Chapter Fifteen
I wake up too warm, legs broiling, arms cool where I must’ve unzipped my sleeping bag in the night. Dawn is considering its options, trickling through the western wall of the tent enough to illuminate Lyle sprawled out on his stomach, limbs draped over the sides of his cot.
His body is intensely relaxed, somehow boneless in the way of small children who’ve passed out harder than an adult is capable of anymore.
Or maybe harder than I’m capable of anymore, after a decade of night shifts where the best I could hope for was a few minutes to be horizontal, rest my tight, aching hips and knees, and try not to feel so old before my time.
Before last night, I’d never had to dread the uncomfortable first conversation after someone turned me down.
But Lyle, being himself, made sure nobody went to bed angry.
When I came into the tent, braced for awkward pleasantries, he was in bed.
Eyes at half-mast, he watched as I silently zipped the front flap closed and tucked my toiletry bag away.
“Waiting up for me, Dad?” I sniped, as if I’d ever had someone do that for me.
He answered seriously. “We all need someone to watch our backs. Even someone as strong as you.”
I thought about all the times he’d had my back out here. If I’d had a disagreement with a bear on the way back from the wash station, he’d have realized I was taking too long, gone out after me, and made himself the bear’s problem, too.
We were just two people bears should not mess with, especially if they found us together.
Together. The idea wrenched my heart with the fierce relief of a dislocated joint sliding back into place. I climbed into my sleeping bag so I could press my hand secretly to my ribs, checking if my heartbeat felt as changed on the outside as it did on the inside.
He looks different this morning. Familiar in a way that seems…
well, the word that comes to mind is “dear.” It’s sweet and old-fashioned, like I’m Anne Shirley standing at the garden gate after three books of insults and rivalry, looking up into Gilbert Blythe’s face, and seeing something that was always there.
There in herself, there in him, waiting to be discovered.
I let my gaze drift over his body, the hills and valleys of him softened by gray morning light. When I get to his face—his somehow very dear face framed by messy auburn curls that have sneaked out of his ponytail—his eyes are open.
“Oh! Sorry,” I whisper, feeling a bit like a creeper. I could mistake the darkness in his eyes for desire, if I wasn’t careful.
He shifts his hips a little, but doesn’t roll onto his back. I know what that move means. I recognize the quiet, bitten-off sound he makes, too.
Boundaries . Whatever he’s hiding, it’s not for me. I have no right to his body or his soul. They’re a package deal, the only thing he doesn’t give away for the asking.
“What do you want to do today?” he says softly.
The dawn chorus of birdsong is loud enough to give us some cover, and we’re far enough away from the other tents that he doesn’t need to whisper.
But he does, like he wants us to share secrets.
I want to open my mouth and let him lay soft words right on my tongue, so they can strike a sweet, tingly path down to my stomach.
Which is right behind the heart, anatomically speaking.
Close enough to touch, which he and I have been careful to not do since we got out of the water.
“Slip it always does when I make downward dog look “correct.” I let my arm uncoil a little, allowing my elbow to bend slightly.
The relief is immediate.
As Lyle’s footsteps traverse the room, I close my eyes and breathe. Is this how it’s supposed to feel—slow and almost pleasurable, a wave cresting and receding?
Over the past year, I’ve felt like a buzzing, smoking machine about to start throwing parts. Maybe I could unplug for a second. Cool down enough to undertake repairs.
Unplug, ha. I’m becoming more McHuge-like all the time.
“Think about being strong and feeling easy at the same time. Bow and stern, power and steering. Partners, working together.” His footsteps stop at my mat.
A moment passes where I think he’s checking my form, but then there’s a flutter of sensation that grows firmer as his thumbs find the crest of my pelvic bone, palms settling up my waist, fingers wrapping around my hips.
He has my back. Literally, this time, but it doesn’t feel different from when he threw his weight behind my canoeing idea yesterday. It doesn’t feel different from when I asked for 5 percent of his company, and he gave me 10. There is no difference. It was only different in my mind.
He pushes up and toward my heels, and I’m floating. The ease of it floods me with pleasure, bone and muscle falling into place like a video of a shattering cup played in reverse. His ring presses sweetly against the crest of my hip bone, the metal warm through my shirt.
“Find a way, with yourself and with each other.” The voice is McHuge, the hands are all Lyle. Warmth and power and giving with an open hand. “Water goes where it wants, does what it wants, pushes anything and everything out of its way—and carries what it needs.”