46. Kindling
Kindling
Rafe
When she opens the door, I’m standing there with a stick in my mouth. One I found earlier while grabbing ingredients for dinner at the little corner shop that never makes a fuss about me. I go in, get a nod, that’s it, no photos, no questions, just silent understanding.
I promised her no chaos, that I’d be good. Chew on a stick if needed. So when I saw it, I knew I had to. If the price of redemption is a mouthful of bark and dirt, fine. If it makes her laugh, she can call me her good boy for all I fucking care.
I might be more into that than I care to admit.
The moment she sees me, she shakes her head, trying not to give me the satisfaction of breaking her, holding back the laugh she knows is fighting to come out.
“Rafe. What—”
I try to mumble through the stick, but she takes it from my mouth, disbelief written into her movements as she frees it.
“I knew artistic types were different, but I clearly underestimated how different.” She pokes me in the chest with it on how, and I feel like I’ve won the first battle, her smile, her face, all of it, bought with the price of a free stick and an ant I'm pretty sure I just swallowed.
“But you’re smiling,” I say. “So—”
“Certifiable,” she cuts in, grinning. “Luckily for you, I’m not that kind of doctor.”
I wave her inside. She steps through, still holding it, twisting it idly like a cigarette. The apartment’s warm, dim, its usual mix of chaos and charm. A half-open guitar case leans against the wall, a stack of vinyl waits by the record player.
I hang her coat and try to convince her on the menu. “Spaghetti. I figured it was neutral territory, no warring Polish or Korean mothers influencing the outcome.”
She laughs, glancing around. “You have plants and they’re alive. I’m impressed already.”
“They’re resilient,” I tell her. “They’ve learned to water themselves when I forget.”
She huffs another laugh, and it’s that sound again, the one that makes the room brighter without even trying.
She talks about her day while I stir random pots, drain pasta, attempt to plate something that passes as food.
We eat. The pauses don’t feel forced, but there’s still a wall, one I built.
I want to tear it down, but the only real way is time, proof. More of this.
After dinner, a few strawberries and several glasses of wine later, the stick’s abandoned on the couch beside her.
She’s been waving it like a wand all evening, reluctant to let it go, as if it’s proof I’m still trying to win her forgiveness.
I reach for the worn photo album I’d mentioned that night in Miami, old tour memories, smudged Polaroids, ticket stubs, pages taped back together after spills.
“Alright,” I say, settling next to her. “You asked for evidence of the Obscene Poet Era.”
She leans in, shoulder brushing mine, the scent of her shampoo and perfume making it hard to think straight for a second. Then her voice pulls me out. “Show me.”
I flip through until I find it, Berlin, years ago.
All of us younger, drunker, alive in that reckless way you only are once.
There I am, eyes glassy, frosting smeared across my face like green war paint.
Ronan’s mid-laugh, Kiri’s holding up a pastry like a trophy.
And Rithy’s beside me, hand on my shoulder, head thrown back, mouth open in pure, unguarded joy, but his eyes are on me.
“God,” I groan. “I really look like the villain in a children’s puppet show.”
She laughs so hard she snorts, covering her mouth. “You look like a deranged Kermit.”
“I told you,” I grin. “He was as merciless then as he is now, just less bitter.”
Her laughter fades to a smile as she studies the photo more closely. Her finger traces the edge, not me, but Rithy, frozen mid-laugh.
“He looks happy,” she says thoughtfully.
“Yeah,” I answer. “He was.”
“Before the band got big?”
I nod. “Before we learned what ambition costs.”
She hesitates, thumb still near his face. “You know,” she says softly, “the way he looked at you here, maybe that’s what he hates about me.”
The words land, perfectly aimed. I blink, thrown by how easily she says it, how gently she sees something I’ve pretended not to.
“You always diagnose this fast?” I try for humor and fail.
“Only when the symptoms are obvious,” she says, kindness weaved with caution. “It’s always in the eyes.” Her finger hovers between his line of sight and me, and I swallow hard.
For a moment neither of us moves, rain tapping the window. I glance back at the photo, at the way his hand rests on my shoulder, the warmth in his face, and I feel something like grief.
“He’s been my best friend since we were teenagers,” I say softly.
“The band, what we’ve built, it’s sacred to him.
I think we blurred a line somewhere along the way.
Pushing each other on stage, leaning into all the fan service.
We got caught up and didn’t know what to do from there.
Guess neither of us knew how to ask if it was real.
Maybe it was for a while. I don’t know.” The words leave me drained, full of old worry. For me, for Rithy, the band.
She doesn’t push, just listens. “That intense kind of love doesn’t always know what to do with itself,” she says, so softly I almost miss it.
“Yeah,” I murmur, throat tight. “Guess it doesn’t.”
We sit there a while, silence turning warm again. Then she leans back, eyes soft. “Your spaghetti was decent. I’ll give you that, even if you have the emotional perception of that stick.”
I bark a laugh. “Yeah, we have plenty in common.” I pick it up, turn it over in my hands. “Someone please turn me into kindling before I have to face Rithy again.”
I let my head fall back against the couch, then hand her the stick. She takes it, curious. I lean close, my voice low against her ear. “Just like me, it’ll catch fire in your hands any second now.”
When she looks up, we don’t have a choice.
The kiss finds us. It isn’t gentle or planned, it just happens, like our bodies remembering themselves.
We move together, suddenly, unthinking, like two branches caught in a flood, one we made ourselves, built from longing and the cruelty of distance that we can’t stand for another second.
It deepens before we can think to stop it.
Her mouth opens to mine, tongues teasing, finding a rhythm that needs no teaching.
There’s no holding back, only the two of us holding on, caught in the same current.
Washed away, helpless inside the waves of it.
Her hands move up my chest, careful, yet certain.
When she slips beneath the fabric it feels like she’s breaking me and waking me up in the same touch.
My body rises under her like a command, unbuttoning my shirt and shedding it myself, angry at the way it keeps me from her.
The air dances: cool where her touch leaves me, warm where she returns.
Her breath, the taste of wine, the trace of rain tangled in her hair, every sense locks on her until the rest of the world disappears.
The sound of fabric giving way as I pull her shirt over her head, her hair spilling through my fingers.
When she unclasps her bra, something in me stutters, equal parts awe and surrender.
I try to tame myself, hold the ocean back but it crashes over my weak barricade.
My hand slips beneath the fabric below her waist, traveling between her thighs until it finds her center.
It’s like touching fire and memory at once.
The kind of heat every myth was built on beneath my palm.
I glide along lightly, watching her arch and cling, until she grabs at my hand, a wordless plea.
When I enter her, enveloping my fingers in the same flood that begs me to stay, she pulls me in with every tug of her hips.
Her moans into my mouth only quicken my motions, our bodies finding that wordless tempo older than language.
This doesn’t feel new, it feels remembered, like I’ve been here before, reaching for her in every life and finally getting it right.
My mouth trails from hers, to her throat, my other hand gripping the back of her neck, holding her as near as I can, frustrated by the simple physics that force even the slightest bit of distance between us.
I ease her back onto the couch, and my kisses linger lower, tongue circling her nipple.
When she gasps, my hand finds the center of her back; I hold her steady, let her roll through the contact, but don’t let her slip away from it.
I find her mouth again as her fingers trace the line of my collarbone.
I free both palms and rest them at her waist, fingers tugging gently on the last barrier.
A silent asking, patient, but the intent clear.
Apparent in the way I bite her jaw, in the way she claws at my back, we keep answering, then waiting.
For a moment, everything moves perfectly, a silent syncopation of skin and breath.
Then she reaches for my belt, a question she asks herself, then stops.
Her forehead rests against my shoulder, both of us breathing hard, balanced on the edge of yes.
The body wants to lead, but I don’t. Every torturous possibility lives in the space between us, and none of them are worth losing her for.
“Kasia,” I whisper, dragging her hand to my chest, holding it there like it’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
“Christ. You make it impossible to think.” The words come out raw, torn.
“Everything in me reacts to you. I want—I want all of you. Every fucking piece. You’re in my bloody bloodstream now. ”
I exhale, forcing my voice down to something almost calm. “We can stop, yeah? Just... stay. Please.”