We were both on our backs, our gazes on the ceiling.
Oliver turned his head toward me, and I did, too. He looked at me. “I want to, January, but—”
“I don’t care. Kiss me.”
He reached his hand out and cupped my cheek, then rolled to lie on top of me and kissed me long, deep, like the Oliver he was, the one who was peeking through the hard crust every now and then when I forced him to let his guard down.
He lifted his head and caressed my hair, skimming his thumbs along my skin as his gaze caressed my face. “Who died, January?”
When I didn’t reply, he repeated, “January—”
“Vi died tonight,” I cut him off. “I was there, I was right there, and she died. She’s not young, I know that. I knew it would come, but she’s my friend.”
Oliver didn’t say a thing, but I could see it all on his face when he wiped the few tears that made their way to my eyes with the pads of his thumbs.
Thanks to him, at least for tonight, my pain was spent, my rage consumed, my body drenched. I had exhausted it all.
He placed a kiss on each of my eyes, then on my forehead, then trailed his lips along my cheek until he left a soft kiss on my lips.
Despite feeling him hardening again against me, Oliver only wrapped me in his arms. Then, when he rolled onto his back, he dragged me with him to lie on top of him, my head resting on his shoulder, my leg splaying across his. His arms were wrapped around me, holding me close.
We didn’t speak.
I placed my palm over his heart and felt it beating. That was enough for me tonight, to just know it was there, whether he wanted to give it to me or preferred to keep it bolted.
I stroked his chest and abs. Just like back then, he must have burned energy at the gym these days, too, because he was beautifully sculpted. Touching him made me need him again. The warm touch of his hands on me was just loaded enough with love to make my eyes sting with tears again. I needed to forget. I knew without even touching him what I’d find if I slithered down his body.
When I did, Oliver expelled a breath. His body was still somewhat stiff, as if he were still resisting me. He knew exactly where I was aiming for, yet he didn’t stop me. Even boulders had a breaking point, and I was fully using my eroding force on him.
I licked my way down his abs and found exactly what I knew I would. He was hard and ready. I pulled the dark gray briefs down and took him into my mouth.
“Fuck,” I heard Oliver mutter. “Fuck,” he repeated when I started doing what I hadn’t done since my marriage. I knew from touching him and feeling him inside me before that he was big, and he indeed was.
Oliver groaned, and uttered my name, and gripped my shoulder and hair as I sucked and licked him, but he didn’t let me finish. Instead, his grip tightened under my arms, and he pulled me up his body, rolled us over, and was on top of me and inside me before I could say his name.
I wanted to taste you, Oliver. I wanted you to lose this fucking control like you did before, I wanted to say but didn’t. Our mouths were melded together, and I tasted him and myself and him again on his lips and in his mouth. I hoped that he could taste us both in mine, too.
When we both came in a daze of heated moans, entwined palms, laced fingers clutched together, and intoxicated-like dizziness; when everything around us was a blur of a world that ceased to exist and only the feel, and smell, and taste of each other was real, I called out his name once again.
I hugged him as far as my arms could reach, encircling his muscular back. I stroked his neck and hair and felt his breaths in the nook between my neck and shoulder. Deep down, I knew that I had taken and given what I could and that he had done the same, and that, for now, this was all we could have.
I pulled the comforter that I had folded at the edge of the bed when I had left for June’s and covered myself and Oliver. And we were silent once again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the second time, I snuck away from Oliver, leaving him asleep and naked, his beautiful body half covered by the blanket I had pulled over him. I left a silent kiss on his shoulder, looked at the moon tattoo on his leg, and closed the door behind me.
The first bus was passing outside Wayford at six thirty. I couldn’t even afford an Uber for such distances.
Reaching June’s place, I let myself quietly in. Glad to find she was already out, I went straight to the shower. Under the hot spray that needed fixing, I gave myself a few more minutes of avoiding the avalanche that was waiting for me outside this room—my yet to be solved housing situation and its implications on my son’s looming engagement; the arrangements for Vi’s funeral that no one else was there to handle; and Oliver. I let myself think of his body, his arms, his chest against mine. His eyes when he was inside me, and how he was right—I did give a fuck; and rage, and pain, and desolation weren’t a basis for a relationship. There was love there, too. I felt it, saw it, and even heard it in his voice when he uttered my name.
But his warning before and his tattoo after reminded me that, despite their gravitational force, moon and Earth were better off at a distance. They couldn’t reunite unless they collided. They were supposed to remain distant, watching over each other from afar.
His touch repaired the bleeding in my heart.
I had done the same for him years ago.
We’ll call it even.
