“My mom was a very unhappy single mom who resented being stuck in Carlton because of me. Or at least, that’s how it felt to me. She leaned a lot on her parents to take care of us, but my grandma died when I was seven, and it was hard. When I was nine, Mom got married to my stepdad. He was a divorced, older man who already had a seventeen-year-old daughter, Kimberly. Kim was nice as an older sister, but we weren’t super close. And she went awayto university within a year of the marriage. She was the driven one in my family. By the time I was twenty, she was a doctor, settled in Ontario and married, and my mom and stepdad moved out there to be closer to her when she had kids. I think my mom has lived vicariously through Kim’s successes over the years, and sometimes that’s made it easy to forget about mediocre me. Kim is definitely her favorite daughter.”
“You don’t know that,” I offer.
“Oh, I know. I’ve made my peace with it, more or less.” She bites her lip a little. “I guess they thought I’d just stay in Carlton. I kinda shocked them all and became a source of perpetual stress and gossip, I’m sure, when I picked up and moved to Vancouver by myself. And I guess the rest is history.”
When she goes silent, I prod gently, “And why did Grandpa Alex become such a happy place for you?”
She sighs. “Because I truly hated growing up in that town. I was bullied. I didn’t have a lot of friends. There wasn’t a lot to do in Carlton, but there was a drug problem, and the last thing I wanted to do was hang out with most of the kids at my school. So, my grandpa was the best part of my day. He was a refrigerator repair man, and we had appliance parts strewn all over our yard. That was one of the reasons I was bullied. But I didn’t care. While so many kids were experimenting with shit like meth and overdosing on fentanyl, I was with my grandpa in the garage. Safe. Loved. Listening to music while he worked.”
She goes silent again for a moment, like she’s lost in a memory.
“He didn’t play any instruments, and neither did I, but he loved music and he taught me how to really listen. It opened up a whole other world that I couldn’t have accessed any other way. And it helped me to process my emotions, even when he died.” She blinks at me, like she’s coming back to reality now. “I guess you could say music saved me,” she sums up simply. “Hesaved me.”
But it’s not simple at all.
The first pop of fireworks goes off, and her face lights up. She gasps and looks out at the sky over the water, where bursts of white and blue fire sparkle, then fizzle out. Then burst after burst lights up her face, and I can’t look away.
I would’ve thought June turning down my offer to buy Pier Seven would be the worst thing that could happen. But when I look at Sierra, I know that’s no longer true.
I know that in so many ways, we’re different. Her life is in the city, mine will always be here, and maybe we’re not supposed to work. But we both know what it is to be abandoned. I want her to feel wanted, right now, more than anything else.
I touch her shoulder, draw the blanket down her arms. She looks over her shoulder at me and smiles.
I reach for her face, her breast, her waist. We meet in a tentative kiss.
Then it deepens.
I pull her into my arms.
She starts undoing my jeans, then tears my shirt off over my head.
I help her out of her little denim shorts, out of her panties. We meet again in a clumsy kiss, and she laughs against my mouth as she pulls my jeans down my hips.
Then the song changes, and an old April Wine ballad comes on. As the opening bars of “I’m On Fire for You Baby” starts, Sierra draws back a bit.
“Did you make this playlist for me?” she says breathlessly. “For this?”
“I might have.”
She grins at me.
Then I kiss her again, and she melts against me. I peel off her shirt and bra.
I pull her with me as I lie back on the pillows, drawing her on top. I hold myself back and submit to her as she takes over. Guiding me to her. Sliding me inside her.
Working her hips up and down, slow ...
Then hungrily and fast, riding me with a desire that makes me lose my breath. My moans are broken and desperate as I try to hang on, long enough to let her explode first ...
I shove my thumb between her legs, work her clit in quick little circles as she takes me, hard and hurried. Her moans mingle with the music. Her bare breasts bounce, nipples peaked in the evening air. Her soft hair glows all around her face, backlit in red and gold and violet glitter.
When she comes, she cries out. Then she whimpers my name.
She keeps fucking me until I come, filling her in a molten burst as the fireworks explode all around her.
I don’t close my eyes. I want to etch this into my memory.
Trails of glitter and sparkling stars, and the most beautiful, haunting eyes.
