She closes her eyes, a beat longer than a blink, her chest rising on a deep, frustrated inhale. “I mean—don’t be soft. Take—take care of yourself.”
I lower my head, press my forehead into her neck, groaning in relief as I push into her, slightly at first because no matter what she’s said, no matter how wet she is, she’s tight here—exquisitely, perfectly so. She makes a noise of pleasure, her hands still greedy on me, shifting to my lower back so she can guide me further into her.
“We take care of each other,” I tell her, right against her skin, and after that, it’s silence for a while, nothing but the sounds our bodies make, the rough grunt I make when I’m fully inside her, the breathy sigh she exhales against my neck as she thrusts her hips up, pulling me deeper.
I can hear it when she gets close, same as I did the other night, and if I don’t want the hair trigger that is my cock to go off before she’s done I’d better distract myself withsomething, anything, so I talk to her again, telling her everything true I’m thinking—that I’ve never had it better, that I can’t wait to taste her in that same place that’s clutching me now, that she’s the hottest, sweetest woman I’ve ever had beneath me, next to me, within ten fucking miles of me.
And thank God, thank God she comes then, because I don’t expect I could’ve held it for much longer, and for the next few blissful, perfect seconds I’m pushing those last few thrusts against her, her legs around my hips, her nails in my back, her inner muscles clenching around me so tight I feel like I could stay here, stay hard forever. I say one last thing, one last rough exhalation into her neck, and it’s so muffled by our bodies and our breathing I don’t know if she can hear me.
I tell her no one’s ever taken better care ofme in my life.
* * * *
Afterward, we lie in the now genuinely rumpled bed, Greer in a too-big white terrycloth robe from the closet that’s sliding off her shoulders and gaping distractingly around her legs, her laugh big and full when she tells me that the hat on the bed didn’t stop her getting lucky. It’s the kind of corny joke—slightly punny, slightly off color—she seems to favor, at least when she feels comfortable, and damn if I haven’t made her feel comfortable.
I order her weird, boutique-hotel room service, something called a “deconstructed turkey burger,” which is actually just an open-faced roast turkey sandwich served with french fries in a wax paper cone. I rub her back through her robe, which she seems a little stiff and cautious about at first, finally sinking into it when I find a spot on her neck that makes her go limp in pleasure. I look at her pictures, not only the ones she took of me, but the ones she took over the weekend. I tell her every little thing I notice, and she likes it so much; she presses close against me, the smell of lavender mixed with the smell of me, asking questions about composition and light. I answer as best I can until I get too distracted, until I give up and pull her on top of me again, shoving the robe off her shoulders and bringing her body up and over mine, so I can kiss and lick her where she’s sweetest and most secret, and she grips the upholstered headboard and rides my mouth like we’ve got no secrets from each other at all.
Only when it’s full dark, after-midnight dark, two-more-times-inside-her dark, do we quiet ourselves, breaking from all the touching but also all the talking we’ve done—me mostly about places I’ve been, the photographs I remember most, and her mostly about the classes she’s taken, the people she’s met at her job. I’ve got a feeling like we’ve both had a big, delicious meal—not the weird sandwich, but everything we’ve told each other, morsels from our lives. Now we have to lie still, digesting it all.
From where I lie beside her—on my back, with her head tucked on my chest, one of her smooth legs set across both of mine, I feel her body get heavier as she drops into a dozing sleep. I think fleetingly about the second night I stayed in this city, the night I woke from a panic attack, and idly hope—with the confidence of a newly quiet mind—that it won’thappen tonight.
“Alex?” Greer murmurs, not even lifting her head. I love the way her voice sounds, sleepy and satisfied, and I press my mouth to the top of her head, into the short layers of hair there. “I don’t know about the hotel room, like—”
“I’ll pay for it,” I say, keeping my voice low, careful of our small cocoon.
She shakes her head, tickling my skin, and I feel my cock stir again, surprisingly. Up until today, I genuinely thought I was getting to the age where I needed a nap between orgasms. But I guess I don’t feel my age with Greer—or maybe I do. Maybe it’s all the other times I don’t feel my age right. Maybe I’ve always felt too old.
“No, I mean—I don’t know if they’ll have a room again, tomorrow, or—whenever. If you’d wantto come back.”
I furrow my brow, unsure ofwhat she means.
“Plus,” she adds, a pause for a small yawn, “I’ve got Kenneth at home. He’s my cat.” There’s something different about her stillness now, that sweet heaviness from her body gone now as she’s come more awake, and then I remember her question to me—I was wondering if we can have what we want here. Away from my sister’s place, she means, away from the place she thinks I can’t orwon’t have her.
“Greer.” I bring my other arm around her, stroke a hand up her bare spine. I find I care about little else than reassuring her about this. “For as long as I’m here, we can have what we want, anywhere. Anyways we’re not eating a sandwich like that again.”
She laughs against me, nuzzling her cheek against my skin, but then she stills again, going quiet for a long minute. “She’ll be back in a week and a half,” she whispers, and I tighten my hold on her, angry at myself for the way I’ve spooked her about this over and over. The way I spook myself about it.
“She will.” I wait, feeling Greer’s warm weight against mine, waiting for the tinny sound that’s a harbinger of panic for me. There’s nothing, at least not yet, so I tell her what I hope is true. “And that’s got nothing todo with this.”
When she finally falls asleep, I lie awake for a long time, waiting for thenoise to come.
Butit never does.
Chapter 11
Greer
“You aren’t the bossof us, Harold.”
Beside me at the conference table, Dennise shifts in response, her hands clasping and reclasping atop the padfolio she brings to meetings like these—longer, planned affairs where the patient isn’t present. Inside there’s probably a fifty-sheet stack of paperwork, filled with hospital policy and insurance claim forms and care facility information, and at any point, she’s ready to open that sucker up and distribute the exact right thing, the thing that even the most diligent, well-prepared family member has forgotten about. When things get tough, when families are impatient and overtired, scared and quarrelsome, Dennise is like a superhero bomb defuser. Her secret weapon is her knowledge of bureaucracy. Her cape is—well, mostly it’s brightly colored blouses from Chico’s, but they work for her.
Right now, though, instead of opening the padfolio and saving the day, Dennise is waiting. For me, specifically.
“If we could pause for a moment—” I say, and already I know I’vebeen too quiet.
The Friedrich family has been at each other’s throats for the last fifteen minutes, not unheard of for a meeting like this. Once the white coats leave the room, the mood always shifts. Our job is logistics, and frankly, no one likes logistics. Dennise usually lets some squabbling go on for a while, either because she knows it’s part of the process, or because she knows her voice will have more impact when it enters at peak unreasonableness.
“Quit calling me Harold, you know I hate it. The point is, Cathy, if Dad’s not going to get better, we need to think about the best long-term-care facility—”
