After several moments, he lets me go. Our faces are still very close to one another. He has saliva—mine? His?—all around his mouth. His eyes look dazed.
Neither of us speaks. This lasts longer than the kiss.
Then he says, ‘That was atrocious!’
A sigh of relief. ‘Completely!’
‘It was so hard to go in for the kill and still control my technique. For a second I thought I’d cracked your front teeth.’
‘And I guess the actors know that it’s coming and are just pretending to be surprised, so they can coordinate a bit more. I felt like I was two steps behind the whole time.’
He looks pensive now. ‘They were using a lot of tongue in the movie, so I gave it a crack, but maybe it’s the kind of thing that onlylookssexy? Do you think Drew was gagging through that whole thing?’
‘I don’t think what we did evenlookedsexy.’
He tilts his head in acknowledgment.‘Maybe there’s a special way of making kissing look sexy that they teach in acting school.’
‘What, like Pashing 101?’
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘Go message the VCA when we get back to town and see if we can get in on that action. You know, for research purposes.’
‘Of course.’
We agree that the other two must have stopped shagging by now, so we turn off all the lights and return to bed. Arthurkeeps his trackies on, and as he turns off the light, we’re both facing the wall.
There’s something about the beach in winter. Grey fluffy skies meet deep blue choppy water that crashes onto sand hardened by the night’s rain. It reminds me of the many, many books I have read where an idyllic beachside town is rocked by the discovery of a body.
I like it.
Having braved the spiderwebbed brambles, I find a bed of jagged rocks and take careful steps across them to reach the sand. My sunken footprints are a reminder that I’m really here.
When I woke up, the bed next to me was empty.
It’s like he took a premature walk of shame. In a way, I appreciate that we have put off the awkward next-morning conversation. In another way, it could be argued that he has kicked the can down the road, and said conversation might be in view of others when it occurs.
In yet another way, two of us can play at this game, and I have gone for my beach walk so he can’t pounce on me at the house when I least expect it.
Either or any way, he has once again left me wildly overthinking something (probably) innocuous. But at least a kiss is a tangible thing. No one would be making fun of me for obsessing over a kiss. That’s a totally normal thing to do.
Why did he kiss me?
Did it sound like I was begging for it?
Oh, God.WasI? Did I all but plead for a smooch? How embarrassing.
But if I was, why did he give in?
That’s what I can’t quite get to. I consider it for another five or ten minutes, coming up with no viable answers, until it starts raining. Like, properly raining. As in, I have to bear-crawl on increasingly slippery rocks to escape the beach. When I look back, my footprints have already disappeared into the sea. Then it occurs to me that instead of wondering, I can simply ask the one person I know who actually understands why men act the way they do.
Conveniently, she’s currently housed in the bedroom next door.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the window of the sliding door on the way. After a quick trip to the bathroom, which results in only a marginal improvement to my drizzled-on hair, I knock gingerly at Bee’s closed door.
There is any number of potential adventures from which to choose here. I am invited in and catch a glimpse of William’s bare ass. There is no response, so I risk it and find them smack bang in the middle of something. Or at the start. Or the end—I don’t think there would be much difference in the resulting trauma. Or there is no response, and I walk away without answers, easy prey for a returning Arthur to jump (probably not literally, given last night).
I knock.
