Chapter 6 #2
He didn’t require a minute. He was already there, Smurftastic balls and all. “Fine.”
For the next sixty seconds, he braced himself for whatever state of nakedness Lucy might choose for her massage. She clearly wouldn’t be wearing a bra, since he was pretty sure she didn’t own one. But what about that loose shirt? Or her skirt? Or—he squeezed his eyes shut—her underwear?
“Ready!” she called out.
Caught between running away and sprinting to her side, he forced himself to walk at a normal, deliberate pace.
Only to find her lying on her stomach, topless, her back completely exposed.
She’d pushed the skirt up to her thighs, so his eyes could devour almost the full length of her long, strong legs.
Maybe she was wearing something else beneath that skirt, maybe she wasn’t.
She tucked her hands beneath her cheek. “Is this okay? Because I don’t usually wear a skirt during a massage. Do you want me to take it off?”
“No.” His hands were shaking. “No, it’s fine where it is.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath, and the alluring line of her back rose and fell. “Please don’t do this for long. I don’t want you hurting only minutes after I got you relaxed.”
Then he was standing beside the bed, poised to touch her bare skin. Not her hand, or some other innocuous body part countless people had handled in the past, but a private patch of flesh. Paler than her arms, more vulnerable. More intimate.
With the first stroke of his hands over her back, she sighed, and he just about did the same. The warmth of her skin stunned him, its softness echoing her gentle nature. But beneath that smooth skin lay honed, well-used muscles, indicating a strength most people didn’t see.
He did. He’d always seen it, from the first moment she’d tugged him away from an incipient fight and forced him to eat lunch with her on a shady patch of grass beside the school.
From the first time she’d met his parents and charmed them immediately with her enthusiasm for their unfamiliar dinner offerings.
From the first note she’d passed him in class, telling him how much his friendship meant to her.
Again and again, she opened her heart and bared her soul, no matter how the world battered both.
That required strength he couldn’t match.
Under his hands, she seemed to melt into the mattress. Her eyes had closed, her golden-brown lashes fanning below them.
“Feels so good,” she murmured.
It did. It felt good to give her pleasure. It felt good to touch her in a way that required trust.
“I’m glad.” He moved to her legs, using his forearms in long strokes over her strained muscles, and she smiled, her eyes still shut.
“I wrote down the limerick.” Her jaw cracked with her yawn. “Your latest masterpiece. Put it in my suitcase.”
The stab in his chest forced him to still for a moment. “I’m delighted someone appreciates my wordsmithery.”
“Not my favorite, though. The graduation one…” She yawned again. “So sweet.”
He’d required weeks to write that limerick, draft after draft discarded for revealing too much or giving her too little of himself. Only the prospect of living halfway across the country from her had allowed him to slip it into her locker the last day of school.
Her cheeks plumped in a tired smile. “My favorite part was how you rhymed County with count-y. A stroke of genius.”
“Creating timeless poetry is hard. Sue me.” He rubbed her feet, and her toes wiggled, charming him completely.
“I memorized it.” Her voice was getting softer, her words less distinct. “Read it so many times.”
He still remembered every line, the tortured product of his struggle to say just enough to show he cared but not enough to show how much.
When she spoke, he could barely hear her. “There once was a girl from Queen’s County.”
Might as well help her finish. She probably wouldn’t even recall the conversation.
“Of kindness she had quite a bounty,” he said.
“Then she left for a college…” Her breathing deepened.
“To gain plenty of knowledge.” When she didn’t reply right away, he filled in the last line for her. “And was missed more than she could count-y.”
It was the lone time he’d ever acknowledged missing her, the gaping hole in his life without her in it. When she’d found him later that day, as he was walking home, he could tell she understood the significance.
“I got your note,” she’d said, offering a wobbling smile. “How do you count the amount someone is missed? Is there a scale of some sort?”
He’d kicked at the gravel beneath his feet, scared and embarrassed. “I don’t know.”
“If there is, I’ll max it out when we leave in August.”
Her eyes bright with tears, she’d tackled him with a hug, squeezing him tight. He’d put his arms around her in return, but hadn’t allowed himself to hold on to her with any strength. When she’d pulled away, he hadn’t protested or stopped her.
They’d spent another two months together, and then they’d gone their separate ways.
Soon, they’d do it again. And once more, he wasn’t holding on tightly.
But maybe he could risk a little more of himself this time. “You were my favorite person in the world. Always were. Always will be.”
Sound asleep, she didn’t respond. So he covered her, turned out the lights in his bedroom, closed the door behind him, and sat on the couch in the dark, staring into an impossibly empty future.