I grab for his game piece, but he holds it out of my reach. "You're such a pain in the ass," I say.
"And you're a sore loser." He jerks his hand higher, and in an effort to reach it, I knock the board sideways and overturn the tent as well. We go down in a tumble of vinyl and Clue cards and land on our sides, cramped and tangled. "Next time I buy you a tent," Patrick says, smiling, "I'm springing for the next size up."
My hand falls onto his cheek, and he goes absolutely still. His pale eyes fix on mine, a dare. "Patrick," I whisper. "Merry Christmas." And I kiss him.
Almost as quickly he jerks away from me. I can't even look at him, now. I cannot believe that I have done this. But then his hand curves around my jaw, and he kisses me back as if he is pouring his soul into me. We bump teeth and noses, we scratch and we scrape, and through this we do not break apart.
The ASL sign for friends: two index fingers, locked at the first knuckles.
Somehow we fall out of the tent. The fire is hot on the right side of my face, and Patrick's fingers are wrapped in my hair. This is bad, I know this is bad, but there is a place in me for him. It feels like he was first, before anyone else. And I think, not for the first time, that what is immoral is not always wrong.
Drawing back on my elbows, I stare down at him. "Why did you get divorced?"
"Why do you think?" he answers softly.
I unbutton my blouse and then, blushing, pull it together again. Patrick covers my hands with his own and slides the sheer sleeves down. Then he pulls off his shirt, and I touch my fingers lightly to his chest, traveling a landscape that is not Caleb.
"Don't let him in," Patrick begs, because he has always been able to think my thoughts. I kiss across his nipples, down the arrow of black hair that disappears beneath his trousers. My hands work at the belt, until I am holding him in my hands. Shifting lower, I rake him into my mouth.
In an instant he has yanked me up by the hair, crushed me to his chest. His heart is beating so fast, a summons. "Sorry," he breaths into my shoulder. "Too much. All of you, it's too much."
After a moment, he tastes his way down me. I try not to think of my soft belly, my stretch marks, my flaws. These are the things you do not have to worry about, in a marriage. "I'm not . . . you know."
"You're not what?" His words are a puff of breath between my legs.
"Patrick." I yank at his hair. But his finger slides inside, and I am falling. He rises over me, holds me close, fits. We move as if we have been doing this forever. Then Patrick rears back, pulls out, and comes between us.
It binds us, skin to skin, a viscous guilt.
"I couldn't-"
"I know." I touch my fingers to his lips.
"Nina." His eyes drift shut. "I love you."
"I know that too." That is all I can allow myself to say, now. I touch the slope of his shoulders, the line of his spine. I try to commit this to memory.
"Nina." Patrick hides a grin in the hollow of my neck. "I'm still better at Clue."
He falls asleep in my embrace, and I watch him. That's when I tell him what I cannot manage to tell anyone else. I make a fist, the letter S, and move it in a circle over his heart. It is the truest way I know to say I'm sorry.
Patrick wakes up when the sun is a live wire at the line of the horizon. He touches his hand to Nina's shoulder, and then to his own chest, just to make sure this is real. He lies back, stares into the glowing coals of the fireplace, and tries to wish away morning.
But it will come, and with it, all the explanations. And in spite of the fact that he knows Nina better than she knows herself, he is not sure which excuse she will choose. She has made a living out of judging people's misdeeds. Yet no matter what argument she uses, it will all sound the same to him: This should not have happened; this was a mistake.
There is only one thing Patrick wants to hear on her lips, and that is his own name.
Anything else-well, it would just chip away at this, and Patrick wants to hold the night intact. So he gently slides his arm out from beneath the sweet weight of Nina's head. He kisses her temple, he breathes deeply of her. He lets go of her, before she has a chance to let go of him.
The tent, standing upright, is the first thing I see. The second is the absence of Patrick. Sometime during that incredible, deep sleep, he left me.
It is probably better this way.
By the time I've cleaned up our feast from the previous night and showered, I have nearly convinced myself that this is true. But I cannot imagine seeing Patrick again without picturing him leaning over me, his black hair brushing my face. And I don't think that the peace inside me, spread like honey in my blood, can be chalked up to Christmas.
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
But have I? Does Fate ever play by the rules? There is a gulf as wide as an ocean between should and want, and I am drowning in it.
