Chapter 3 #3
He laughs, and I marvel at it. The slightly crooked tilt to his smile, one corner of his mouth climbing higher than the other. The barest hint of a shadow growing across his jaw. The indentations on his nose where his glasses were sitting.
I want to reach up and smooth them out, but the gesture seems too…intimate. One reserved for a partner, not a stranger he just met.
But then he lifts the hand that’s holding mine and brings it to his mouth. He brushes his lips against the inside of my wrist, and I melt against him, my hips lining up with his, instinctively returning to an earlier rhythm, one he begins to meet.
“We—” He stops, inhaling sharply. “We don’t have another condom.”
My excitement wanes for a second, then I move to sit again, my legs on either side of his body. Slowly, I slide my way down.
“That’s okay,” I say, my hands finding the waistband of his pants. I undo the button, then the zipper, and he helps me take them off his legs, his eyes on me all the while.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” I say, lowering my head.
The muscles of his stomach flex, and a desperate, ragged sound escapes him.
Before I take him in my mouth, I smile up at him. “After all, this conversation’s given me all sorts of ideas.”
—
The next morning, the room is bright, light streaming in through the windows.
I groan, turning over and pressing my face into the pillow. We must have forgotten to pull the heavy curtains, leaving only the sheer ones in place.
A weight lifts off the bed, and footsteps sound. The room grows darker, then the bed shifts again.
“Better?” a voice asks, and I nod.
I’m a little surprised he’s still here. Not shocked, but surprised. Before we fell asleep, I told him he could stay, and he said he would, but we didn’t make plans for the morning. He would have been well within his rights to skip out once day broke.
“Yes, thank you,” I respond. I stretch my arms over my head and peek at the digital alarm on the nightstand. 7:45 a.m.
“How did you sleep?” I ask.
His voice is deep and sandpapery when he responds, “Very, very well.”
His hands find my body, turning me toward him, and our mouths meet. Slow and soft. But it’s different this time. A denouement.
I feel a pang in my heart, knowing this kiss isn’t building to anything. Isn’t leading to anything. This isn’t going anywhere but goodbye.
I pull away, and he chases for a second. One last fleeting moment of connection before it ends.
“I have to leave soon,” he says, and I close my eyes.
“Right,” I say. I move to sit up, but he places a hand on my arm.
“You should go back to sleep,” he says. “You’re on vacation.”
I grimace. God, I wish this was just a vacation. But even though it’s not…maybe I can still find moments to sneak away. Moments of joy that could sustain me, could help me get through all of this.
“I’m only here for two days,” I say, slowly sitting up to face him. “And they’re kind of a busy two days. I have something that might go late tonight, but after that, if you’re free, and if you want to…maybe I could give you my number?”
The light is dim now, but I can see him in shadows. The muscles in his throat flex as he swallows.
“I have a lot going on the next couple days,” he says, “so I don’t think…I may not be able to—”
Heat rushes through my cheeks, embarrassment and the sting of rejection. “Right. Of course. I completely understand.”
“No,” he says. “I’m…I’m not making excuses. These next two days are hard for me, schedule-wise. Truly. But if I could, I’d want to see you again.”
I look away. “Really, I get it. You don’t have to…”
His hand cups my face, his thumb brushing the curve of my cheek.
“I want to see you again,” he says. “I want to. Even with what I have going on the next few days, I’d carve out time if I could, but…
” He hesitates for a moment. “I don’t know if I can do this again without knowing your name.
I don’t know if I can do this again knowing you’re leaving. ”
My pulse thrums as his lips brush mine.
“This has been…you’ve been more—well, better, really—than anything I expected. And I want to see you again, but I just…can’t.”
I’m stunned, my body still. I’m not used to this level of honesty, but it’s how he’s been from the moment I met him. Honest with his likes, with his wants, with every piece of himself that he’s shared.
“You’ve been more than I expected too,” I say. I reach for his hand, removing it from my face, but I continue holding on. We watch each other for a while, and our fingers interlace.
I wonder if things would be different under another set of circumstances, or whether this is the way it was always meant to go. The two of us meeting for one night, leaving with only a memory.
He squeezes my hand lightly before we both break away.
“I should go,” he says, and I lie back down.
I close my eyes as I hear him shuffle through the room. And I don’t open them, even when I hear the creak of the door as it opens, the long few seconds of silence that follow, and the muffled sound of the door shutting behind him.