Chapter 26
chapter
twenty-six
It’s a piston sparking at midnight on a rural road. A light, bright and beautiful, in a dark so bottomless it feels empty.
Eitan kisses like he’s going to find the secrets of the Universe on my lips.
It’s tender and vibrant and so deliciously needy.
And I’m needy too. Since treatment and the breakup, it’s been a string of one bad date after another, and any kisses have been stilted and half unwanted and cursory.
I see now that he was holding back after the open mic.
But whatever he was scared of then, he’s not scared of anymore.
Maybe it was the enormity of we. Of feelings so expansive there’s no way for them to be confined to one moment.
Maybe he thought I wasn’t ready to be kissed like this until now.
And I wasn’t. Eitan has turned me inside out.
“You’re so beautiful,” Eitan breaks the kiss to tell me, breathing heavily. “Like a flower that blooms at night.” He dots my cheeks with kisses, his hands holding me like I’m precious. Like I’m— “Breathtaking,” he whispers against my lips.
The moment is overwhelming. Everything I’ve dreamed of, and at the same time, more than I could have imagined. I’m the Grinch on Christmas morning, my heart growing three sizes in my chest. I need to see more of Eitan. I need our limbs to be inextricably tangled. I need everything.
I run my hands over his shoulders, up his neck, and into that thick head of hair I’ve fantasized about for months now.
Eitan’s hands chart their own path, from my jaw into my hair, down my spine.
We’re mapping each other, surveying every curve and dip, in a language only we know.
It’s novel, and familiar, like two bodies finding their way back to each other. From across continents, or lifetimes.
Eitan rounds the curve of my ass, squeezing, and I suddenly remember where we are. In a nylon tent, in the middle of the woods, just fifteen feet from the drunken campfire.
“Wait,” I whisper, trying to sound stern as his lips shift to my neck.
“Hmm?” he asks. His eyelids are heavy, like he’s drunk on our kisses. Intoxicated by me.
“Everyone is right there,” I whisper.
“I don’t care,” he mumbles. “They’re all too drunk to notice anyway.”
He’s right. We’re on the opposite side of the campsite, and I can hear from the distant chatter that the rest of Camp Goldberg is perfectly occupied. It’s just Eitan and I. Something about him makes me feel braver about anything. Everything.
I am free-falling into him. No parachute, no net. It’s like Lucy’s poem: fantastical and mad and unknown.
His hands—rather sure of themselves—tug down the zipper of my windbreaker and begin undoing my shirt’s buttons.
One by one. Slow and savoring. I wish I was wearing the dress I saw in the window of that boutique, something soft that would feel like water slipping off of me.
Something with a plunging neckline because, for the first time, the thought of undressing—of someone seeing the marks of my surgery—doesn’t fill me with dread.
Once my flannel is shed, I’m left in my small cotton bra. The last layer between Eitan and my chest. The cynical voice reminds me of what happened the last time someone saw the Frankenboobs.
“I can hear you overthinking,” Eitan says, his hands stroking my ribs. “Talk to me.”
I squint at him. “Just calculating the probability that these are the first reconstructed boobs you’ve ever hooked up with.”
“They are,” he says without blinking. He leans in and whispers in my ear, “but if you think this is a hook up, then I have bad news for you.”
My giggle is a balm on the chapped edges of my heart.
Eitan pulls back and tugs gently on my bra. “I’d like to see, if you’re open to showing me. Every part of you is beautiful.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I whisper hoarsely, trying and failing to sound like I’m not losing my mind. “And boys,” I add.
“Would you believe me if I said it’s not normally like this?” Eitan smiles, wry.
To say that I know what he means would be a serious understatement.
My hands drift up to hold my bra and the silicone beneath my skin. I might not have been born with them, but they’re mine. A part of my body, even if I didn’t choose them. I feel protective of them because they’re actually kind of cute, if you look at it objectively.
I’ll still love you, I promise this part of my body, even if he doesn’t.
I avoid looking anywhere but down as I unclasp the bra. The straps fall down my arms, but I can’t let go of the front.
I finally meet his eyes, preparing myself to see impatience, disinterest, maybe even repulsion.
But Eitan’s expression is patient. He watches me like he sees the cracks and understands that certain pieces are broken. And that it’s okay. That we’re both a little broken. That maybe our broken edges can fit together to form something new.
We’re in a tent, in the dark, in the middle of the woods, but the space between us is full of sunlight.
“Waiting for something?” He raises an eyebrow and smirks. Cocky bastard. Damn, he’s cute.
I let go of the bra and it drops to the tent floor.
Eitan is a magnifying glass focusing the sunlight on me so hard it singes. His lips are parted ever so slightly, and his breathing is shallow. I think (I hope) his pupils are dilating, opening up as wide as they can so not a single particle of light emanating from me is missed.
“May I?” he asks, though it was so soft it could have been lost under the whir of my thoughts.
I take a deep breath, prepare to wade into uncharted water.
“My boobs don’t have a lot of sensation, or any really, but this area” —I grab his hand and pull it to the stretch of skin between them— “and this area” —I move his hand to the side, where the skin begins to curve over my ribs— “are very sensitive.” Even just the whisper of his fingers over it sends a shiver through me.
Eitan nods and leans down, pressing his lips to the square inch of space between my breasts. His hands grip me gently on either side and stroke the other sensitive areas I showed him. I let out a noise that could be called a whimper.
“Like this?” he asks into my scars, breath hot.
“Mhmm,” I say quickly, unintelligibly.
“What about here?” His lips move an inch to the right and kiss the scar that runs underneath my boob. I feel his lips on the seam and the skin beneath the scar, even though what’s above it is completely numb. The sensation is so thrilling I may catch fire.
“Yeah,” I get out between heavy breaths, “that’s a nice spot.”
“I was right,” he says absently. It takes me a second to register because he’s kissing his way toward my ribs, leaving a trail of chills in his wake.
“About?”
“Every part of you is so beautiful.”
My hands find their way into his hair and I run my fingers through it in response. It’s coarse and soft and just as fluffy as it looks. I sigh, and then I realize he said something that I missed in my haze.
“What?”
“I asked,” he laughs softly, “can I go down on you?” His seaglass eyes are an inch from my skin, and they’re so earnest it knocks me off balance. I tighten my hands in his hair.
Unwelcome thoughts puncture my haze, and I remember how reluctant Grant looked every time I asked him to do that. How he would just end up using his hand, and then get my orgasm out of the way so that we could have ‘real’ sex. I bite my lip without realizing it, and Eitan notices something’s wrong.
He squeezes my waist, bringing me back to the moment. “Hey, where did you go?”
I try to speak but nothing really comes out.
Because now that the attention has been called to it, I’m fixating on the thought that I haven’t done this in a year and a half and I’m probably bad at it at this point and I probably won’t finish and then Eitan will take it personally, or translate it to she’s bad in bed.
And all he needs to do is walk ten feet at this campsite to find someone more ready and more eager and more talented in the bedroom.
My insecurities are a thousand needles, pricking in all directions.
“Hey.” Eitan holds my face, focusing my eyes on him and not the thoughts flitting over me like wildfire. “Tell me what you’re thinking because I can guarantee it’s wrong.”
“I haven’t—” I swallow, try to arrange the words so that they come out not sounding paranoid and overemotional and already insecure even though we haven’t even had sex yet.
“Done this in a while—a long time,” I emphasize, so that Eitan—known playboy—understands how different our lives have been.
“Like so long there’s probably cobwebs down there—”
Eitan laughs. “I don’t care, Ruby,” he says my name fondly. “I’m just happy to be here, with you. We could read your star chart or count sheep together. We don’t need to have sex.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, implying, No sex? Really?
His hands hold me a little tighter. “I’m serious,” he insists. “Just being able to kiss you” —he punctuates this with a loud, wet smooch— “is a stark upgrade from where we started this trip.”
This helps pull me out of my head. I like having something to be contrary about. “What if I want to have sex?”
“Then we will, at a pace you’re comfortable at. I’m not in a rush.” His arms band around my waist, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. Dear God, those forearms. Downright slutty. “We can do whatever you want.”
“Anything?” I think about a few things I’d pay money to experience: Eitan performing another Broadway showtune, giving me a full body massage, kissing me in a crowded room.
Eitan chuckles. “Should I be nervous? I think I should be nervous.” He grabs my face—confident but gentle—and kisses me. Splits me open, more like. I can feel the ripples of the kiss in my toes.