I shake my head and look down, confused but not surprised by my disorientation. I had been ignoring my own feelings all day and then I started to ignore his. How did I get that so horribly wrong?
“I'm not asking for your hand in marriage, for fuck’s sake. I'm not asking for anything. I just want to be able to tell you how much I like you, and how this is more than just sex for me,” Marty continues. “And if it is just sex for you, that’s fine. I get it. But just have the courage to come out and admit it so I know where I stand.”
My eyes warm with the urge to cry. I open my mouth, but words don't come.
“Jenna, please,” Marty says and he comes closer still, so close I can feel his heat and I wish he'd put a shirt on or a bag over his head and that thought is what makes me smile and laugh a little to myself as I look up and into his eyes.
“Marty,” I say and surely the way I say his name is enough, enough for him to hear and know the want and need and admiration I have for him. But it’s not. His eyes still search mine.
“Tell me what this is for you,” he urges and while I hate how he doesn't let me off the hook easily, I can’t help but admire how he holds me accountable.
It's the vulnerability in his seeking eyes, and the faintest lines between his eyebrows and the hard edge to his chin as his jaw repeatedly flexes that has me reaching for his face, stroking and cupping it with both of my hands.
“Marty, I don't know what it is and maybe I should because I'm older and more experienced, and for Christ’s sake, I'm the one who is supposed to be an expert in sex and relationships, but I really don't know what it is. But like we said earlier, I'm trying to be okay with not knowing. And I do know this much, it's more than just sex for me too.” I wait for the ground to disappear from under me, but it doesn't.
“It's more,” Marty repeats, as if to confirm for us both.
I nod.
“Okay,” he says, and he bends down to kiss me on my forehead, ease and lightness back in his tone and movements. “Now let's go order some food. I could eat the frontandhind legs off a scabby horse.”
“Okay,” I say a little breathless as I watch him walk away. “You go ahead. I just need a moment to get dressed, and... ” I don’t finish but he doesn’t seem to mind as he’s already calling out from the living area.
“No problem, just hurry up. We have another cracker of a sunset to watch together too.”
Then I'm left alone, leaning against the door, feeling like it will take more than a few minutes for the room to stop spinning.
The Third Sunset
“Don't forget, beautiful sunsets need cloudy skies.”
- Paulo Coelho
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jenna
We eat outside as the sun moves lower in the sky, readying itself for its final blaze of colour today.
At first, I thought we'd ordered too much food, but as I watch Marty using the last piece of bread to soak up the remaining pasta sauce lining his bowl, like he doesn’t know when he’ll eat again, I realise we both needed it. It’s yet another thing I’d forgotten about companionship; the joy of satisfying an appetite with good food shared with good company. Sharing a meal with a lover feels almost as intimate as sex. There is certainly something sensual about the way Marty’s mouth works chewing his food and the satisfied grunt he makes as he swallows his last mouthful.
“So,” he says once he finally stops eating. “I have to confess something.”
“Oh, God,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “You're actually forty-eight, just with an excellent skin care routine.”
“No.” He winces. “It's my birthday tomorrow.”
I nearly choke on the sip of water I take. “What? So, you're actually twenty-five?”
“No, I'll be twenty-four tomorrow,” he says with a dimple-dipping grin. “Surely you know by now I'm a rounding-up kind of guy?”
“You’re actually twenty-threeright now?” I ask, my voice and eyebrows high.
“Yes.”
I don’t know why my stomach plummets so dramatically, but I try my best to rein it in as a flash of disappointment or frustration, or something not at allgood, momentarily lines his brow. But just as quickly as it appears, it’s gone and he turns his attention to the view ahead.
“There’s some clouds in the sky tonight,” he says. “That will make the sunset look different.”
