Lexi
Lexi
I paint sometimes with Mae, but this is different. Zeke lives up to his whole “I’m creative” image by becoming immediately absorbed in a sophisticated seascape, but that’s fine; a man who wears velvet trousers can’t very well not be artistic. I faff about painting a house, like I am five, and then start again on something new, a bunch of blobs and lines. It takes me a minute to realize that I’m trying to do what Zeke did when he waved his arms around to show me his brain. This is my brain. Lots of straight lines and corners. Lots of worst-case scenarios. And, in the end, when you look at it all crowded in on the page like this: no less chaotic than Zeke’s charming smoke in the wind.
We take a brief step back into real life after this, because we discover an unopened tin of paint in the store cupboard. Zeke points out we could put this to better use, so we spend the rest of the afternoon writing SOS across the helipad and the main deck of the rig. It’s kind of sobering at first, but after a while we forget what we’re actually writing and just chat as we slop down the paint. Zeke tells me more about his family; I even talk a little about my dad, what I remember of him from my childhood, the spitting argument we had at Mum’s funeral when I cut him out of my life for good.
It’s amazing, to be honest. It’s the sort of heady, gorgeous day that you get when you let yourself believe that a wonderful man might actually want you. I haven’t stopped feeling scared or sad, but I’ve started feeling a lot of other things, too, and some of those things are louder. Joy. Hopefulness. Love, maybe, if I were the sort of person who could let myself call it that so soon.
Zeke’s organizing us a “date” for tonight. I head back to the room to get ready, digging my makeup bag out of my holdall. Putting on makeup with butterflies in my stomach makes me feel like I’ve thrown a line back in time to the Lexi who lives on land, and the moment of connection makes it so obvious how different I am now. That Lexi moved through life without looking. Now I’m scared and desperate and drained, but I’m also living so hard it’s like I’m doing it in Technicolor. If I survive this, I’ll look back on these days as the making of me, I know I will.
The outfit isn’t as special as I’d like, but at least it’s not something I’ve worn before. Zeke has seen every item of clothing I have, and worn a fair few of them himself, too. I’m going for an oversized, bright blue T-shirt that I found in the rig laundry room; I cut the sleeves and neckline, so it plunges in a raw-edged V, as low as it can go without showing the bow on the front of my bra. I wear it with my leather jacket and black boots, and use a thin, age-darkened rope as a belt.
As I fuss with my rope belt, I’m struck by the ridiculousness of this, how hard I’m trying for a man who’s seen me in sea-drenched, unwashed underwear, but caring about mascara instead of provisions feels so nice. I’m going to let myself have tonight.
Zeke doesn’t say anything as I step out into the corridor; he just breathes out slowly, taking me in for so long I start to twist inward, folding my arms.
“Don’t,” he says, reaching for me. “You are so beautiful.”
I shrug him off. “You with all the chat-up lines…”
He frowns, reaching for me again; this time I let him take my hands.
“I wish you’d listen when I say things like that. I wish you’d hear it.”
Actually, I do feel kind of beautiful today, with nobody to compare myself to except another version of myself, and Zeke’s warm eyes on me, and the knowledge of all that my body has done for me in the last week.
“What’s it about? Why can’t you take a compliment?” he asks softly.
I shrug, avoiding his eyes. “It just feels kind of wrong. Like it shouldn’t be about me.”
“What shouldn’t?”
“I don’t know. Anything?”
He’s quiet for too long. I risk a glance at his face. He looks very sad all of a sudden, and just as I’m starting to feel embarrassed, he says, “I think it’s amazing how you’re always there for other people—me, Penny, Mae. But being there for other people doesn’t have to mean…erasing yourself.”
“Is that what you think I do? What I’ve done?” I ask. I can’t decide whether that’s pissed me off.
“I think you deserve to be cherished,” he says, stretching out his hand to me. “And I can’t wait to show you what that looks like.”
My frown smooths away—it’s impossible to scowl at him when he says things like that.
“Come on,” he says, smiling. “Let me start by feeding you.”
I take his hand and follow him through the network of corridors, out into the duskiness before sunset. The breeze picks up my hair and shakes it loose; I’m glad of my leather jacket. The butterflies are still fluttering high in my stomach as we climb the steps to the helipad. We skirt this afternoon’s painting—circling the word SOS scrawled in red paint should be a buzzkill, but it isn’t, it really isn’t. This is my life right now. My eyes are fixed instead on the nest of duvets and blankets set up in the very middle of the helicopter pad, on the central bar of that H.
Zeke has made us a picnic. I can see at least six bowls of different dishes, and even two wineglasses that I suspect have come up from the houseboat.
My eyes prick. This is so lovely. He didn’t have to do this. But he did, for me.
“OK?” he says, looking at me a little nervously.
“Perfect,” I manage, settling in on one side of the picnic.
He smiles, passing me a plate. I’m not entirely sure what any of this is, but I see macaroni, and thick dark sauce, and something flecked with bright green peas and the muted orange of tinned carrots. All of it looks incredible.
“Oh my God ,” I say through my first mouthful, and I watch his face brighten.
“You like that one? I used the last of the Worcester sauce, that’s where it gets the depth from, and…” He trails off, embarrassed. “Anyway.”
“Don’t stop,” I say, nudging his knee with mine. “I love it when you talk food. You get all…” I wave my fork at him. “Glowy.”
“Glowy?” he says, with a dubious eyebrow-raise, but one of his dimples is showing as he fights a smile.
“It’s very sexy,” I inform him, taking another forkful and letting out a moan as the flavor hits my tongue. It’s a zingy, peppery pasta dish, and I have no idea how it tastes this delicious. “How good is the food you make when you’re not working with expired tins only?”
“I actually think expired tins might be my thing. Second dates, though…less so,” he says, voice as light as always, but he’s not looking at me as he reaches for another bowl. “How am I doing with the picnic? Is that appropriate?”
“It’s good, actually,” I say. “Low pressure, not too showy…”
“Right, well, I did think about taking you to the Ritz, but…”
I snort and he gives me a lip-quirk smile that makes my stomach tighten. As we eat, his eyes keep holding mine; he shifts nearer, then I do the same, and even though the food is incredible, I almost wish it away.
He clears the picnic up once we’re done, and then settles back beside me, pulling two of the duvets over our bare shins as the sun begins to sink toward the sea. I feel like every minute of today has been leading us gently here, and the anticipation has built to this slow, delicious feeling that the moment he kisses me, I’ll be lost. The hairs on my arms rise as he reaches across me to tuck the duvets a little higher up my legs.
When the sunset comes, it’s one of the best we’ve seen. It’s luscious and red-gold, as though the sun is dripping hot into the water. There’s a faint fog to the west, fading one edge of the sky into haziness.
“Do you ever think about our one-night stand?” I ask, looking out at the water.
Zeke turns his gaze from the skyline to look at me. “Do I ever think about having sex with you?” he asks, incredulous.
I start to laugh. He snakes a hand out and places it on the back of my neck, but he doesn’t move; he just looks right in my eyes as the laughter fades on my lips. It reminds me of that first night, in the pub, when I’d almost dared him to kiss me and he’d held back, watching me instead.
“Yes, Lexi, I do.”
My stomach turns over. I shift into him, bringing our faces close as the sun dips. I don’t want to rush this, not after the delicate slow build of the day that brought us here. The one thing we have right now is time.
With two duvets layered on top of us and three underneath us, everything feels soft and languid. The fierce desire I felt for him on that first night hasn’t changed, but it’s spread and deepened, like the rich orange sunset stretching across the sky. Zeke’s thumb sweeps the back of my neck, and I shiver.
“It was incredible, that night. But I wish…”
“That is a very unfair point to trail off,” I say, as he dips his head, presses a kiss to my neck. My body sparks up as soon as his lips touch my skin, as if he’s found a button set in the curve of my neck, the exact spot to bring me to life.
“Sorry. It’s hard to find words for it,” he says. “I just feel like I didn’t know at the time how important that was. Our night together. It was amazing, but I wish I could go back and tell myself…this woman, she’ll be your everything. Then sometimes I wonder if I sort of did know. The moment I keep playing over and over is when I…Can I say this?” Zeke’s voice is husky now.
I tilt my chin back, letting him press a kiss to the base of my jaw, the patch of soft skin beneath my ear. I can feel every place where he’s kissed me—they’re bright spots of icy coolness as the wind sweeps over us.
“Please,” I say, swallowing.
“I unfastened your bra, and you held it there with your hands across your chest,” he says, his lips so close to my skin that his words vibrate there, caught between us. “You were sitting at the end of the bed, and I was kneeling, and I saw just an inch…” He presses his thumb to the top of my breast, showing me, and I arch despite myself, wanting more. “And you said, I like how your eyes go .”
He presses a slow kiss to the place where his thumb was. It goes cold the instant he lifts his mouth, and the sensation makes me quiver.
“I said, Go what? And you said, Don’t mine? When I look at you? ”
I remember it. How his eyes seemed to turn to hot sugar, to caramel. How they made me melt.
“And I looked you right in the eye, kneeling there in front of you, and I got exactly what you meant. Your eyes had turned so soft. The way you looked at me. It made me feel like I was all there was.”
His voice catches a little; he presses another kiss to my neck, and I turn into him, sliding myself closer. I lift a hand to his jaw, tracing it through his beard, pulling back so that I can kiss him lightly on the lips. Even that—just the faintest featheriest kiss—makes my heart quicken.
“You know,” I say, “I don’t remember when I let go of my bra.”
He hums against my throat, tracing a slow, hot path. I reach for his belt and rest my fingers there, feeling the warmth of his toned stomach above it.
“You’re right, I was holding on to it.” My voice is breathy and unfamiliar as my hand shifts over the buckle, sliding the belt free. “I generally prefer to keep as many clothes on as possible. But I don’t even remember dropping it. Like it wasn’t even a thing.”
“It was a thing,” Zeke says. “ I remember it.”
He shifts away to pull his T-shirt over his head. The heat of his skin as he comes back to me is an exquisite shock, and I shrug out of my jacket, fumbling with my rope belt, wanting it all gone.
“I’m just saying that…I felt comfortable.” I whisper the last words as I raise my arms and let him pull my T-shirt dress slowly up, up. “I let you see me, even then.”
I feel a hot flush move up my body at the confession, as though somehow that’s the most revealing thing, even as he takes me in, every curve. His smile is slow and whisky smooth. It makes my lips move, too, like he’s tugging the joy out of me with that slight lift of the corner of his mouth.
“That’s all I want,” he whispers. “You. All of you.”
We kiss again, a drugged, consuming kiss, and that’s it: the sun is down, the horizon line melting into pure heat and darkness. I throw my head back, lost already, and it’s like that first night, but it’s different, too. I’m different. When I meet his gaze, rocking, gasping, I feel all the depth of what we’ve been through between us. It makes every moment fiercer and brighter. By the time he moves inside me, I’m the same as everything else out here: a little wild.