—and then I shatter, crying out my relief and release, feeling him tense and then shudder with his own, and when we both come down from it, our breathing heavy and our bodies sweaty and our limbs tangled together, I’m so sated and proud and exhausted; I’m so relieved to be back with him that I don’t think either of us notices the way I’m tracing my fingers on his back, writing and rewriting that heart-holding L, the beginning of something special and rare and beautiful.
Something it’s too soon to know if we can finish.
It’s still daylight when I wake up.
Alone.
In the cool quiet of Reid’s bedroom, I’m tangled in his crisp, soap-and-swimming-pool-smelling white sheets, his dark navy coverlet a light, pleasing weight over my still-naked body. It’d be better, I think, to have him beside me—to have that weight be his arm around my waist, to stretch my sore muscles against the lean strength of his long body.
But it’s okay to have this drowsy, waking-up moment alone, too. All alone, I don’t worry about the blush rising to my cheeks, remembering everything that passed between me and Reid, hot and hard and honest. All alone I can press my hands over my face, feel the giddy smile spread across my cheeks. All alone I can do a goofy, whole-body wiggle, a celebration of what we did that first time, and the two times after (Reid isdefinitely“into it,” one of those times proved), and an anticipation of all the things we still have yet to do.
I take a deep breath, quieting my body and taking in my surroundings for the first time. It’s spare in here, almost ruthlessly so, a reminder of what Reid had told me about this place in those sated, soft-speaking moments before I must’ve drifted off. “I moved here after,” he’d said, leaving Avery’s name out of it.
“I’ve never much thought of it as a home.” Other than a narrow dresser in the corner, the bed and its lone nightstand take up most of the space. And besides my clothes—now folded neatly on top of that dresser—there’s not much out and around. On the nightstand—clean-lined and dark, almost black wood—there’s a sleek, brushed-steel light and a single hardback book, its cover shiny with a clear plastic sleeve, a label on the binding from the library. I lean up to see the title—The Island at the Center of the World—and peek inside the flap, and this, along with the slim gray bookmark (of course he uses a bookmark) sticking out from the top, tells me that Reid is halfway through a history of Dutch Manhattan during the seventeenth century. I close the cover and push my face into the pillow, wondering if I might have another orgasm from knowing this, from picturing Reid in this big bed at night, propped on this exact pillow, reading a library book, trying to understand something on his own about a city where nothing—nothing but me, maybe—makes sense to him.
But after a few seconds, the quiet in here—combined with the brutal plainness of it—starts to make me feel uneasy, as though I’m a temporary, unwelcome intrusion into the space. I look over at my clothes on the dresser, strain harder to listen for movement outside this room. Maybe he stepped out, maybe I should take this opportunity to leave before it gets post-sex awkward. I could write him a note, tell him to call if he wants....
No, I tell myself, refilling my head with images and sensations from the last few hours. I sit up quickly and roll from the bed inelegantly, smoothing my mass of surely frizzy hair and reaching for the stack of clothes, bypassing everything in favor of the T-shirt I lent Reid. I pull it on and make my way out to the living space, the skin on my legs tingling with goose bumps as the bare soles of my feet meet the cool smoothness of the glossy parquet floors.
He’s sitting on his couch, a low-to-the-ground, sharp-cornered, dark gray thing that looks absolutely terrible for naps or for sleeping off a night of drinking and fighting. His clothes look comfortable—a pair of light gray athletic pants, a white T-shirt, but he’s sitting stiffly, his phone in his hand, the thumb that so gently soothed the back of mine only hours ago now flicking impatiently, irritatedly over its screen.
“Hi,” I say.
Immediately his head raises, his thumb ceasing its movement. The soft relief in his eyes, theswoonshhe sends my way—it all goes a long way toward easing my mind about whether he wants me here still.
“You should’ve woken me up,” I say, liking the way he watches me walk toward him, liking the way he reaches a hand out for mine and tugs me down next to him. The not-for-comfort couch is only improved by the way Reid pulls me so close to him, both of my legs hooking over one of his, absorbing his warmth, one of his arms lifting to come around me.
“I got more sleep than you last night,” he says, leaning in to press a kiss against my temple, inhaling deeply, and there’s that lovely,-shaped tightening around my heart again at how good and natural and easy this feels.
But then the phone he’s still holding pings in his hand, and his head falls back, his eyes closing in frustration.
“You missed a lot yesterday, huh?” I say, and he barely nods, the lines of his face so stark and grim that I can’t help but reach out, trace the tip of my finger from his hairline down his forehead, over the strong slope of his nose and the soft rise of his lips.This face,I think, marveling at it all over again.
He nods again, his jaw clenching.
“It was a bad idea to be unreachable, I guess,” he says.
I set the palm of my hand to his chest, stroking gently, feeling sorry. It’s hard to see this tension up close. In his T-shirt, the patches on Reid’s skin—the one I first saw last week, and another spot on his opposite elbow—are visible, and while it’s a nice gesture to our new closeness, that he’s not compelled to hide them from me, it’s also a stark reminder of what he told me in that bar last night, that his skin flares this way when he’s stressed, and that his job is the primary reason.
“Your job is—” I say, pausing to clear my throat, to blink down at where my hand rests over the steady beat of his heart. “Your job is why you’re leaving New York?”
I see, in my periphery, the way his hand clenches around his phone.
“Yes,” he says, plainly. Grimly. After a long pause, he adds, “I’ve agreed to see something through there. But then—”
“Then you’ll leave.”
It’s not a question, and he doesn’t answer. There’s not really anything to say, not really anything to do but sit quietly for a moment, feeling the beat of his heart against my hand and forcing myself to imagine loosening those sneaky, surprising loops around my own.
“I can go,” I say, after a few quiet seconds where Reid’s phone pings twice more. “If you have to catch up on work.”
I don’t say it to be a martyr, or because I’m feeling sorry for myself. I say it because Reid really does seem to have work to do, and I don’t blame him for that. And anyway, I have work of my own to do—sketches to return to, a new stirring in my mind and in my hands, and also work I’m determined to do with Sibby, and with Lark, too. I’d be wise to remember all of it—to remember that Reid is a temporary fixture, and always has been, no matter what’s happened between us today.
But then Reid moves, flicking a button on the side of his phone before setting it on the squared-off arm of the couch. With his now free hand he reaches for my thigh and pulls gently, maneuvering me so I’m straddling his lap, the T-shirt bunched around my waist.
My hair falls forward, messy around my face, and Reid reaches up, pushing it back behind my shoulders, stroking it lightly in a way that makes my scalp tingle in pleasure.
“It can wait,” he says, and I smile down at him, secretly pleased we don’t yet have to call it a day.
