Chapter 13
Dear July,
I tried to get a job so I can save for a ticket back, but no one will hire me because I don’t speak the language and don’t have the right paperwork…
Joe
I lean on the wall outside the restaurant kitchen just to breathe and get hold of myself. This is nuts. She’d obviously wished I were Jen or…anyone but me. I’m not sure I even like her anymore. So why does it kill me to see her helpless? To feel how shaky she was when I supported her?
There’s zero mystery about why the sight and feel of her naked on the bed would affect me. Anybody with a pulse and an attraction to women would react that way to her curvy backside. To seeing the tanned public parts of her framing soft, pale private parts.
Her vulnerability now wipes away some of the sting of the sexorcism night. Maybe that cold, determined stranger wasn’t the real modern-day July.
When I finally push through the swinging door to the kitchen, there are two teenagers there: a big-eyed girl and a much larger boy who seems familiar.
“Maisie, Sam, this is Joe.” Donna points at me from the oven area. “He’s filling in for July today.”
“How is she?” The girl’s face is anxious.
“Okay, I think. Dizzy. But she ate about half the soup and some of the other stuff. Got her meds down. She’s going to sleep now.” I drop the tray off at the dishwashing station, where the boy—Sam—is tying on an apron.
Then it hits me. Where I’ve seen him. Sam is a neater, cleaner, shorter-haired version of the young man I startled at the lake. The sleeping bag boy.
I keep an eye on him as Donna and I fill orders and restock for the dinner rush. He’s good at his job, steady and efficient, and within an hour, he’s caught up on the mess from lunch and is helping the servers clean tables. He looks healthy and strong. I guess whatever problem had him sleeping on a picnic table has been resolved.
By five o’clock we’re slammed again.
Donna and I shift back into high gear, cranking out orders for the evening servers to deliver. Tina comes in to make dough and then checks to make sure we’re okay before she leaves again. She lays her hand on Donna’s arm. “How late you plan on staying, babe?”
Donna glances at me. “Till closing, I guess.”
I look back and forth between them. Should have occurred to me before that she would not normally work a shift this long. “When would you usually leave?”
She looks down at the order she’s plating. “Three thirty or four. Usually July and Maria do dinner, but Maria’s out of town at a funeral.”
Takes me a minute to process this. “Wait, so July usually works straight through all the shifts?”
“Right?” Tina’s nod is emphatic. “She works way too much! Donna and I tell her that all the time.”
“I mean, she leaves sometimes, for a run or a board meeting or softball.” Donna’s loyalties are obviously torn. She shakes her head. “But she probably averages twelve to sixteen hours a day.”
“Why the hell doesn’t she hire somebody else?” My voice cracks with outrage.
“She loves it.” Donna’s voice is matter-of-fact. “It’s her baby.”
Beside her, Tina snorts. “She needs somebody real to love.” She darts a glance at me after Donna shoots her a look I interpret as warning. “But you didn’t hear it from me.” She stands on her tiptoes to kiss Donna’s cheek and then leaves.
Donna sighs, and from behind us the two kids chorus, “Woman’s gonna be the death of me.”
She points a sauce spoon at them. “You two are on thin ice.”
They just laugh and go to work.
“Donna, if you’ll stick around with me till the dinner rush starts to slow, I can take it after that. I got nowhere to be tonight.” I study the order board, toss two sirloins on the grill, and set some onions to caramelizing. Make sure we’ve got enough baked potatoes. “Oh, and I told July you already had her covered for tomorrow. I can do it.” I mean, what else am I going to do? This place is a damn sight better than breathing paint fumes in my construction zone of a building.
She nods slowly, sending two more orders out to the dining room and one to the patio. “Might take you up on that.” She checks on the vegetables she’s roasting. “Couple things you ought to know. I can do ’em if you don’t want to. At eight when we lock the doors, we package up the day’s leftovers for the women’s shelter.”
“The place Andi works?”
“That’s the one. But we make sure we keep enough for—”
It hits me and I say, “Devon,” just as she’s saying, “Some guys who stop by just after eight.”
She frowns and tilts her head. “How do you know Devon?”
“I’ve just…heard about him.” I wipe down my counter. Jesus, how many people does July take care of in this town? “I can do it. Just get me through the rush. Tell me everything you think I need to know.”
She stays till 7:30, instructing me on all the touches July’s puts on each dish on the menu, and then she pulls out her buzzing phone, looks at it, and shakes her head. “Asking me if we’re okay. She’s the one with the head wound and the bronchitis and the double ear infection.” She says her response out loud as she types it: We’re fine. You rest. “What time’s her next dose of medicine due? I’ll take her something up before I leave.”
“She probably just took a dose of one of them. I left her some fruit and bread up there before. Other med’s not due till around nine. I can take her something after I take care of Devon’s guys.” Don’t know why I keep offering. I’m sure July would rather see Donna. But Donna’s got family to get home to, and I…want to check on July again. So sue me.
Donna studies me in silence for a long minute and then says, “Okay. I’m trusting you, Joe. I like you. But if you so much as make her frown, I will hunt you down and take you apart like a chicken carcass.”
I feel my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. “Okay then.” I believe her. And I have seen the woman’s knife work. “I respect your loyalty. And I would never willingly hurt her.”
She nods, gives me one last look as she takes off her apron, and heads to the door. “The closers will be fine. Make sure Maisie and Sam leave at eight. It’s a school night.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Things go pretty smoothly after that. When the closers tell me they’ve locked the door, I finish up the pending orders and pack up most of what’s left for Andi. I’m waiting when Devon arrives with his group.
I open the door. “Devon. Guys.”
Devon stands looking at me from the sidewalk, not saying a word.
“I’m Joe. Filling in for July. She’s sick. Fell and whacked her head. Got some stitches.”
His eyes sharpen on me. “She okay?”
I nod. “Just supposed to take it easy for a few days.”
He studies me another long minute and then leads his guys in. I do everything I saw July do the night I watched from outside, including offering socks and tooth care stuff from a big bag I found in the office. They don’t talk much. Devon watches me like a hawk the whole time.
After they leave, I relock the door and turn everything over to the closers. Whip up a spinach and goat cheese omelet. Toast with butter and honey. Then I load a tray with the food, a mug of hot tea, and another one of Tina’s rolls. When the closers assure me they’ve got everything under control, I use the key Donna left me and let myself into July’s space.
Her phone alarm is chiming as I go up the stairs, but she’s just beginning to stir as I set the tray on the night table and swipe the alarm off. “Joe. You’re back.”
I can’t read her tone, but it’s definitely not thrilled.
“Yep. Brought breakfast for supper.”
She told me once, all those years ago, that her mom used to serve breakfast for supper whenever she or the other kids were sick. Now a slow, sleepy smile spreads over her poor bruised face, and something inside me breaks loose.
“Mm. Yummy.” She levers herself up slowly, cautiously, until she’s leaning against the headboard. She takes the plate from me, and I have to close my eyes at her expression when she tastes the omelet. “Oh my god, Joe. This is heavenly.”
I turn my attention to safer things, rereading the medicine instructions and preparing her next dose. Refilling her water bottle. Writing out the dosage times for each medication and checking off the ones she’s already taken.
She cleans her plate, watching me without speaking until she takes her med with the last bite of toast. Then she licks a drip of honey off her thumb—I manage not to groan, just barely—and picks up the mug of tea. “Why you doing this, Joe? Why you up here? Everybody else scared to come up?”
“No, course not.” Why would anybody be scared of her? She takes care of the whole damn town. Her other questions, though, I don’t really know how to answer. I study my hands. “I got more free time than pretty much everybody in the world right now. Less on my plate. Seemed like the thing to do.”
She starts to frown and winces; the movement must pull at her stitches. She straightens and moves slowly, carefully, to the edge of the bed. Swings her legs around, swaying slightly, until her feet touch the floor. She waves me off when I reach to steady her. “I’m fine. I’ll just go slow. I’ve gotta brush my teeth or I’ll dream they’re rotting out of my head.”
I watch her move gingerly to the bathroom doorway, and then I load the tray with dirty dishes and carry it to her kitchen. I haven’t really looked around before. There aren’t any lights on in the main room, but the streetlights on the square illuminate it some. Her little kitchen area is white and gleaming. The living area has a simple round table and chairs and a seating arrangement in front of tall windows. The layout is similar to my own upstairs, but it’s already nice. Simple. Comfortable. Clean.
I hear water shut off and July making her way back to the bed. “Thanks, Joe. I’m gonna sleep some more now. I can’t believe how tired I still am.”
“You’re coughing less already. That’s good.” I can’t make myself head for the stairs. But I can’t expect her to stay awake to talk to me.
And she doesn’t; she’s already under the covers when I peek in, her eyes closed and her bedside light out.
I go get the tray to leave but…she never reset her alarm for the next medicine dose. Shit. I stand in her darkened living room, trying to decide what to do.
Her long couch looks comfier than my air mattress. I could set my phone alarm for her next dose. Watch TV real quietly for a little while. The alarm will wake me up if I doze off.
The sofa welcomes me. I find some kind of animal documentary and turn the sound down low, dozing off and on.
My alarm goes off and the next dose goes fine. Sometime after that I wake up to find July standing over me, quilt wrapped around her. “I thought I dreamed you,” she says, her voice groggy. Before I can formulate a response, she settles herself beside me on the couch, her head on my shoulder, her arm and thigh pressed to mine, and tosses one corner of the quilt over me too. Another minute and her breathing slows in sleep.
And I stare at the flickering TV, thinking about how many nights I’ve lain awake wishing she were beside me. Thinking this is a really fucked-up way for that to finally come true. And I’m a really fucked-up guy to enjoy it.
***
July
Joe and I are at the lake, sprawled on our rock, watching the last traces of sunset fade from the sky. We just finished a long shift at the steakhouse, and we still smell like the restaurant kitchen, but I don’t even care. The bugs will descend on us soon, but I don’t care about that either. I’ve been starving for this, for the quiet space that forms around us when we’re alone together.
I feel like I’ve been waiting for it forever.
He lets go of my hand and rolls toward me, wrapping his arms around me. I hold him, listening to his heartbeat, feeling his slow, even breathing and the warmth of him all up and down my body. He traces little patterns on my back with his fingertips. Hearts, I think. Brushes his lips over my ear. Settles my head against him better.
This is exactly what I always thought love would be like. Being with Your Person, not having to talk all the time, just happy to be in their presence. Happy they want to be in yours.
“What you thinking about?” His voice has that raw edge that usually means he’s about to kiss me.
“Artichokes,” I lie.
“Yeah.” He nods. Sighs. “Me too.”
We last five seconds before our laughter bursts out, overcoming us. I have to sit up and wipe my eyes.
“I love when you’re goofy,” I whisper when he pulls me close again.
“Yeah?” He rests his nose on my forehead. “I love you all the time.”
I tilt my head back to find the warm glow of his gaze. His eyes are the only color in the graying twilight. Green, gold, and brown. “Me too.”
He doesn’t smile as he tilts his head toward me. His face is solemn as he skates his lips softly, so softly down my nose. Across one cheekbone, then the other, his movements slow and almost completely silent. He’s memorizing me with his mouth, his tenderness undoing me.
My eyes slide closed as he cradles my head in his hands and kisses my jaw. My other senses compensate. I’m aware of every rustle of our clothing, every rasp of skin on skin. The smooth, still-warm surface of the boulder beneath us. The clean taste of his mouth when he finally finds mine. The slide of his tongue. The curve of his faint smile, the soft sigh he gives when I kiss him back.
There’s nothing extra about my Joe. He has exactly what he needs: bone, sinew, teeth, a little bit of muscle, and just enough skin to stretch over it all. How a body so spare, so whittled, can feel so good, so safe to me, I don’t know. Under my hands, he is a lean, solid support I curl around, his biceps bunched and taut, his hair soft and baby fine in my fingers, his words blurred and warm against my skin.
He dips his head to my throat, kissing the hollow there, and I feel his hand at the sliver of bare skin above the waistband of my jeans. I want more of him, more of his touches, more of his sweet, hungry kisses, more of his skin on mine. I reach up and open buttons. One of mine, one of his, one of mine, one of his. I wrap my arms around his neck and arch into him, murmuring his name into his hair.
He bends me back over his arm, his mouth following the open neck of my shirt down between my breasts, his tongue tracing along the edge of my bra, over the swell of my skin. I press into him, and he drags his hands up over my ribs, stopping just short of cupping me. “July, is this okay?” His whisper echoes my heartbeats.
Yes. “Yes!” There. Now!
His hands cover me, half inside my shirt, half out, and we both go still.
I know he must feel my nipples pebbling under his palms. I can feel every tiny movement, every bit of friction, even through my clothing. I want the fabric gone. I want nothing between me and his touch, his mouth, his warmth, his breath on my skin. I slide one hand free from his hair and undo the front clasp of my bra.
It opens under his hands, and he freezes for a moment…and then his fingertips move on me, so softly I can barely feel it, but I do feel it, because I can feel everything. The brief whisper of breeze from the lake. The heat of his gaze. The calluses on his hands. My own spine arcing into his.
Impossibly slowly, he brushes aside the fabric and bares my breasts to his eyes. “July,” he breathes a long sigh, raising his gaze to meet mine. “So pretty.” He touches me again, flattening his palms against my nipples, moving just a little, and it feels so good I cry out. His eyes fly to mine. “Okay?”
I nod and touch his face. Trail my fingers down his cheek.
He presses with his palms again. Cups his hands around me and squeezes lightly. Scrapes his thumbs across my nipples, and when I cry out again, he leans forward and licks me. Drags his tongue over my nipple and sucks it into his mouth.
The pleasure overwhelms me. I clutch him to me, writhing, wanting to fuse with him. Wanting him to keep doing what he’s doing forever, and I moan…loud enough to wake myself up.
I am in my living room on my couch in the dark, as I have been so many times before. But this time I am not alone.
Joe is…oh my lord, he is doing wonderful things to me. I don’t know what made him change his mind about wanting me, or why he’d pick the middle of the night to act on it—surely he must have thought I was awake. Joe would never make a move on a sick, sleeping woman—but it feels too good to stop.
Through his jeans, his cock is a hard ridge against my belly. I ease my hands up under his soft T-shirt. Slide one down into his loose waistband to close around him. Squeeze and stroke and…
His soft groan and curse as he palms my ass and thrusts against me is the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard. His fingers slip between my legs, slicking over me as he thrusts again, and I am frantic to get rid of the barriers between us.
Unbutton, unzip, push aside soft layers, wrap one leg around his waist…and with his next thrust he is inside me, hard and thick and just as perfect as any of my dreams. He’s riding me like he’s wanted this every bit as much as I have, and that idea, the heady feeling of that, combines with every perfect thrust to fill me to giddiness.
“Joe!” It’s a moan each time I rise to meet him. A heartfelt, superstitious chant, because I don’t want this spell to be broken.
And then he jerks awake, wide-eyed, his gaze ricocheting around the room as if he doesn’t know where he is.
Oh no. No, no, no. Again, he wasn’t wanting this. Me.
He looks down at my breasts, at my nipples wet from his mouth, at his cock buried deep inside me. At my eyes, that have to be echoing the “Joe, please…” that falls from my lips, because he closes his own. Makes a sound like a whimper, or the prayer of a damned man.
I see him swallow, see his jaw clench, and then he’s moving again, slowly at first, his thrusts punctuated by breaths I can feel under my hands and against my face. Filling…and taking away. Filling…and taking away.
“July,” he whispers, his biceps bunching, his hands clutching the cushions on both sides of me. He lowers his face to my neck and breathes in and thrusts deeper. “July.”
In the weak, gray early morning light, the rest of the world seems silenced, shrunk down to us on this couch in this living room. To our perfect fit and friction, and our heat that must surely tint the air around us with fire colors. To our bodies rising and falling, the sounds of flesh and cloth and heartbeats and our raspy, desperate breathing.
In my arms is a man I’ve wanted all these years but only got to have like this once, clumsily. A stranger I don’t know but who knows what my body needs so much better than any other man I’ve been with.
I tighten my grip on his lean waist and move with him, answering, “Joe!” because I’m right there at the edge and I need it to be him I’m holding as I topple this time…
…and I don’t topple so much as burst, tiny sparks cascading at the edges of my vision, every single bit of me clutching and releasing and clutching at him again, and at my cry his eyes open, wild, and he moves fast and hard in me, one hand stealing to my ass as he pumps and pumps and then stiffens, pressing so deep I feel every part of him as his head tips back and he lets out a choked cry and pulses inside me.
I wait for his warm, welcome weight to settle on me. For his arms to come around me. I wait for his words, blurry and warm with praise or love or mischief in my ear…I wait for any one of a dozen lovely Joe things.
But he raises himself up off me, sliding out of me, seeming to not want to touch me any more than he absolutely has to.
Having him withdraw his physical self from me is chilling.
Having him stand over me to tuck himself away and fasten his jeans—and seeing horror touch his shadowed face as he realizes we didn’t use a condom—freezes me from the inside out. “Ohhh fuck.” His whisper isn’t sharp, isn’t angry, but at the utter despair in it, fissures and fractures spread through me. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
I imagine myself crumbling to dust. A giant pile of dust. Enough dust to swirl and seep through the floorboards and contaminate everything in the restaurant below us. Maybe the whole world.
I’m a big woman. I know a lot of guys don’t like that. But I’ve never had anybody who’s seen me naked—who’s been inside me—actually be repulsed by me.
The part of my heart that had felt so alive, so giddy a minute ago shrivels. Maybe I should offer him a bleach wipe, to kill off my big-girl cooties. Offer to boil some water so he can take a sterile bath.
I push myself upright very carefully, tugging my tank top down, pulling my open robe shut and retying the belt, scooting to the far edge of the couch before looking at him.
He rakes his fingers into his hair. “Are you okay? Fuck. I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” His voice is a scrape. “I was dreaming about something else. When I woke up I should’ve… I shouldn’t’ve… I’m so sorry.” He meets my gaze, a mess of emotion in his eyes.
I don’t know whether he’s sorry he initiated this or sorry because he thinks I did. Whether he thinks I took advantage of him. But asking about that would make me seem guilty. And I’m not, not this time. So I clear my throat to dislodge the boulder there and go with a different question. “Dreaming about something else, or dreaming about someone else?”
“No, it was about us. Just maybe not…now. We were at the lake, in the water.”
“And it bothers you that we did this?” I toy with the tie of the robe, wrapping it and unwrapping it around my finger. Looking at him would be impossible.
“Well, you’re sick…and injured, and it’s not…where we are now…or who we are now, is it? And what if you get pregnant? I didn’t use anything. I’ll get tested, okay? So you know I’m healthy.”
I sigh, sinking back into the couch, feeling a million years old and, despite my day of rest, completely wrung out. “I have an IUD. Won’t get pregnant. I’ll test too.
“But tell me who you think we are, Joe, please? ’Cause I don’t know anybody else who’s gone through this. I woke up and you were… We were… I thought you were into it.” Into me. Beyond the obvious literal sense. I raise my hands and let them drop. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do or not do. I know my attempted sexorcism sucked, and I’m so sorry. But beyond that…tell me. Tell me the rules.”
He leans back beside me, facing the silent, misty square. His words come out haltingly. Carefully. “I think…we did things right when we were young. Everything was full of feeling because we’d gotten so close before we did it. We did everything out of love. But now we’re, like, strangers. We’ve barely talked since I’ve been back. This feels like hooking up.” He gives a one-shoulder shrug and glances at me, his eyes dark. Mournful. “I don’t wanna hook up with you, July.”
Yeah, I gathered that from the way you sprang up off me afterward. I stare at my hands where they lie face up on my knees. He sounds every bit as defeated as I feel. It’s all I can do not to cry. “Well, if we’re strangers and you don’t even want sex with me, why are you here, Joe? I didn’t ask you to come here.” Let him wonder whether I mean “come back to Galway” or “come to my apartment.” I’m raw and it’s a little of both.
I jump when he picks up one of my hands. “Please don’t think I don’t want you. It’s just…sex is not enough. And I’m afraid it’ll wreck anything else we might’ve had. Get in the way of rebuilding a friendship. It would seem like an insult to what we had before.” His eyes—hazel again—pin me in place. “Don’t you remember how it used to be?”
I force my gaze to the window, to the square, my thoughts drifting back in time. In the morning hush, I can admit it. “It was different.”
But I’m not ready to dwell on that or to talk about it yet. I start to push to my feet. “I’ve got to get to work. I’m gonna be late.”
“Nope. Donna was serious yesterday. You’re not to go downstairs. They’ve got you covered. Can’t have you falling and bleeding all over the place or being Typhoid Mary.” He stands and walks to the kitchen. “You’re late for your next dose of medicine though. My bad. Helping out with that was my excuse for sleeping on your nice couch.”
A coughing spell seizes me, but it doesn’t seem as bad as yesterday. I follow him slowly to the island and sink onto a barstool, watching him fiddle with my bottles and tiny plastic cups. “Why are you up here with me, Joe, really?”
He barely glances up from what he’s measuring. “I don’t know for sure. I wanted to help. And I was the logical person.”
“I’m having trouble seeing why, on account of us being strangers and all.” Petty of me to throw that word back at him, especially when he’s doing me a favor I don’t deserve.
He pushes the medicine toward me along with a banana he’s snagged from my fruit bowl. “I live so close, and…we have a history. And I care what happens to you.”
I look down at the little cup for a moment, and then I peel the banana and eat it. Chase it with the meds.
He fills the teakettle and turns on the burner. Rifles through my cabinets until he finds a mug and a tea bag. “Do you feel any better today? You seem more alert. Steadier.”
“I’m not achy, except here.” I touch the swollen area near my cut, wondering what glorious colors I’m going to see in the mirror this morning. Wondering what color my heart would be if I could see that right now. Not all aches are physical. “I’m not dizzy. Not as hot. Just exhausted.”
He nods. When the water’s hot, he pours and passes me the mug, and I spend some time dunking the tea bag in it before looking up at him again. “You sure they have the restaurant covered today?”
“I’m sure. They were very clear on that. Threatening, actually.” That little half smile almost makes him look like my young Joe.
I snort without humor, weary just thinking about how much older than that sweet, smart-ass boy I am. “Then I think I’ll go back to bed.”