Chapter 31
Thirty-One
avoid improper thoughts in a place of worship
Dylan
Inside the chapel, light streams through the windows and archways in perfect beams of vaporised gold. Max lets out a low whistle
at the sight and sets the food bag on the floor before walking around the small room, running his fingers along the jagged
stone wall.
We left that heavy conversation out on the rocks, and maybe we’re both a little lighter.
‘Picture this,’ he says, voice echoing in the empty space. ‘A sofa up against this wall,’ he spreads both hands apart in front
of him to mimic the size of the sofa, then points beyond it, ‘and I’d put the bed there so that I’d have an ocean view when
I wake up.’
I crane my neck to look at the small beach at the foot of the cliff. ‘You realise that in our cabin, which has electricity
and running water, we also have an ocean view from our bed?’
‘Always so pedantic,’ he says, breath tickling my ear. I shiver at the unexpected proximity and turn to find him looking at
me with his usual intensity.
Without another word, he tugs me by the wrist to stand directly under a beam of light spilling from an upper window, and this time I let myself be his subject with no complaints. I just stand there, enraptured by the way he works with his camera.
He lifts my hair, then lets it fall between his fingers like liquid, and he captures that. He runs the backs of his knuckles
along my jaw, and he photographs that, too. And when he lowers the camera, fingers pressing into my chin to angle my face
towards the light, his quiet sigh hits me in a warm puff of air.
‘You look like someone people would pray to, Dylan.’
All I can do is whisper, ‘I think that’s blasphemous to say, in a place like this.’
I’ve felt out of control around Max for a while now, but sometimes I catch a look in his eyes that tells me that somehow,
I have the same effect on him. The look’s there now, churning like the waves tumbling on to the beach below.
I swallow, and his hand slides down my neck like he’s following it, then lower still, until it reaches my pounding heart.
And when his hand drops further, I don’t want to admit what I consider doing, right there in the home of a saint.
But whether it’s a higher power scorning us, or sheer coincidence, we’re interrupted by voices approaching from the steps.
Three people enter the chapel, all wearing walking boots and colourful anoraks tied around their waists, jumping when they
notice they’re not the only ones in here, but covering it up with a smile and a hello.
‘Should we head down to the beach?’ I ask Max, voice bright, already sidestepping along the wall towards the door.
As soon as we cross the threshold, he presses me against the wall, centuries-old stone hard against my back. But as he leans
in, my stomach gives an impossibly loud rumble, and he laughs softly and presses a kiss to my temple instead. ‘I can’t let
you waste away. Not on your birthday, of all days. Come on. Picnic first.’
I let him tug me off the wall and expect him to let go when I’m fully upright, but he keeps hold of me as we move down towards the cove. It’d probably be safer for us to have both hands free while we’re weaving between rocks, but I can’t bring myself to break this.
I know what his hands feel like on almost every inch of my body by now; know the roughness of his palms on my hips, know how
gently his knuckles brush my cheekbones, know the precise way his fingers make me forget my own name. But nothing feels more
intimate than Max leading me down to a small beach, absent-mindedly sweeping his thumb over the skin on the back of mine.
We walk as far as we can and set up camp on one end of the crescent-shaped cove. Max pulls out a picnic blanket from his backpack
and orders me to sit on it while he sorts through the food, so I take my shoes off and get as comfy as I can.
‘Pears, obviously, because we don’t want scurvy.’ He sets out a few pieces of fruit and some Tupperware. ‘Eileen made an entire
fresh loaf of bread purely so we could have sandwiches.’
A lump rises in my throat that I try to push down. ‘You’ve really gone the extra mile with this.’
‘Of course I have. It’s you.’ He doesn’t look at me, just keeps digging around in the bag. He says it so simply, as if it’s
common knowledge. The sky is blue. I deserve the extra mile. Next. He spots something in the bag and gasps. ‘Wait, I forgot!
Close your eyes.’
I close them upon his order for the second time today, and when I open them again, he’s holding a lemon muffin with a single
candle in it, his other hand curved around the flame swaying in the breeze. ‘Quick, make your wish.’
‘And miss you singing “Happy Birthday” to me?’
‘Don’t tempt me.’
I laugh, and it feels like I’m letting something go.
I blow out the candle and make a secret wish I’ll never admit to anyone, and then we dig into our feast, sitting side by side
on the blanket, our legs bent in the direction of the sea. It’s instinct now, to always angle myself towards the waves, the
way people who live in the mountains know intrinsically to adjust their walking on slanted ground.
The trio from the chapel end up on the opposite end of the beach in the distance, their colourful raincoats contrasting against the sand, their occasional laughter drifting to us on the wind.
‘Is this the recipe you and Eileen were perfecting the other day?’ Max asks, peeling back the wrapper of a muffin and thrusting
it under my nose.
‘I think so,’ I say, spotting the white chocolate chunks. ‘We combined one of her recipes with one I remembered from my old
job.’
‘It’s good,’ he says, voice muffled. ‘Please make them for me again.’
‘Only if you make me a mug brownie.’
‘My brownies have always been at your disposal. Whenever you need me, I’ll be there.’ He cocks his head. ‘I thought you knew
that.’
My stomach flips, but I’m distracted by a birthday text I receive from Ava. She’s accompanied it with a screenshot of an email
confirmation, and I let out a gasp and grab Max’s wrist, where he’s shovelling the second half of his muffin into his mouth
in one go.
‘Ava got me tickets to see Never After when they tour next year!’
After what feels like an eternity, he swallows his muffin and says with a grin, ‘See you there.’
‘You’re going too?’ There it is; a little seed of hope in my chest. Maybe my life won’t be exactly the same, when I go back.
Maybe I’ll still get a piece of this sometimes. A piece of Max.
He leans back on his hands, hair mussed from the wind. ‘She got tickets for all of us.’
‘Guess it won’t be goodbye after all,’ I say carefully, meeting his gaze. ‘When we leave here.’
‘It was never going to be goodbye.’ His mouth opens and closes before something passes over his expression and he regains
his resolve. ‘I’ll make sure to drop by whenever I’m visiting Ava. Maybe if you’re back at the shop before your grad scheme,
I’ll visit you at work and you can make me a coffee for old times’ sake.’
My stupid heart cracks a little. But I shake the feeling out and reply, ‘Making you coffee every day for weeks wasn’t enough,
now you’re going to intrude on my work too?’
In my head, there’s this niggling voice telling me that something’s not quite right. That a coffee shop in the City with grey-suited accountants isn’t where he belongs, even if only for a short visit. That he belongs in a place where the waves set the tempo of his day.
That maybe I belong there too.
But the thought’s as impossible to grasp as the tide, and it slips out of my grip. So I twist towards Max and press my mouth
to his, a hint of lemon on his lips to match the citrussy smell of his skin.
‘You okay?’ he asks, lips brushing mine with every word.
‘I don’t want to talk about this trip ending. Not today.’
I think he understands, because he simply nods and palms the back of my head, bringing our faces together again, our mouths
moving in a familiar dance. He leans into me until I’m horizontal on the picnic blanket, and I enjoy the weight of him too
much to pay much attention to the shells digging into my back.
Max always kisses like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, but it’s not until today that I’ve been this conscious of the ticking
clock too, of the knowledge that someday soon this really will be the last time for us. We have less than a week left, and
my heart drops like an anchor at the feeling that that’s nowhere near enough.
He weaves a hand into my hair to turn my head, exposing the column of my neck, and I shudder at the sensation of his teeth
dragging down my throat, of the tongue that immediately follows, soothing and warm, and I don’t even care if he leaves a mark.
I don’t care if my whole body is forever scored by this time we’ve spent together.
Then he rocks his hips, and I can’t help the whimper that escapes me.
‘Those noises,’ he says through a groan.
‘Are they a bad thing?’ I breathe, bending my legs so he can slot between them.
He makes a grunt of dissent. ‘They’re the best thing. We’re doing this all the time, from now on. I’ve decided.’
‘We might need sleep.’
‘Nope.’ He thrusts against me, slow and hard, and I almost see stars. ‘I’ve spent years trying to find things that make me
feel a fraction of this. I’m not wasting a second.’
I want to ask what this is, but I think I know. I think this is how he feels alive. His way of feeling like he’s really here. If I can give him that,
I will.
His hair tickles my chest when he presses his mouth to the soft skin above my sports bra, goosebumps erupting with it, and
when I bow into him, his movements grow frantic and I sense he’s about two seconds away from tearing the flannel shirt all
the way open, pulling my bra down, and doing that thing with his tongue and his teeth that turns me into a gasping mess in
the cabin. Right. The cabin. Not here, out in the open air, fuzzy outlines of people just about visible in the distance.
‘Max?’ My voice is breathy, desperate, as I attempt to cling to that thought.