments.
I want to fight for them to last forever.
Morgan understands. She rolls the condom onto me, the waver in her fingers only impassioning me more. Unconsciously or not, she flexes forward when she opens her legs.
When I’m inside her, I press my head into her neck, entwining my hands with hers, wanting to touch her everywhere I can. Morgan. My Morgan.
I want everything, every part of her. Every day, every minute, every second.
My Morgan. My whole life.