Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-five
Iris approached the gate to Gather Brooklyn at dusk.
The setting sun was bright as hot iron, casting orange light on the alleyway.
Gabe was sitting in a lawn chair on the driveway, drinking a beer beside a fellow artist with a shaved head.
When Iris crossed the threshold, Gabe perked up like a Labrador.
She held up a hand, a wave of hello and surrender.
Gabe sprang up and bounded to her, his smile softening every edge of his chiseled face.
“I wanted to—” but before Iris could finish, he swept her up in an embrace with such enthusiasm he nearly tossed her over his shoulder. She laughed and gripped his muscled back.
Still holding her bottom in a bear hug, Gabe looked up at her, his eyebrows a gable roof over imploring eyes. “Are you still my girl?”
Her heart felt like it might burst, and she nodded, her tension melting as she relaxed into his grasp.
Gabe sighed and set her down, enveloping her in his arms and his scent, that deep yet tender accord of resinous woodsmoke and skin musk, which stirred her soul.
“Pax, you close up!” Gabe reached into his pocket and tossed his keys to them.
—
They stumbled into Gabe’s apartment in a tangle of arms, kisses, and, for Iris, tippytoe steps.
She heard his keys clatter to the hardwood and felt him kick the door shut behind them.
Between kisses and nips, they undressed each other with giddy exuberance.
The rush of joy and anticipation at being back in each other’s arms bubbled between them like teenagers with the house to themselves.
They kicked off shoes, tossed shirts, and slingshotted her bra.
But when Gabe slid her jean shorts down her hips, he glimpsed the black-and-blue spots and winced in sympathy.
“What’s—?”
Iris remembered all she had wanted to say to him before he’d swept her off her feet. “Let’s talk a minute.”
Gabe handed her his shirt so she wasn’t so naked, and they both sat on the edge of his bed in their underwear. No pretenses and, as Iris had decided, no perfume.
Iris began, “Your note and the vase meant a lot to me, because I’m not perfect either, but I hide the cracks really well. And I want to be honest with you, because I want what we have to be real, even if it’s not as pretty.”
He nodded.
“Those bruises are from injections because I’m preparing to freeze my eggs.
So I may have been edgy with you last weekend, I’m on all these hormones.
I hid it from you because I didn’t want you to think I would rush things or pressure you to get serious.
I didn’t want you to think I was unsexy, or old, or desperate.
I’m none of those things. But I am thirty-five, with lower than average fertility, and I want a family someday in whatever way I can have one.
Believe me, I’m not rushing anything, it’s too important, but I am looking for something serious.
Even that, ‘something serious,’ is so vague—I’m looking for forever with somebody reliably great, who will love me the way I deserve.
And if any part of that scares you, I get it, no judgment, no hard feelings.
You can walk away, the sooner the better, honestly—”
“We’re in my apartment.”
“I mean it, I—” Iris rose to her bare feet.
“Iris.” Gabe caught her arm, but instead of pulling her back down, he stood too. He cupped her face. “I love you. And that makes me not afraid of anything.”
They kissed and fell together back to the bed.
He undressed her again, and she covered the ugly black-and-blue marks with her hands.
But Gabe gently removed each hand one at a time and kissed her palms. Then he lowered himself to kiss each bruise with lips as light as falling leaves.
There was no question tonight that he wanted her, his body thrummed with desire from the fluttering pulse in his neck to the bulging veins snaking down his lower abdomen, but from then on, he was careful with her, delicate.
He touched her not as if she were fragile, but precious.
The lighter his caress, the more hypersensitive she became; goosebumps shimmered on her arms, her chest swelled, and her nipples tightened and rose, every inch of her skin yearning to reach him.
Gabe didn’t tease, but he moved slow. Her belly quaked as a shiver of pleasure sped down her spine.
When he guided her onto his lap, he gripped her hips securely but never let his thumbs press one of the painful spots.
Instead, he slid his hands up her waist to almost lift her, so she felt weightless as she rocked on him.
When she arched back, he held her, and when waves of sensation made her cave toward him, he met her chest to chest. When they rolled and he hovered over her with his muscular arms on either side, she didn’t feel caged, she felt protected.
Iris knew there was still so much untested between them and uncertainty that Gabe could be the man she wanted and needed him to be.
They would have more fights, more misunderstandings, more discussions.
And she knew she hadn’t said “I love you” back.
She felt the emotion coursing through her, but she couldn’t trust it yet.
Her heart was still tender, even if its bruises didn’t show.
But for now, words were superfluous. Whatever needed to be said could be touched, whatever needed to be heard could be felt.
Asking with a fingertip, answering with raised hips.
Apologizing with softly parted lips, accepting with tightening thighs.
The message was equally if not better expressed that way. Not loud and clear, but deep and warm.
Until all was understood, and all was forgiven.
—
Iris awoke the next morning with a deep sniff in before she opened her eyes.
She inhaled the cottony musk of their bedsheets, warmed by their bodies and the sunlight that now slipped through the cracks in her knitted lashes.
She roused herself, stretched her arms wide, and patted the soft rumpled bedding beside her to find Gabe missing.
Her first thought was like ice water—that he had changed his mind and abandoned her.
But then she smelled something else, an aroma that put a smile on her face: coffee.
Gabe rounded the corner of the sleeping alcove, surprising her by being fully dressed in Levi’s, a white tee, and her light scarf around his neck. He was holding two cups in one hand and a large brown paper bag in the other.
“Mmm, you got coffee,” Iris cooed. “I like the accessorizing.”
Gabe set the coffees down on the bedside table. “It smells like you.” He drew the scarf across his face with a smile. “And that perfume you always wear.”
Without a sip of caffeine, she was wide awake. “I’m not wearing any perfume.”
“Maybe it’s just you, then. I can’t get enough of it.”
When he kissed Iris hello, she slipped the scarf from his neck and brought it to her nose.
She smelled the faint but familiar contours of the perfume, like an echo of the scent—this time it filled her with despair.
She didn’t want to believe it had played a role in Gabe’s feelings last night. So she lied, “I don’t smell anything.”
“Maybe you’re too used to it.”
She frowned at the thought that it might smell stronger to him. Now she wondered anew if she could trust her nose—or her boyfriend.
“Hungry?”
Iris pushed the doubts out of her mind. It was only a scarf, it had spent most of the night somewhere on the floor. “Now that you mention it, starving.”
He reached into the bag, pulled out a white cardboard box tied with string, and handed it to Iris. “Get it while it’s hot.”
She took the box; it was too heavy to be muffins or croissants, and the cardboard bottom was so warm, she felt the heat on her thighs through the sheets.
She shot a puzzled glance at Gabe, who remained impishly silent, and pulled the cotton string.
She opened it to reveal a fresh-baked whole pie, releasing a mouthwatering aroma of toasty, buttery pastry and a caramelized berry sweetness that was bubbling through the golden-brown crust in dark veins of sticky sugar.
Her stomach growled in response. “Do you have a knife? I’ll cut you a slice.”
Gabe produced two forks and handed her one. “Who needs slices anyway? This is just for us.”
He stripped naked and jumped into bed, bouncing her as she giggled and kept the pie upright.
They cozied up next to each other, sitting up against the headboard, and dug in, Gabe first. It felt sacrilegious to defile a pie this way.
But it simply smelled too good to resist, and she too poked her fork in the center, shamelessly breaking the sparkly sugared crust and digging into the soft, steaming blueberry filling.
Her fork was no match for this glorious pie, and each juicy bite sent a few blueberries tumbling like black pearls, dotting the box and bedsheets in royal purple.
The sweet ink of a delicious memory that would excite Iris for years to come.