Chapter 33 #2
The final image of the documentary is a still shot of us sitting on the curb outside of the Exit 11 liquor store, right after I offered to move on camera with her.
Her legs are folded gracefully under her, while mine are stuck out straight on the pavement.
But we’re looking at each other in wonder, appreciation, and a little surprise.
We’re looking at each other like we’ve indeed found our home.
The credits roll. I flop back in my chair, my astonishment giving way to overpowering joy. I even find myself laughing as I wipe the tears off my face. The light in my heart is spilling out only to wash back over me.
And then there’s a record scratching sound and Christina on the chaise lounge fills the screen again. “Oh!” she squeaks. “One more thing.”
She hops off the cushions and stalks right up to the camera, peering into the lens. “Hey, Dad?” That mischievous grin is dialed up two hundred percent. “Fuck off.”
I burst out laughing. I’m practically drunk in my giddiness and the other thousand emotions pounding through my chest. I have to get to her, now. Where the fuck is my phone?
“She’s exactly where you think she is,” Charlie says from behind me. He’s leaning in the doorway of his office, arms crossed and smirking. God knows how long he’s been there watching me.
I leap to my feet and sway again. He darts forward to brace me with a shoulder under my arm. “I’m not letting you drive until you at least eat a protein bar.” An exaggerated sniff. “And maybe take a quick shower.”
I shove him, laughing. “Fuck you. And fuck you for however long you worked on this with her without telling me.”
He laughs, but then he props a strong palm against my chest. “She’s waiting for you, man.” He pats me twice, uncharacteristically serious. “She’s not going anywhere.”
I let his words sink in deep. Christina and I will still get to take each day at a time. But we’ll get all the days.
I arrive at our house a tight thirty minutes later, showered, relatively steady, and beyond grateful to Charlie.
I gingerly open the yellow front door, and my chest immediately constricts.
Her light summer jacket is hanging on her hook in the foyer, and underneath, her sandals are lined up next to my shoes.
The incredible possibility of what I’m seeing propels me to the kitchen first: All of her favorite tea mugs are in the cabinets.
In the living room, those nude impressionist paintings hang on the wall opposite my grandmother’s paintings.
In the studio, her red recliner is situated in the corner, and the black curtains are wide open.
Light streams in on all the framed photos, of which there are several more.
In the bedroom, her clothing crowds mine in the closet and in all of the drawers.
The bathroom sink is littered with every hair care and makeup product imaginable.
But I do know exactly where she is. I’m borderline deranged with the need to wrap her in my arms when I reach The Coze, so much so that I’m shaking and my breathing stutters, but I open the door quietly, my body overriding any action that might disturb her peace here.
Christina.
She’s curled up around a book on the bay window seat, the sunlight illuminating her from behind like an angel. When she senses my careful movement into the room, her head pops up.
We lock eyes and freeze. I am incapacitated entirely by the undiluted love and longing radiating from her face. Her book slips feebly out of her fingers and onto the floor.
And then we lunge simultaneously. Our bodies lock in the middle of the room, her face burying in my neck and mine burying in her hair.
I breathe her spring scent into my lungs and know it’s the first full breath I’ve taken in weeks.
She’s trembling and crying, and I think I might be too.
We sink down onto the mass of pillows strewn across the floor.
She clings to my body, so I situate her in my lap, one arm banded around her back and the other hooked under her knees.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she sobs into my neck.
“No, sweetheart, you’re here.” I urgently kiss her hair, her temple, her eyebrows. “It was all worth it for you to be here right now, just like this.”
Christina slips her hands up my neck and sinks every one of her fingers into my hair to own me. Her hot breath washes into my ear. “I love you, Danny. God, I love you more than anything. And I don’t want to be parted from you for one more minute. Not today, not tomorrow, not the day after—”
I cut her off with a devouring kiss, wet and a touch out of control, both of us half sobbing but also tasting and moving like only we can.
I pull back when I sense she needs air, and she lets her head loll back to gaze up at me. She’s flushed and tear-stained and perfect. “You moved in,” I say, my voice still slightly hoarse.
“It was right.” Not even it felt right. It was right.
The tiniest trace of her mischievous grin tugs. “I hope it wasn’t inappropriate to presume the offer still stood.”
I smile weakly. “That was in perpetuity, baby.”
She huffs a laugh at the reference. “And you did say I could never presume too much when it comes to what you think of me.”
I press my forehead against hers and let my eyes drift shut. “That’s true. Remember it when I say I love you more than anything too. Because you should presume that means I’m proud of you and I worship you and I cherish you and I need you and I’m in awe of you—”
Now she cuts me off with another drugging kiss, squeezing my hair tightly and chasing everything I feel for her with her tongue.
She traces her lips across my jaw and down my neck, and she finally releases my hair to slip her fingers into the neck of my shirt.
As she kisses down my throat, she drags my neckline to kiss lower and lower onto the warm skin beneath.
“You did it, baby,” I manage.
She deeply breathes in the scent she finds beneath my shirt. “Did what?”
“The Jezebel List. The documentary is spectacular.”
She peers up at me again with the softest, sweetest glaze over her features. “Did you like the music I added to land that tricky transition into Movie Church?”
I chuckle. “I did.” My voice quiets a touch. “But I especially liked the introduction, and … and the conclusion.”
When she accepted her whole self. When she called me her home.
She brushes her thumb across my cheek. “Who knew the maestro would become the muse by the end of this?”
I nuzzle my face into her palm. “And the muse would become the maestro.”
“Not in the kitchen. I’ve practically starved the past couple of weeks.”
A laugh rips out of me, and her face lights up with joy so quickly that she has to flip the back of her fingers over her mouth through her giggle. I sneak a kiss to her open palm.
“Thief!” She shifts to straddle me, and the movement allows my eyes to finally glance past her.
I gasp.
“What is it?” she asks, alarmed.
“Your books. You moved all of your books here.” Every previously empty shelf is now bursting at the seams, and the bookcases have even been rearranged to squeeze in some of the floor-to-ceiling ones from her old apartment.
A slow grin creeps across her face. “You just noticed?”
I slip my hands under her shirt and slide them up her back; her breasts arch into me at the touch. “It’s hard to see anything else when you’re in a room, Christina.” I unhook her bra.
She tugs at the hem of my shirt, and I help her wrestle off these boundaries between us. “Our books,” she whispers, studying her roving, reverent hands on my bare chest.
“What?” I gently remove her shirt and toss the bra away. I shudder against her when I grasp a handful of her perfect tit, nipple pink and hardening for me.
She moans softly. “They’re our books.” She holds my eyes by framing my face with her hands. “Everything I have is yours. Everything I am is yours. Every single day.”
She catches the tear that tumbles down my face with her thumb.
She catches my tear.
I crush her mouth to mine and kiss her breathless. Her fingers are in my hair and my whole heart is in her hands when I whisper against her lips: “Show me.”