Chapter 1 #9
We spent the rest of the day in bed, kissing, touching, making love, wearing each other out until we were sore and dizzy and a little delirious.
At some point, we realized it was getting late, and we hadn’t eaten.
So he threw on a pair of jeans while I wrapped myself in one of his flannel shirts, and then I made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner.
After, we finished my bottle of wine while we finished his puzzle, while we talked and laughed and kissed, and I realized that this, this weekend with him, was a top ten moment too.
And now, curled up next to him in the hammock, the firepit popping and crackling at our backs, I pointed up at a bright star hovering next to the nearly full moon and asked, “What’s that one?”
“Venus,” he said, holding me close while we swung gently from side to side.
Our limbs were tangled, my hand resting on his bare chest, his palm curled over my bare hip while Joey trotted by every now and again to drop his tennis ball near Darryn’s other hand and wait for him to toss it.
Pointing at three stars slanting across the sky, I asked “And those?”
“Cygnus. Part of his wings.” I followed his finger while he traced the rest of the constellation. “Cygnus is a swan.”
“Did you learn about the stars to impress girls?”
I felt his deep laughter through my fingers. “Is there any other reason?”
While we fell into a comfortable, spent silence, the night sky opened up above us, stars arriving in layers upon layers, freckles of light that had travelled over distances and lengths of time I could barely conceive of to finally reach our little eyes.
And even though the moment with him, swaying in our hammock, our bodies fitting together like we’d held each other for years, like we were puzzle pieces made to interlock, was temporary, insignificant in the vast expanse of the universe above us, it didn’t feel accidental.
It felt purposeful. Like I’d met him on purpose.
Been booked at this cabin at the same time as him on purpose.
Stared up at these stars on this night with him on purpose.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said, breaking the silence with what we were both thinking, even though neither of us had said it yet. “A lot.”
Nestling into his side, I said, “I’m going to miss you too.”
We watched the stars until the fire faded, until we made our way back into the cabin, into his room, into his bed.
He kissed me for a long while, my lips, my neck, my throat while he held my hands above my head.
He kissed between my legs while my fingers dove into his hair.
He whispered things against my skin, telling me that I was soft and warm and beautiful.
Telling me that he loved my breasts, my belly, my thighs.
Telling me that he loved making love to me, the sounds I made, the feel of me gripping him when I came.
And when he finally pushed inside me, when we sat up together and I placed my hand over his thundering heart, when we kissed while he held my hips steady and thrust up into me, I shattered, fracturing into a thousand particles of heat and pleasure until I became my own constellation, a pattern of stars whose light would travel through time and space to guide me back to this memory again and again.
It didn’t take him long to fracture too, and afterward, draped over his body, held in his arms, I tried to stay awake.
I tried to keep my eyes open as he moved his hands over my skin in soothing strokes, as he kissed me and told me something I could almost hear.
Something that sounded so sweet and true.
But it could have been a dream. Because when I opened my eyes again, it was morning.
“No great big goodbyes,” I said, clinging to him in front of my rental car.
He kissed my head. “Okay.” His voice was thick, and it made my eyes sting. “No great big goodbyes.”
When Joey stood, resting his paws on my knee, I picked him up and kissed his furry little head. “No great big goodbyes from you either.” Blinking hard, I passed Darryn his dog, then I kissed his cheek while a tear rolled down mine.
“Oh, honey. Don’t cry.” He brushed his thumb under my eye. “Are you sure you don’t want to—”
I cut him off with a kiss, soft and lingering. “It was perfect,” I said. “You, this place, everything. It was so perfect.”
I left the implication floating in the space between us. Let’s let it stay perfect. Let’s give each other this one perfect thing we can carry with us for the rest of our lives.
His chin ducked, a reluctant agreement. “You know where I am. If you change your mind.”
He’d snuck his business card into my jeans pocket, hoping I wouldn’t notice until I’d left. But I’d felt it, like a warm stone against my thigh.
“I know.”
He set Joey down, tossed him his ball, then hauled me into his arms. “Thank you, Hannah. Thank you for everything. I can’t tell you what this weekend has meant to me.”
While my eyes misted over and my nose burned, I said, “You mostly mean the orgasms, right?”
He barked a laugh, a sound so good that if I’d bothered to plug my phone into the portable charger, I’d ask him if I could record it. Turn it into my ringtone.
Knowing that if I didn’t leave the comfort of his arms right then, I might never leave it at all, I kissed him one last time, stepped back, and got into my car.
This time when I drove away, while he stood on the porch with Joey sitting beside him, while he waved at me with one hand and ran a knuckle under his eye with the other, I did it smiling. Crying, but smiling.
“I still can’t believe you just left him like that,” Steph said, perched on the corner of my desk.
She echoed what my own brain had been shouting at me for three weeks. Why? Why the hell did I let him go? Why haven’t I called him? Why did I spend every night in bed staring at his business card before I eventually put it back down on my nightstand and fell asleep lonely and missing him?
“Are you stalking his social media like a psychopath now or what?”
“He’s not on social media,” I said, clicking send on an email to a parent wanting to switch her kid’s biology class to third period. “I checked.”
“Of course he isn’t.” She sighed deeply, her copper curls sliding over her shoulders. “The great ones never are.”
“Hey, Steph.” I closed my laptop. “Thank you again for setting the trip up for me. It was just what I needed.”
She smirked. “I’m sure it was.”
“I mean it.” I squeezed her hand, because even though I missed Darryn like an ache that refused to be soothed, being in that cabin, being with him, had helped me. It let me come back to my empty house with a far less empty heart. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But don’t expect the same results next time.
” She hopped off my desk. “That shit was kismet. And I still think you should drive to Olympia, find that man, and live happily ever after. But”—she picked a fleck of lint off her sweater—“what do I know. Oh, and this is for you. Came to my box by accident.”
She set an envelope on my desk, made out to Hannah James at North Lark High School with no return address.
“Wanna get lunch with me later?” she asked while I turned the envelope over in my hand.
“Sure.” I raised my eyes to hers. “Sounds good.”
Her smile was strange, a little mischievous as she turned on her heel and walked out of my office.
I wasn’t sure why, but I waited until she closed the door before I opened the envelope. And when I pulled out the handwritten letter, short, sweet, and perfect, I had to blink five times to clear the mist from my eyes.
Hannah,
Not sure what you’re doing next weekend, but I’ve heard this place is notorious for double-booking their guests.
Darryn
P.S. I miss you so fucking much.
The next page of the letter was a VRBO listing for a cottage at a vineyard located halfway between Sequim and Olympia. There was a phone number scrawled across the top along with the note: This one has running water. And a hot tub ;) Call me. Please.
Snatching my phone off my desk so quickly it flew out of my hands and clattered onto the floor, I bent over, picked it up, and typed in his number.
The second his smooth, deep voice brushed across my ear, my breath caught, my heart stopped, and then I blurted out, “I miss you so fucking much too. Every day, I miss you. Every night. Every time I look up at the stars. I was wrong, Darryn. Because one weekend with you wasn’t enough.
One top ten moment with you wasn’t enough.
I want more. And a hot tub sounds amazing. ”
His laughter was so broken it might have been a sob when he said, “Hannah. Honey. Come get wet with me again.”
Clutching the phone to my chest, to my wildly beating heart, then raising it back to my ear, I said, “You bring the snacks, and I’ll bring the puzzle.”