7. Annie #2
The word sat gently between us.
Not famous.
Successful.
I could live inside that difference for a little longer.
“I am,” I said.
“Do you like saying that?”
“I’m learning.”
Ellie lifted her glass.
“To learning.”
I touched mine to hers.
“To prepared cheese.”
“That too.”
We moved inside when mosquitoes decided to join us without an invitation.
Ellie carried the plates. I carried the wine.
The kitchen looked as if a very polite hurricane had passed through it.
“I’ll clean,” she said.
“You’re a guest.”
“I watched you alphabetize dairy. You’ve done enough.”
“I didn’t alphabetize it.”
She pointed to the board.
“Brie. Cheddar. Gouda.”
“Stop saying that.”
She laughed and turned on the faucet.
I stood beside her and began wrapping the cheese.
Our shoulders touched.
Then our hips.
Neither of us moved away.
It should not have felt intimate to put leftovers into containers with a woman.
It did.
Perhaps because the simple things were always the ones I missed.
Not hotel suites.
Not secret entrances.
Not kisses cut short by security schedules.
A woman barefoot in a kitchen, rinsing two plates while quietly humming one of my songs without knowing it.
I froze.
Ellie looked over.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I was listening.”
She glanced down as if the plate might explain.
“To me washing dishes?”
“You were humming.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know what song?”
She hummed the melody again.
My melody.
One I had written in a dressing room in Omaha during a thunderstorm.
“Savannah Brooks,” she said. “I don’t remember the title.”
“‘Back Road Blue.’”
Ellie smiled.
“So selective.”
“I have excellent recall.”
“Do you like that one?”
“Yes.”
It was the truth.
Ellie turned off the water.
“I like the bridge.”
“The bridge is the best part.”
“Agreed.”
“Most people like the chorus.”
“Most people are wrong.”
The answer warmed me in a ridiculous, dangerous place.
She dried her hands on the towel.
When she turned, I was still standing close.
Closer than necessary.
“You’re doing that thing again,” she said.
“What thing?”
“Looking at me like you’re deciding something.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Anything I should prepare for?”
I caught the hem of her shirt lightly between my fingers.
“Possibly.”
Her breath changed.
Small.
Noticeable.
The room changed with it.
No dramatic music.
No perfect lighting.
Just a kitchen lamp, a half-wrapped block of gouda, and Ellie standing close enough that I could feel warmth through her shirt.
“Can I kiss you?” I asked.
Her mouth curved.
“You’ve done it before.”
“I’m thorough.”
“Yes.”
I kissed her.
Slowly at first.
The way she had kissed me on the pier.
Her hands settled at my hips. Mine moved beneath the open edges of her shirt, touching the warm skin at her waist.
The kiss deepened.
Ellie made that sound again.
The one that had apparently occupied most of her night.
This time, I felt it against my mouth.
I pulled back just enough to breathe.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She kissed me again before I could ask a third time.
The counter pressed against my back.
Ellie’s body fitted against mine, firm and warm, and my careful collection of thoughts scattered immediately.
Her mouth moved to my jaw.
Then my neck.
I closed my eyes.
“That seems unfair,” I whispered.
“What?”
“You know where my neck is.”
“I’m an instructor. Anatomy is important.”
I laughed, but the sound broke when she kissed the place just below my ear.
My fingers tightened in her shirt.
She stopped.
Not far.
Just enough to look at me.
“Too much?”
“No.”
“You grabbed me.”
“I was trying not to fall.”
“You’re standing.”
“That’s how effective you are.”
Her smile was slow and pleased.
“Good to know.”
I kissed her harder.
The laughter disappeared into heat.
I pushed her shirt from her shoulders. She let it fall to the kitchen floor, revealing a black bra and skin still lightly marked by the day’s sun.
I stared.
Ellie glanced down at herself.
“Everything still there?”
“Yes.”
“Your face became very focused.”
“I’m appreciating the equipment.”
“That is a terrible scuba joke.”
“I panicked.”
She laughed and reached for the tie at my waist.
“This dress caused problems yesterday.”
“I heard.”
“I think it requires further investigation.”
“That sounds official.”
“I have a clipboard.”
“Not here, you don’t.”
“Then we’ll have to improvise.”
Her fingers loosened the tie.
The dress slipped slightly, the neckline lowering.
Ellie’s gaze followed it.
She watched my face as her fingertips traced the edge of the fabric.
I touched her cheek.
“Bedroom?”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
I took her hand.
We reached the bedroom with no further negotiations.
The room was dim, lit by the lamp beside the bed and the last blue light from the windows. The decorative seashell bowl remained on the dresser, but I decided we were both mature enough to ignore it.
Ellie stood beside the bed in her bra and shorts, smiling at me with equal parts amusement and want.
Something in my chest tightened.
Not fear.
The opposite.
I crossed the room and kissed her.
This time there were no interruptions.
Her hands slid beneath my dress and over my back. Mine found the clasp of her bra.
I paused.
“Okay?”
“Very.”
The bra fell to the floor.
My dress followed it.
Ellie’s gaze moved over me slowly.
I knew how to be looked at.
I knew how to stand beneath lights while stylists adjusted fabric and photographers discussed angles. I knew how to let strangers evaluate my body without appearing to notice.
But Ellie watched every small reaction, waiting for me to move closer before she did.
I moved closer.
Her hands were warm and unhurried. She kissed my shoulder, my collarbone, the place above my heart where my pulse had become impossible to hide.
I let myself stop thinking.
Underwater, I breathed.
With Ellie, I could simply feel.
We fell onto the bed with less elegance than either of us would later admit.
My knee hit the mattress.
Ellie’s elbow collided with a pillow.
The headboard tapped the wall once.
We both froze.
“Structural integrity?” she whispered.
“Barely legal.”
“That seems to be your preferred standard.”
I laughed against her mouth.
Then she kissed the laughter away.
The humor stayed with us, threaded through the heat.
A whispered check-in.
A hand guided gently.
My sharp inhale when she discovered what made me stop joking.
Her pleased smile when I pulled her closer.
There was no rush.
No choreography.
Nothing polished.
Only Ellie’s mouth on my skin, my hands learning her, and the quiet certainty of being wanted exactly where I was.
When she moved lower, I caught her hand.
She looked up immediately.
“Stop?”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“Just come here for a second.”
She came back without question.
I kissed her slowly.
“Hi,” she murmured.
“Hi.”
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You keep checking.”
“I like knowing.”
“So do I.”
Her thumb moved along my cheek.
“I’m here.”
Three simple words.
They should not have mattered as much as they did.
I kissed her again.
After that, the room narrowed to breath, skin, and Ellie saying my name in a voice nobody else had ever used.
Later, we lay beneath the sheet with the ceiling fan turning lazily overhead.
One of Ellie’s legs was tangled with mine. Her head rested against my shoulder. My dress hung halfway off the bedside lamp, though neither of us remembered putting it there.
The room smelled faintly of salt, wine, and the coconut lotion supplied by the rental.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then Ellie lifted her head.
“Is there sand in this bed?”
I felt beneath my leg.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I live near a beach.”
“You showered.”
“So did you.”
She examined the sheet.
“This is a lot of sand.”
“Maybe the cottage provides it.”
“Very island.”
I laughed.
She settled against me again.
I ran my fingers through her hair.
“You’re staying?” I asked.
The question came out more vulnerable than I intended.
Ellie looked at me.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m staying.”
Easy.
She made it sound easy.
I kissed her forehead.
After a minute, her stomach growled.
Ellie closed her eyes.
“No.”
I laughed.
“You barely ate.”
“I was distracted by the dairy architecture.”
“We have three pies.”
Her head lifted again.
“Three?”
“You saw them.”
“I thought one might have been decorative.”
“Who decorates with pie?”
“You decorate with seashell surveillance.”
“That’s the cottage.”
She sat up, holding the sheet against herself.
“Do we have to get dressed?”
“No.”
“Can we eat pie in bed?”
“Yes.”
“All three?”
“That feels ambitious.”
“I teach people to breathe underwater.”
“You’ve become arrogant.”
“Bring me the chocolate one.”
I found a T-shirt for myself and another for Ellie. Mine fell to her thighs.
She looked down.
“This is expensive.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s too soft.”
“That’s not evidence.”
“It feels like it has a publicist.”
I laughed and carried the chocolate pie into the bedroom with two forks.
We ate it directly from the box while sitting against the headboard.
Ellie gave Captain Pancake a full moral defense for sitting on customers.
I told her about the fan pickles Rachel had confiscated in Dallas.
She nearly choked on pie when I described the rhinestone pants.
At some point, my phone buzzed in the other room.
Once.
Then again.
I did not move.
Ellie glanced toward the door.
“Work?”
“Probably.”
“You need to check?”
I looked at her.
Her hair was messy. Chocolate marked one corner of her mouth. She wore my T-shirt and had one knee beneath the sheet.
“No.”
The answer felt easy.
I wiped the chocolate from her lip with my thumb.
She kissed it.
Then she looked at the pie.
“One more bite.”
“You said that four bites ago.”
“I’m very committed.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Outside, the tide moved softly against the beach.
My phone stopped buzzing.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, the silence did not feel empty.
It felt full.