Chapter 48
The extra cabin in the Sanctuary was on the side near the greenroom.
There was a massage table set up between the bed and the television cabinet, but other than that, it was a regular room, and Keith showed it to Annie with the exhausted charm of a telethon host who’d been up for twenty-three hours.
“The lights are over here. The balcony’s over there—it’s a pretty nice balcony—and the reading lights for the bed are pretty great.
You know how sometimes in hotel rooms you can’t figure out how to turn the lights on?
I don’t know if they have the same ones on the whole ship.
” He clicked on one of the lights and then held his hand beneath it, the Vanna White of the American Fantasy.
“Sorry, I don’t know why I’m showing it to you like this. You know how rooms work.”
“I appreciate it. I never did know how lights worked. Honestly, it’s a relief.” Annie smiled and then sat down on the edge of the bed.
Keith put his face in his hands, embarrassed. The room was cool, with fresh air-conditioning pumping through the vent right over his head.
“Really, though,” Annie said. “I’m happy to be here.”
“Did you have a good time? Sorry, that’s a ridiculous question,” Keith said.
Sitting on the bed seemed like too much, so he sat in the chair by the sliding door to the balcony.
She was so unlike his wife, Annie. Her loose dress, her naked face, the way she sat with her knees splayed out, the dress pulled taut against her legs.
The way she looked at him, the way she looked at his face, like she wanted to know what he was thinking.
He hadn’t been alone in a room with a woman like this in a long time. “I know it ended in a weird way.”
“I did,” Annie said. “I still am.”
Keith remembered this. It was one of the top feelings, not knowing where something would go.
It happened in songs too—finding a melody, writing a phrase—knowing that not all of it would stay but hoping that some tiny spark would turn into something worthwhile.
It had happened a thousand years ago with the boys, the luck and alchemy and timing of a thing going exactly right.
Keith could have lived a dozen lifetimes and had it never happen it again, not the way it did.
It was balancing a whole world on the head of a pin.
She was staring at him. Not Keith Fiore, just him. He could tell the difference most of the time. “What about you? Seems like maybe you’ve had enough of them for a little while?”
Keith shook his head. “Not them. Him. My brother.”
“I’m sorry. That sounds really hard.” Annie put her hand flat on the bed and moved it back and forth, watching her own fingers. He watched them too.
“I’m glad, though,” Keith said. “Said some things I needed to say.” The room was silent, but the air was thick.
He wanted to cross the room to her, to cross the threshold of whatever they’d been doing into something else.
He could see it happening, see a more reckless version of himself get up and move to Annie’s side and pull her face to his.
Keith could practically feel it. “Maybe you should be a therapist next,” he said, though it wasn’t what he was feeling.
Annie looked up at him. She didn’t smile.
They were having so many conversations at once.
“Maybe,” she said. “You should get some sleep, Keith.” Annie exhaled and put her hands on her thighs, then stood up and walked back to the cabin door.
The air was practically shimmering. It had been so long since he’d felt anything like it that it was almost enough on its own.
He nodded and crossed to the door. They stood facing each other, eye to eye.
“Good night,” Keith said.
“Night,” Annie said. She opened her arms, and he stepped inside them, wrapping his arms around her back.
The sides of their faces pressed lightly against each other, and Keith could feel each point of connection.
Annie turned her head and kissed him. It was gentle at first, a small gift, but when he breathed in her air, it was like all the possibility in the room caught fire, and he held her against him and kissed her back.
Keith hadn’t kissed someone like this in decades.
He wanted her to kiss him all night long.
He didn’t even care if they did anything else; this was enough.
How could there be anything better than this feeling?
Annie pulled back and looked at him. She was looking at his face like it was a puzzle to solve, like it was both the question and the answer.
Annie exhaled, and Keith inhaled because he wanted more.
She put her hand on his chest, and he put both of his hands on top of it.
“I think that was my best first kiss,” Annie said, and smiled at him.
“It’s nice to know that there’s still potential for bests and firsts, isn’t it?
” She pulled open the door to the hall with her free hand.
The light poured in, soft and warm, and he let her other hand slip out from under his.
The warm light, Keith thought. I want it all night.
The warm light. Fight. Light. Might. It’s not love, but it might be.
Right. It might be right. He slid by her, their bodies touching once more, and went back to his room to find a pen.