This woman, my wife, wasn’t a complete stranger anymore.
17
June
Songs of Surrender.
I googled it. It was the name of a U2 album that he probably loved.
So, why did his hidden tattoo seem like a hint, a sign, a warning even?
Maybe because, by the time I saw it, the words rang true to what I felt. Maybe because he knew they would, like he read my mind somehow.
I wanted to be touched like that guitar.
Worse.
I wantedhimto touch me like he did that blue guitar.
It was an inanimate object, but it was touched like I never had been. Like a truly cherished thing. I envied it.
I wanted to reach out and trek my fingers over that damn line on his taut skin, to follow its downward trail, to touch all of him. I wanted to surrender.
Stop it! Don’t think about his finger playing those strings and how your name sounds when he utters it with that accent of his.
Songs of Surrender. He probably knew how to play those. On so many levels. I was willing to bet many surrendered to his tune.
But I wouldn’t, even if I wanted to. He was still my complete opposite. Still a decade younger. Still someone who was soiling my kitchen with butter, and gluten, and God knew what else, and throwing his most-likely pungent shoes under my desk. Still a stranger who would be gone soon. It couldn’t be too soon.
So, what changed, June? Why the fuss?
I talked myself through it in the shower. Yep, another shower. A quick one. I didn’t like sweating, and he made me sweat. I tried not to look at the bottle I had left for him earlier, hoping he’d like it.
What changed? Maybe the obvious—enumerating and learning about his tattoos, seeing the rainy rose I had once wanted already etched on him, running my eyes over that body of his, his arms, his chest, that goddamn chiseled pelvis, feeling his thigh against mine, inhaling his clean smell, even though it came out of a 4 in 1 bottle, following the way he caressed that curvy, wooden body. And those gray-blue eyes looking at me under that dark hair that I suddenly yearned to run my fingers through, and that warm golden skin I wanted to taste.
Okay, sure, you had to be blind not to notice he was physically attractive. But it was even worse. He made it hard for me to be indifferent or dislike him now. What he’d shared about himself, the way he’d noticed things about me. We both came from not much, had taken care of younger siblings, worked hard, and had taken risks to gain success in something we cared about deeply.
Butwantinghim? Even just physically, it was not an option.
He wasn’t some stranger from Been-der that I could have a one-night stand with and forget about. A no-strings-attached with a man who played the strings. I kind of wished he was just that, because he seemed perfect for that purpose. He seemed used to serving that purpose.
But it was too late for that. He was my husband.
Toweling off, I concluded that nothing really changed, everything would be okay because he’d get on my nerves again soon enough. He was bound to. We were so different. And if he annoyed me, I’d be less likely to bethisattracted to him.
Besides, I wasn’t sure he would go for it, even if I wanted to. I was probably an old spinster to him.
Falling asleep with these thoughts and him just across the studio, behind the flimsy accordion partition, was harder tonight. I couldn’t even do my breathing techniques. The quick shower—quick because if I stayed there longer, I might have allowed myself to fantasize about him while using the warm water spray—and the stretches I had done while he was out walking hadn’t helped. I wished I was June the Prune, as my sisters called me. But I wasn’t. I was sweltering in bed and pulsating in the dark like a bass drum.
On my way out the next morning to jog on the beach, I walked past Angelo, who was sleeping sprawled on his stomach again. Even the roll of his shoulders and shoulder blades under the T-shirt … I jogged longer than usual, having lots of energy to spend.
Now, key in lock, I braced myself for another morning together. From a distance, I could hear the noise of the garbage truck outside.
Angelo was awake, lying on his back, lean, corded arms crossed under his neck, the blanket reaching just below his midsection. The muscles of his chest and abs weren’t bulged but still outlined through the fabric of his shirt.
Fuuuck. Good thing it wasn’t summer yet, or he’d most likely be shirtless, and I’d be in deeper shit.
“Good morning,” I mumbled, leaving my keys and cell phone in the bowl, then passing at arm’s reach from him on my way to grab clothes so I could get dressed in the bathroom after showering.
