“Gabe.” His name was a prayer.
He started to move, controlled thrusts, his eyes on me. He was fucking me like he owned me, his expression full of ownership and lust. And tenderness.
I didn’t think of the months ahead when I’d be sleeping alone or the days when I wouldn’t have his words and touches to make the world right again, because right now they couldn’t exist.
He possessed me and I gave myself to him. At that moment, underneath the wooden roof of a dilapidated barn, I found my lighthouse.
But lighthouses were always surrounded by rocks. And treacherous seas.
Gabe
“You’re in love with her.”
There were times when I wished my sister had a different job. Something technical, or in engineering. Something that made sure she had no ability to read other people or get inside their minds. Something that made my life a little easier.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because.”
“I’m not sure that’s an answer.” I lined up a nail and began to hammer. Janie took a step away, not liking the noise. Loud noises always had her moving away and I hoped that would be the result now.
“The way you are around her. The way you look at each other. Have you asked her to move back here?”
“No.”
“No you haven’t or no you’re not in love with her?”
I gave the nail one last battering and dropped the hammer to my side. “I haven’t asked her. She has got to go back to work her notice. She’s looking for a change of job for after Christmas and she may consider moving back to this area.”
“So you admit you’re in love with her?”
I groaned. “Janie. I don’t know if I’m capable of feeling love or being in love with anyone. I know she makes me feel better. She gets what happened with Ryan and the times when I can’t speak about anything. She knows what to say to make it feel light again.”
Janie didn’t say anything which surprised me. She looked at the bookcase I was making, mainly because I could and I needed something to do, given that I’d been pretty much banned by the foreman of the site which was my house.
“You’re building this house for her?”
I froze and looked at her, wondering if my sister really had lost the plot. “No. I’m putting in some ideas of hers because they’re good ones. Just like I’m incorporating things that Ryan would’ve thought of.”
She shook her head. “I’m worried.”
“Why?”
“Because of the state you’ll be in when she goes back to London. And if she stays there. I’m worried you’ll go through grief all over again because she’s been your life buoy since you met her.”
“I’d have got to this point on my own.” I knew that was true. The island had soothed me, the constancy of life here had given me the rhythm and stability I’d needed since Ryan had died. But Anya had been something else.
“Maybe. But I worry that you’ve transferred some of your love for Ryan on to her.”
The idea both irritated and scared me. “I didn’t fuck Ryan into multiple orgasms.” I hoped my crudity would end the conversation but this was Janie.
“That wasn’t the point. You need to be in this good place because you think you deserve to be there, not because a certain person gets those endorphins going. Don’t get me wrong, Gabe, I love seeing you with her. In fact, I’ve never seen you like this with another person, but I worry that when she goes back to London you’re going to start to grieve again.”
I shook my head. “I can’t go back to being in pieces, Janes. Maybe I am in love with her, I don’t know, but she’s always been going back to where she lives in September.”
“You think you might have a chance of something in the future?”
It was something we’d half discussed, usually after we were both spent and curled up in bed, her in my arms where I wanted to tell her she belonged. I wanted her to stay, but I also didn’t because anything longer than the summer and we’d be in danger of a relationship that came with rules and expectations, rather than the free and easiness of a summer romance like two teenagers would’ve pursued.
