Chapter 21 #2
His lips brush over mine, once up, once down before settling in.
The kiss isn’t the cowardly kind I gave him in his childhood bedroom; it isn’t an attempt to change the subject so much as a conversation without words.
But I’m not sure if my translation is accurate.
Because it feels like he’s saying he understands, that he’s falling in love with me too, and that cannot be right.
Hollis doesn’t do relationships. He doesn’t believe in lasting love, and nothing that’s happened over the course of this terrible day gave him any reason to reconsider that belief.
And yet... I’m feeling what you’re feeling , his mouth tells me.
You won’t lose me , it claims. Maybe I’m not mistranslating so much as willfully misunderstanding.
Or buying into a lie. If that’s all it is, it’s extremely convincing.
Then again, Hollis is a much better liar than I am.
My limbs are still wrapped around Hollis’s torso, like I’m a koala and he’s a tree.
Except the koala and the tree are making out, so I guess it’s not like that much at all.
His arms release me, and his hands slip between us.
They slide into my robe, following my curves.
His touch leaves a trail of heat, and the effect lands somewhere between comforting and sensual.
“My point is that I don’t like big feelings, Millicent,” he says. “My whole adult life—my whole personality—has been built around avoiding even the possibility of encountering them.”
I open my mouth to apologize for slathering my big, messy feelings all over him.
But he presses another kiss against my lips.
A preemptive shush that shows how well he knows my brain despite the short amount of time we’ve spent together.
I’m tilted backward, backward, until I’m parallel with the mattress and Hollis is above me.
My arms and legs give way to gravity, and I fall onto the bed.
The coolness of the air conditioning blowing against my skin where the robe is open emphasizes the sudden distance between our bodies.
Is this how it ends? The point where he tells me sorry, but this is too much and not at all what he bargained for, best of luck with my future, so long?
He stares down at me with that look of sweet bewildered frustration.
“But there’s no avoiding you, is there? I tried at first. I really did.
I was actually in my car at the airport, key in the ignition, before I had to go back inside to find you.
I mean, shit, I even tried sending you off to have sex with someone else, hoping it would help me keep my distance. ”
His face changes, as if the last answer has come to him and the puzzle is complete.
“I’m starting to realize that you’re inevitable, Millicent.
It’s like you tied my shoelaces together the moment we met and the knot’s only getting tighter the longer I try to outrun you.
It’s just... I have no idea what to do with all of this intensity, this longing, this.
.. sort of painful thing in my heart that feels like hope and fear and need .
The muscles to carry these sorts of big feelings atrophied a long time ago, and the weight of it is crushing me. ”
I don’t even realize that my mouth has fallen open as I attempt to process these unexpected words until Hollis’s touch draws my attention to my bottom lip.
The pad of his thumb traces the curve of it as he says, “You want to know why I’m here in Key West with you?
Because watching you exist in the world, trusting and loving and beautifully strange.
.. it makes these feelings even heavier, yet somehow easier to bear. ”
Holy shit. Hollis has big feelings for me.
He might not want to, but he does . Of course, him saying he’s tired of fighting it isn’t a promise we’ll be together forever (or even an admission that he believes that forever is a possibility for anyone).
But what do promises really mean in the grand scheme of things?
When it comes down to it, a promise is little more than an earnest intention; I’ve learned that the universe tends to laugh at those and do its own thing anyway.
Maybe that’s why I’m so willing to think the best of people.
I don’t want to assume malice when mostly we’re all just victims of the universe’s whims.
“Did I freak you out?” Hollis asks in response to my silence, his thumb stilling.
My smile spreads slowly across my face as I look up into those mismatched eyes. “No. I’m just thinking that we’re all just doing our best in the face of a fickle universe.”
“Right,” he says. “That makes sense.”
“And that you shouldn’t be wearing so many clothes.”
This time, when his mouth presses against mine, there’s no need to translate or second-guess.
He couldn’t be clearer if he hired a skywriter to zip about until big puffy letters spelled out his intentions.
I’m feeling it too, this compulsion to turn words into actions.
After he takes off his glasses, I grab the back of his shirt and lift it over his head, forcing him to break away from me long enough to sit up and maneuver his arms out of the sleeves.
My hands slide over his chest, and I bury my nose in the place where his neck and shoulder meet, where the rainy-day-with-a-favorite-book scent of him is strong and comforting.
His fingers on my skin generate a sort of fizzy yearning sensation that circulates through my bloodstream and makes me clumsy as I attempt to help him out of his jeans and underwear, which are still around his ankles when I reach for him.
Hollis lets out a small huff of amusement as he moves his hips away and grabs my hand. There’s a whimper of protest in response that must come from me, although I don’t remember my brain telling my vocal cords to do that.
“Hold on,” he says, pushing the robe from my shoulders so we’re both naked and on our knees. “There’s no hurry. We have all the time in the world.”
It probably doesn’t mean anything. We have all the time in the world —that’s a thing people say all the time without intending it to be taken literally.
But I want so badly to believe right now that forever might be an option, that Hollis could change his mind about lasting love and decide whatever this is between us doesn’t need to end when this trip does.
Despite the lack of concrete evidence, I want to believe that Mrs. Nash and Elsie loved each other until the end, and I want to believe that Hollis is saying he’d like to give us a chance to start.
And so I acknowledge him with a slow, leisurely kiss, and I let myself believe.
The frenzied need driving me toward the finish doesn’t disappear, but it exits the highway and ambles along down a scenic back road.
Hollis whispers that he’ll be right back and leaves the bed to find the box of condoms in his bag.
When he returns, he rolls one over his erection, then summons me back to his lap.
I sink down onto him and wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist so that as much of my body is surrounding his body as possible.
He tilts his head, resting his forehead against mine and for a long time, neither of us moves.
This is the maximum number of intimacies.
I don’t know how to quantify it—twenty-seven katrillion, maybe?
—but it’s gotta be the limit because I cannot fathom how we could feel any closer than we do right now.
Hollis’s hips nudge forward and up. I follow his lead, rocking against him in a languid rhythm reminiscent of the tide sweeping over the sand.
The movement is so subtle that there’s space to gather every sensation, be fully aware of every detail of each breath and fraction-of-an-inch slide and kiss pressed against sweat-coated skin.
Tension builds slow and steady, which I’m now fully convinced is the best way to win this particular type of race.
Except at the moment, I don’t want to win at all; I never want it to end.
“You can let go, Mill. I have you. I’ll always have you,” Hollis whispers.
It sounds enough like a promise that I take it as the permission I didn’t even know I needed to shatter apart, and it’s like all of my grief and worry scatter to the recesses of my brain to make room for one blissful moment where nothing exists but joy and love and release.
Hollis holds me tighter as he keeps rocking into me, whispering every sweet and dirty thought that crosses his mind, and my heart thump-thumps in time to his movements.
The spasms of his climax feel like someone setting off heart-shaped fireworks that explode in my chest. The embers rain down, sizzling, and I’m not even surprised when a quiet, slightly raspy voice in my head says, You love him, you silly thing . Because I know.
I already know.