Feisty

by Julia Kent

  “Me, too. With you.”

  And I am. Every breath I take when I'm near him feels so grounded and centered. Reading his energy is easy. It's neutral in a freeing kind of way, not too frenetic, not too mild. He just is, and how many people have that kind of presence?

  “Hey! Not yet, you two!” Will jokes as he leans against the door frame. “How about an early dinner and a moonlit walk later?”

  “We can make tacos!” Mallory calls out from the other room. “I brought all the fixings!”

  Fletch climbs off me as my eyes catch Will's.

  “STEAK!” he shouts, practically sprinting. “I brought fresh herbs and your favorite manchego so Fletch and I can grill steak and asparagus. Let the guys make dinner tonight,” I hear him urging as I smother my smile with my gloved hand. Fletch stands near the coat rack, peeling off his layers.

  There's an old-fashioned radio, the kind with a dial. I turn it on. Nothing but static.

  “Getting a signal out here will be hard,” Fletch says, turning to the CD player next to the radio. “Man, this is old school. Love it.”

  “But there's internet, right?” Mal asks, a bit nervously.

  “There's a DISH satellite,” Will patiently explains. “It’s in the instructions. We're limited to two hours of internet a day, though.”

  “Two hours?”

  “Why are you worried? We didn't come here to be online,” he says, nuzzling her cheek.

  “What if we want to binge Netflix?”

  “What if we–what?” he asks, tickling her, Mal's curls bouncing as she giggles. “You think we're here to binge-watch Netflix? I'm here to binge on you.”

  Fletch's arm goes around my shoulders as he reaches for one of the beer bottles in a six-pack, pops the cap off, and offers it to me. The cool rush of good beer and the laughter make me relax. With the rest of the weekend ahead of us, time feels endless.

  In the best way possible.

  Setting himself up with his own beer, Fletch drinks and watches our friends. Sometimes I forget he and Will have a completely independent relationship outside of Will's connection to Mallory. I've been in school with Fletch since sixth grade. Graduated from high school together. Lived in the same town since college. We’ve tangentially crossed paths, but as we hang out in this cabin and I see the easy, casual way Will and Fletch are–like Perky, Mallory, and me–he becomes more real.

  And when I'm with him, I'm more real, too.

  Will lets Mal go and grabs two more beers, popping off the tops and offering one to her gasping form.

  “I'll get you back for that!” she vows before taking a sip. Both Will and Fletch wander away from us, taking in the rental. It's rustic to say the least, with brown leather couches covered in thick throw blankets. Two small woodstoves are positioned strategically, a small kettle on the one near the kitchen. Depending on where you stand in the living room, you're either comfortably warm or ice cold. But the place is well insulated, and a welcoming basket of snacks sits on the counter next to the owner's instruction sheets.

  We're here alone, for two nights, to do nothing.

  My eyes jump to the bedroom door.

  Well, not... nothing.

  “They have quite the DVD collection,” Fletch notes, using his finger to poke through the jewel cases. “Hmmm. Sally Field in Not Without My Daughter. Kurt Russell in Overboard. Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn in–”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Kate Hudson's mom,” Mallory explains.

  “No, I know her, but who’s... Chevy..?”

  “A comedian? I think he was on Saturday Night Live a really long time ago? And some cheesy 1980s Christmas movie my dad likes.”

  “Oh.”

  “Those don't sound like the most recent movies.”

  “Every season of The Muppet Show!” Will says in the tone of a young boy. “Wow! My grandpa loved these!”

  “Hey!” Fletch says in a tone of surprise. “My signal works!” He wiggles his phone.

  “Mine doesn't,” Mallory pouts.

  I look at my phone. No bars.

  “Mine, too!” Will says, fist bumping Fletch.

  I turn mine off. “Happy not to be tethered to it or get all my notifications. I'm still gaining about five hundred Instagram followers a day!”

  “I'm running at about a thousand,” Fletch says.

  “What?”

  He grins. “That sportswear campaign has been fabulous for the gym.”

  Will's stomach growls. “Hey, Fletch. Let's fire up the grill and get those steaks going.”

  For the next twenty minutes, Mallory and I sit on two separate leather chairs under down blankets, drinking beer and watching our guys make dinner. It's a sight to behold, not because I've never seen a man cook–my Dad does it all the time–but because these are our guys.

  I have a boyfriend.

  And we're here with our good friends, being adults, on vacation, having fun.

  No pretense. I don't have to impress him. There's no constant internal judo going on. It's just me and him and our buddies, spending time together.

  This is everything I ever hoped for.

  How did it fall into my life so fast? Not much more than a month ago, I was in my classroom, perfectly fine. Life was okay. Dating was a pain. I wasn't searching for the right guy.

  But the universe was searching, for me.

  Was it? Did I attract the right energy to make me see Chris in a new light?

  Or did he find my light?

  The guys shrug into their coats and head outside with asparagus wrapped in tinfoil and a plate of steaks. Within a minute, I smell cooking meat.

  “This is amazing,” Mallory says in a tone of awe. “We're here. They're here. You're dating Fletch. Fletch!”

  “I know!” I drink more beer. It's turning warm, my pace decidedly slower than everyone else's. Truth be told, I'm not a huge beer fan. It's fine and I like it well enough, but not enough to drink too much. “All those years I wasted.”

  “Wasted?”

  “He's so wonderful. Kind and smart and competent.”

  “Competent is attractive?”

  “Of course! Competent is the new sexy. People magazine should have a World's Most Competent Man issue.”

  “When I think of a competent man, I think of my dad.”

  “Not Will?”

  “Competent feels flat. Like, do you want just a competent guy in bed?”

  “Ew. No.”

  “Then why would you want a competent guy in another area? How about exceptional? Awe-inspiring?”

  “Because competence in daily life is hard to find! He's dependable. Can assess a situation and take action. I trust him to fix stuff. Don't underrate competence.”

  “Will's like that, too. He's not a paramedic or a firefighter, but he just does what needs to be done. He knows how to keep pushing to get the right answer or solution. Does it on his own.”

  “Exactly!”

  “And he's wayyyy more than competent in bed!” Mal squeaks as she finishes her beer and gets another.

  “I heard that!” Will calls out as he and Fletch come back inside with cooked steaks. “Who says I'm competent in bed?” The look on his face makes it clear he's not pleased with that label.

  “Not me,” Fletch cracks. “Every time we've had sex, you've been the best ever.”

  Will freezes mid-stretch, the plate of steaks still in his hand, hovering over the counter. Their eyes meet.

  “We said we would never talk about that,” he says tightly.

  Mal and I instantly sit up and lean toward them.

  And then Fletch laughs.

  Mal throws a pillow at him, hitting his face square on, making him chortle even harder as Will shields the steaks.

  “What happens in the football locker room stays in the football locker room,” they intone together.

  “Oh, my God. It's like high school all over again,” I call out as Mal and I trade eye rolls.

  And yet, it's not. At all. Not even
a little.

  In high school, Fletch and Will were the closest thing to gods, because they were football players. Popular jocks who were smart, too. Will was the top guy–the quarterback on his way to the Ivy League, blocked from being valedictorian only by Mallory.

  Fletch was a good-enough student, the football defensive linebacker recruited by Endicott College. He majored in Exercise Science, came back home, worked for the town, and founded his own gym.

  Chris Fletcher is a townie through and through, accepted by all.

  Back in high school, we were so different.

  “Never in a million years did I imagine this,” Fletch says as he and Will set the tiny table, Mallory and I standing to come over for dinner.

  “Imagine what?” I ask.

  “That Will and I would someday go on a weekend getaway with our girlfriends, and you two would be the women.”

  “Fiancée,” Mallory corrects.

  The word girlfriend makes me smile.

  He tips an imaginary hat to her. “Yes, ma'am.”

  “I imagined it,” Will said. “Not like this, but I wondered about Mallory.”

  “You never dreamed about being married to me. Settling down. Having a family,” she adds.

  Fletch gives me a glance that carries so much meaning, I feel the weight of its energy in every cell of my body. It's so heavy, I have to instantly sit, plunking down on a hard wooden seat, the jolt rattling my bones from the ass up.

  “No,” Will agrees as we all take our places. “But I liked you. We've talked about this before.”

  She just smiles as she flattens a paper napkin in her lap.

  “I wondered about Fiona,” Fletch says, my arm pausing in midair as I bring the rest of my beer to my mouth.

  Everyone goes silent, Will smirking at him.

  “Wondered if she'd flatten you again if you kissed her?”

  “For the record,” Fletch says in an arch tone, “that hasn't happened.”

  “Yet,” I mutter.

  Will is in the middle of eating his first slice of filet and practically chokes. Mal bites her lower lip, while Fletch looks at me with an I dare you expression on his face.

  “If you want a fair fight with me, Missy, I'll give you one. My studio. Next Wednesday. Day before Thanksgiving.”

  “You're on.”

  We drink and eat, and Mal and I make all the appropriate praising comments, but in truth, the steaks are expertly cooked, the asparagus is roasted to perfection, and somehow they managed to grill fresh pineapple in a way that makes me want to moan with orgiastic wonder.

  Oddly enough, I'm reminded of ferrets, who cannot eat this delicious treat.

  By the time we're finished with the meal, I'm ready to find a blanket, curl up on the couch with Fletch, and watch some silly comedy until I fall asleep.

  “Dishes!” Mallory calls out, looking at me as she stands, double-fisted, holding Will's empty plate. “They cooked. We clean up.”

  I fake whimper and stand, reaching for Fletch's plate. “Fair is fair.”

  He threads his fingers behind his head and leans back, biceps bulging as he flexes and says, “I could get used to this.”

  Our eyes connect, held a beat longer than is proper, the deepening look making me swoon. “Me, too,” I tell him.

  As I walk away, he pats my ass.

  “You two are adorable,” Mal whispers as we figure out the kitchen, the layout very homespun and simple. No dishwasher. Mal starts scraping plates into a composting jar on the counter and I rinse them, finding a scrubbie sponge and some grease-cutting dishwashing liquid.

  “Thanks. I still don't get it,” I say before realizing she walked away and is coming back with the rest of the dishes. Will and Fletch are now on the couch, fresh beers popped open, chatting.

  “What?” she asks brightly, taking a clean dish from me, ready with a towel to dry.

  “I don't get it. How he and I have settled into being together so easily. It's too easy, Mal. Like something's wrong.”

  “You're not like this, Fi. You never worry about the other shoe dropping.”

  “No–it's not that. I'm not paranoid or worried. It's more that I'm perplexed.”

  “Perplexed?” We become an assembly line of dishwashing, the clean plates moving steadily as I wash and she dries, the stack growing until we're done. Silverware next.

  “I spent so much time angry with him for what happened all those years ago. Why? How could I take such a nice guy and create this caricature of him in my head?”

  “Because we were twelve when that happened. And then the rest was the teen years. Fletch wasn't this easygoing and fun and nice back then. Neither was Will.” She makes a huffing sound. “And you and I weren't the same then, either.”

  “So this feeling I have of missing out–of wasting years–is unnecessary?”

  “What does Jolene say?”

  “She told me to make space. That the universe would send what I need into the space, but I had to clear it out for that to happen.”

  “And it did.”

  “But Mal–I'm really falling for him.”

  “Falling? In love?”

  The word love makes me shiver, a literal vibration with a frequency that feels so good to have in my body. “Yes.”

  The maybe that almost slipped out felt too timid, too old-Fiona, too uncertain. What rises to the top with my yes is a blend of the old and the new, better and stronger, more assured and resilient.

  The truth always wins out.

  The sound of glass on glass makes us both turn. Fletch is standing within hearing distance of us, his arm up, the empty beer bottle having just landed in the recycling bin.

  The look on his face makes me wonder if he just heard us.

  Love.

  “Fiona,” he says slowly, each step toward me making that frequency inside stronger. “Let's go for a walk.”

  “A walk?”

  Mallory smiles to herself. “I can finish up,” she declares.

  One of Fletch's hands lands on my hip, the way he pulls me into him a grounded act. “If we had bikes, I'd go nighttime trail riding with you.” A press of his lips on my temple should be a quick kiss, but he lingers.

  Mallory rinses her hands, then dries them, leaving the kitchen with a wink.

  “Nighttime riding? Would those miles count?”

  “Count?”

  “I thought we had to bike a thousand miles together before you'd sleep with me. By my calculation, we're only at 455,” I tease.

  “How about we move our legs in bed and that counts?”

  “How many miles do you expect to accumulate from that?”

  “More than you could ever dream of, babe.”

  A low, throaty laugh that comes from a piece of me I didn't know I had but that is thoroughly delighted to step forward makes me feel warm and liquid, ready for hours of naked fun in bed with a man I am falling for more and more.

  A man I wasted all those years avoiding.

  “How about we just walk for a mile or so?” he suggests, thumbing toward the door. “It's a full moon and the night sky up here is spectacular.”

  “Don't go too far. There are bears out here, you know,” Will warns us.

  “We'll stay on the path down to the car. I'll take a stick.”

  “A stick isn't going to protect you from a bear.”

  “No, but it'll buy me enough time to get you to safety,” he says to me.

  “I suddenly have zero interest in going for a walk.”

  “But we need wine!” Mallory says, winking at me. “There's some chilling in the car. You two should definitely go for a walk.”

  Does she know something I don't? Did she overhear something Fletch and Will were discussing?

  “Okay. I'll take the chance,” I say slowly.

  “I'm really not worried,” Fletch says, “and I wilderness camp. If you want, I can make a spray bottle.”

  “A spray bottle?”

  “Of urine.”

  “Tha
t's up for debate!” Will calls out. “Lots of people think it's bullshit that black bears don't like human urine.”

  “Every time I've camped, I've sprayed a urine perimeter around my tent and never had a bear come near,” Fletch argues.

  “You're fighting about your pee,” Mallory points out.

  “We're settling the terms of the debate,” her fiancé replies.

  “About pee. Urine. Piss. Tinkle.”

  “Tinkle?”

  “That's my grandma's word for it, God rest her soul.”

  “'Urine perimeter' is so sexy,” I whisper in Fletch's ear.

  “You got a kink I need to know about?” he asks, slightly alarmed.

  “No! Can we stop talking about pee and just go?” I grab Fletch's arm and pull him to our coats. We dress quickly but carefully. That whole lifelong-New-Englander thing teaches you to respect the cold.

  The temperature has dropped radically in the last few hours, a steady, light snow coming down, already blanketing the ground, layering on the wet trees, making the land around us cast an ethereal glow as the evening light takes on a hazy, almost silvery cast that makes me think of between times, energy diffuse and wanting, waiting to find its rightful place. As we walk, Fletch pokes the ground with his stick, one arm around me as we walk in tandem.

  The car isn't far. We take two four-packs of micro-brew beer, and for good measure I grab bottles of white wine. The trek back is short, the snow still falling, the crunch of our footsteps all we hear. When we are almost back to the cabin, we stop. The light spilling out onto the snow, the scent of woodsmoke in the air, creates a classic scene of warmth and comfort. Falling flakes whirl and glitter in the air all around us.

  He's right. The scenery is spectacular.

  Especially because I'm looking at him.

  And he's looking right back.

  Swept up in his arms as we drop what's in our hands into the snow, I'm transported by his kiss to another layer of existence, where my feet don't touch the ground and my heart never, ever stops beating with joy. His lips are warm and wet and the way he touches me makes me feel like we've met before, as if splintered pieces of past lives have assembled themselves into the souls we are now, and we're hugging hello, reacquainting ourselves with a deeper love that transports across time.

  We're covered head to toe in outerwear, so my gloved hands can't touch his hot skin or feel the silken strands of his short hair, but our mouths, our tongues, the intensity of our embrace is more than enough.