Chapter 11
Sarah
I wave goodbye in the parking lot as Junie steps into the van piloted by the night shift guy from the group home.
“Have a good night,” I call after them.
“You, too.” Junie grins and does her best attempt at a wink. It bears a closer resemblance to an owllike blink, and I laugh even though I’m blushing like crazy.
Can everyone tell I’m crushing on Ian?
Not hard, nothing I can’t control, but still, it’s there.
I wonder what it’ll be like announcing our engagement to the group.
Waiting until after Cassie’s wedding was my idea, my little escape hatch in case something goes wrong.
I don’t expect it to, but it’s not like I have much experience planning a marriage of convenience.
I jog back to the gym and swing through the doors, careful to lock them behind me. As I scan the fitness room, I spot Ian over by the free weights using a bottle of pink disinfectant to wipe down the equipment.
“Thanks for saving me,” I say as I join him next to the weight rack. “You don’t have to stay and clean up.”
“I want to.” He smiles and re-racks a dumbbell that required both hands and significant sweat for me to lift. He manages one-handed. “Besides, there’s not that much to do.”
I bend down and start rolling up a yoga mat, conscious of his eyes on me. “You were fantastic,” I tell him. “Super-patient, and I loved how clear your directions were.”
“They were a great group.” He racks the last dumbbell, then drops to a crouch to help me with the yoga mats. “Is it just me, or does Aidan have the hots for Junie?”
“It’s not just you,” I say. “She and I have had a lot of talks about it. She’s making up her mind how she feels.”
“You think that’ll be in the cards for them?” he asks. “Dating, marriage, kids, that kind of thing?”
I know he’s not asking out of ignorance. Forty years ago it was unheard of for people with Down Syndrome to have those things, but Ian knows better than most how perceptions have changed.
“I hope so,” I say carefully. “People with Down Syndrome have the same need for love and affection and companionship as everyone else.”
I let the words hang there a moment, wondering if he noticed I slipped “love” into that list. Even if he doesn’t see it as a vital part of marriage, he has to know it’s a basic human need.
He doesn’t react. Not to the love thing, anyway.
“I’m happy for them,” he says with a genuineness that makes my heart ache. “Everyone deserves those things.”
So do you, Ian.
The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I stop myself. Will he someday come back to the idea of true love being in the cards for him? Part of me hopes so, but then I feel guilty. We’ve promised to keep love out of the equation, and there I go floating it out there like a big bubble of hope.
“Seriously though, you were amazing with them,” I say, steering the conversation back to neutral turf.
“I’ve done so many community outings like this where people patronize or condescend and talk to them like little kids,” I say as I stow an exercise mat in one of the cubbies.
“Either that or they go the opposite way and assume everyone knows right from left or basic spatial things we all take for granted. I love that you struck the perfect balance.”
He doesn’t say anything right away. Just wipes a machine I’m pretty sure is clean by now. When he speaks, his voice is gravelly. “I miss him so much.”
I don’t need to ask who he means. I rest a hand on his shoulder, aching for him. “Shane was one of a kind.”
“I forget sometimes.” He turns to face me, and the anguish in his eyes takes my breath away. “I’ll push him out of my mind and I’ll be going along with my life and all of a sudden it hits me like a sack of rocks to the gut. And I hate that. I hate feeling that way.”
“I know.” My eyes are stinging, and I turn away so he won’t notice. No point making him feel worse. “I know how much you loved him.”
“That’s what I mean,” he says softly, folding me into his arms from behind. I lean back against his chest and close my eyes. “Love sucks,” he says. “Love is pain and hurt and loss and disappointment, and I can’t do that again. That’s why.”
I nod and swallow back the lump in my throat, grateful he can’t see my face right now. “Understood.”
And I do understand. But—
“Ian, did you ever think—think that maybe you can’t always control it? That maybe you don’t always get a say in whether you love someone or not?” My voice barely shakes, and I’m proud of myself for getting the words out. “Sometimes it just happens.”
He doesn’t say anything right away, so I steel myself to turn and face him. When I do, his eyes are haunted. What is he thinking? Did he hear that as cautionary advice, as a warning that I’m at risk of falling?
“I can control it,” he says softly. “I’ve spent the last decade making sure of that. Making sure it can’t happen again.”
The graveness in his expression makes my chest ache. He means it. He believes every word he’s saying. And yet—
“I need us to promise each other something,” he says softly.
“Okay.” My hands are shaking, and I hide them behind my back so he doesn’t notice.
“I need us to promise that if one of us has feelings that start to change, we’ll be honest with each other,” he says. “I don’t want any secrets between us. Any lies or misunderstandings. Promise?”
I hold my breath as I nod, not sure how to respond to that. I agree, of course. But why is he saying it? Does he think his feelings could change, or is he worried about me?
“I promise,” I whisper, committed either way. “I do.”
If he hears the echo of wedding vows in my words, he doesn’t say so.
Just holds out his arms for another embrace.
I step willingly into them, grateful for physical affection to take away our need for further discussion.
He holds me tightly, palm rubbing a slow circle on my back.
It’s a hug that’s more familiar to me than anyone else’s.
We’ve done this a thousand times before in platonic form.
But that’s not what this is. Not this time, anyway.
Something stirs inside me at the thud of his heart in my ears, the solidness of his body pressed against mine. I squeeze tighter, craving this contact. Craving him.
It’s like flipping a light switch. One second we’re holding each other like old friends, and the next I feel my body temperature rising and the heat pooling between my legs.
I’d feel embarrassed if I didn’t recognize the same response in him.
His heartbeat drums louder under my ear, and his arms go tighter around me.
I shift my weight on my heels and feel my hip bump the bulge at the front of his workout shorts. When I graze it again with my thigh, he does a full-body shudder.
“Sorry,” he says, pulling back with an embarrassed grimace. “Wasn’t trying to ruin the tender moment. Sometimes I just—”
“I know.”
Sometimes I just, too.
I bite my lip, hesitating. My heart is pounding, too, and I remember what Simon said when he gave me the keys to this place.
Enjoy yourself as much as you want. The place is all yours.
I wasn’t sure how to interpret Cassie’s smirk, but now I get it.
“Come on.” I grab Ian by the hand and pull him toward the locker rooms. “I have an idea.”
He doesn’t ask questions. Not even when I lead him through the door marked “women” and down the hall to where the scent of eucalyptus hangs heavy in the air. I stop at the door and watch Ian read the lettering above it.
When it registers, he turns and smiles. “Steam room sex. You remembered.”
I nod as I peel off my sports bra and shimmy out of my leggings. “I’d forgotten about it until this morning when Simon gave me a tour.”
Years ago on a camping trip with friends, we sat around sharing our sex bucket lists with the group.
Places we wanted to do it, things we wanted to try.
It was one of those conversations fueled by cheap beer and the newfound freedom of young adulthood, and Ian and I grinned at each other from across the campfire.
I said I wanted to have sex on an airplane, which I’ve since learned is highly illegal on a commercial flight and constitutes a federal crime.
Some things aren’t meant to be.
But Ian’s fantasy is more doable. There’s some health risk with prolonged sessions—yes, I googled, and yes, I figured out how to dial the temperature back so we don’t keel over—but I’ve managed to figure out how to fulfill the fantasy safely.
“I’m sure you’ve already done it,” I tell him now, “but we can pretend—”
“I haven’t, actually.” Ian pulls off his shirt and shoves his shorts off over his hips. “So we don’t have to pretend.”
We don’t have to pretend.
God, if only it were that simple. If only I didn’t have to keep pretending I’m not starting to feel more for Ian Nolan.
But maybe that’s what he’s saying. Maybe he’s open to considering we could someday end up being more.
He reaches for me, and I go willingly, pressing my naked body against his. His lips find mine, and he kisses me until I’m squirming and dizzy, and we haven’t even made it into the steam room yet.
Breaking the kiss, I pull open the door, releasing a thick cloud of steam. I dive through it with Ian right behind me. I can feel him, even if I can’t see him through the warm eucalyptus-scented fog.
As our bodies part the thick swaths of steam, I watch his face as he smiles. “You’re so beautiful. I’m the luckiest bastard alive.”
The door slams shut, and Ian grabs me by the hips.
Kissing me hard, he cups my backside and boosts me up.
I twine my legs around his waist as he presses me against the slick tile wall.
Steam whirls around us, and my skin prickles with wetness and anticipation.
He breaks the kiss to run his hands down my sides.
“I love your body.”
Your body. Not you. That’s what you’re signing on for.
Still, he’s capable of love. Am I reading too much into this?
Ian’s eyes are hungry, his lashes fringed with droplets of water. His mouth finds mine, and I taste eucalyptus and ozone and desire. I tighten my hands around his back, memorizing the slick ripple of muscle, the moment of anticipation before he drives into me.
“Sarah,” he gasps as he breaks the kiss again, green eyes searching mine. “I don’t know how it’s possible.”
“What?”
“How I want you more every single time.”
I smile, wanting to hear the rest of the words. That he’s feeling the same way I am. “Same,” I murmur before his lips find mine again.
Something’s shifted between us, I’m sure of it. I can feel it in the way he drives into me. I can feel it in the clutch of his hands around my waist, in the low moan in the back of his throat.
I can tell by the way he groans my name as he gets closer, muscles tensing in his shoulders. I feel it in the way he rocks into me, sensing my climax and adding to it with his own.
As we crash together in gasps of pleasure and closeness, I’m more certain than I’ve ever been that Ian is getting there, too. That he’s starting to feel the same way I am.