Moore than a Feeling

by Julie A. Richman

  “We were worried about you. Billy and I came over to check on you and I guess I fell asleep.”

  “You’re wearing all your clothes,” he whispered, pulling her to him. “I think you’re overdressed.” Reaching around her, he undid the button and zipper on her jeans shorts and started inching them down her hips.

  “I guess I just kinda passed out in them.”

  “Drinking tonight?”

  “No. Coming down off an adrenaline rush. I was scared to come in here. I was afraid maybe you’d hurt yourself.”

  Those were thoughts he hadn’t had in a while, and even though he was at the beginning of his journey with therapy and medication, he wasn’t going to that dark a place any longer. But that was not something either Holly or Billy would know. He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair. “I’m sorry I worried you, Angel.”

  Rolling over, she looked at him, his face in the shadows. “Where were you?”

  “I was out in Los Angeles. I took the redeye home and then got the first ferry back this morning.”

  “What were you doing out in LA?”

  “One of my wine distributors had mentioned me wanting to open a tapas bar here to some restauranteurs in LA who have had a lot of experience with the concept, and when they heard it was on Fire Island, they immediately wanted to meet. It was kind of an impromptu thing.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Really good.” His face couldn’t conceal his excitement.

  It was a smile she hadn’t seen in a long, long time. A smile she used to see all the time, every single day. Reaching up, she gently ran her hand down the side of his face and he leaned into her touch. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “You were really worried?”

  “That’s an understatement. When you blew off Billy for golf and then didn’t answer any messages from anyone, we got really concerned. I even called your parents and left a message for them. We’ve been going crazy for days, Aiden.”

  “Crap. I totally spaced out on the golf thing. This trip happened so fast. I literally packed and left for Kennedy Airport in a blur. I was standing in this long-assed security line when I realized I didn’t have my phone with me and had left it sitting on the charger. There was no way I could come back out here to get it without it taking three hours, and missing my flight. And honestly, after the initial freak-out of not having it, it was kinda nice to not be tied to it for a few days. It’s really kinda freeing from reality.” He stopped for a moment to stroke her hair. “My folks are up in Vermont until the end of September, and I doubt they’re checking the messages on their home phone. Not that they had any clue I was on the West Coast.” Taking her hand from his cheek, he brought it to his lips, kissing her palm. “I had no idea anyone would be worrying about me.”

  “Aiden, I haven’t slept in days. Well, until I got into your bed.”

  “I’m sorry.” Pulling her to him, he held her tight. “I’m really sorry I worried you.”

  “I don’t think you have any idea how many people were worried about you, how many people love you.”

  “I think you’re right. I forget that too often.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, you do.” Snuggling her head into his chest, she added, “Oh, and Aiden, I promise not to enter your apartment again by myself, unless you’ve given me a key.”

  “Are you sure that is what you want?”

  “I want you to open the door and leave it open long enough for me to walk through.” It was clear she wasn’t talking about the door to his apartment.

  “Holly, you have to understand, I’m not back to me yet. And it’s probably going to be a long time before I’m there. If I’m ever fully there. And that frustrates me, so I can only assume it is going to frustrate the heck out of you,” he paused, kissing the top of her head. “Is that what you want?”

  “It is exactly what I want,” she spoke without hesitation.

  He shook his head. “I want more for you. And as much as I hate the thought of it, you should go to him. He can give you what I can’t.”

  She knew he was referring to Pierce and wondered what was said in the conversation they’d had in the bar the weekend before. “But I can’t give him something you already have. He can’t have my heart. Sorry, dude, it’s non-transferrable.”

  His laugh was so hearty, her head jostled on his chest.

  The Aiden laugh. She couldn’t help but smile. Hearing it felt like a gift. The return of a long-lost friend. He’s coming back. I know it. It may be little by little. But I know I will hear that laugh every day again. I know he can get there. I know we can get there.

  “You know, you’re not the only one who got hurt in battle, Aiden. It changed your life and it changed mine. I know you keep saying you don’t want this for me, but that ferry’s sailed, my friend. It’s happened to me, too, and while I’ve only been focused on how to help you, I haven’t even started to acknowledge that I, too, need strategies on how to move forward in a way that is productive.” Burrowing her head a little deeper into his chest, she added, “But I do know one thing, I’m in this, Aiden. And it’s not just your problem. It’s our problem, whether you want to admit it or not, and that is something that needs to be acknowledged in the same way, just like you acknowledged having PTSD.”

  Lightening the moment, he ran his hand up and down her arm. “Wow. And I thought we were just going to have wild sex.” But what she had said was reverberating in his soul. I have been such a narcissist.

  She swatted his chest and he grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips.

  “You’re relentless, you know that.” He ran his lips from her forearm to her wrist, then grazed the inside of her wrist with his teeth.

  “I do. It’s a Moore trait. I’m going to wear you down, so you might as well give in now.”

  And again, there was that laugh.

  “Like I ever stood a chance against you.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “Good question,” he agreed, his lips now on her palm again.

  “Aiden, you’re used to putting together missions. Well, the new mission is us.”

  Pulling her hand away from his mouth, he was stunned by her words. So simple, yet something he could easily wrap his head around. The new mission is us.

  “Mr. McManus, if you choose to accept this mission,” he began in a deep, announcer-like voice. Tightening his arms around her, he whispered. “Mission accepted.”

  Waking up with Holly Moore sprawled across your bed, snuggled onto your stomach like a pillow, doesn’t suck, was Aiden’s first thought when he woke. Sliding his fingers down a lock of her hair, he stopped, weaving his fingers between the silky strands until his fingertips reached her scalp. Gently he rubbed in a soft, circular motion.

  Why would you ever not want this woman in your life, putz?

  She stirred, and he stopped massaging her scalp, afraid he’d wake her. She’d told him she hadn’t slept in days. He had no idea his trip, and then forgetting his phone, would cause such a chain reaction here in Ocean Beach.

  “Don’t stop. That felt good.”

  “I woke you. Sorry about that.” But they both knew he wasn’t.

  Moving her head from his stomach, she crept up onto the pillow next to him. Reaching out, he brushed the hair from her face.

  “What’s that look you’re giving me?” she asked.

  “It’s not too late to bail.” He searched her eyes.

  “You accepted the mission.” A deep furrow appeared between her brows.

  “Yes, I did. But I couldn’t live with myself if there wasn’t full disclosure.”

  “Okay, so disclose.”

  “Angel, most days I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Shit freaks me out that shouldn’t freak me out. I’m a lot more paranoid than I ever was and you’ve seen first-hand how loud noises can totally incapacitate me, even though I know it’s damn fireworks or thunder. I’m moody, volatile, and when I retreat into my head, it is dark. Really freaking dark
in there. I’m still having night terrors.” Taking her chin in his hand, “This is no picnic, Holly. I want you to know what you’re signing up for. And I want you to know, you can bail at any time, and I will understand.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Yeah, I mean, that’s the gist of it.”

  “Okay, good. You’ve warned me. Done. Here’s the thing, Aiden. It’s no picnic without you. I thank you for the warning, but I think I have a pretty good idea of the situation. Is it going to be tough? Yeah. But it’s tough without you. So, I have two words for you.”

  “What, fuck off?” He smiled.

  “No, you asshole.” She smiled back. “The two words are mission accepted.”

  “C’mere you.” Pulling her to him for their first kiss since he’d arrived home and crawled into bed with her, there was a tenderness to his touch, so different than the raw angst of the last time they came together. “I’m going to say this, because after the last year and a half it might not be evident. But it’s the truth. I love you, Angel. And no, I have never stopped loving you. Lord knows, I tried.”

  “Promise me you won’t do that again. Because seriously, Aiden, I can’t go through losing you another time. The pain was everywhere. It was in me. It was surrounding me. It was pressing me down and in, with so much force, from every single angle. I can’t live through that again. I can’t lose you again. I just can’t.”

  “You know, I’d honestly convinced myself that I’ve been protecting you. Doing the right thing for you. The day before I left for California, I was telling that to my therapist and he made me dig, and in there was a truth I’d never admitted to myself. I was also protecting me. And I don’t really think it was my ego. It was my heart that I knew wouldn’t be able to handle losing you. So, look what I did to you. I’m not proud of that, Holly. Honestly, I don’t know how you could still love me.”

  “Well, I do. Still. And I’m not going to lie to you, I’m very scared about getting back together. And it’s not the PTSD stuff, Aiden, that scares me, because I know we can work through that and there are resources to help us. What I’m really afraid of is that you’ll tell me you don’t love me again.”

  Taking both her hands in his, he brought them up to his lips. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I will commit to you right now, that I will never again tell you that I don’t love you, because I will never stop loving you. Not ever. And that may be the only thing of which I am absolutely certain. I will love you every day for the rest of my life. I promise. Please believe me.” He moved her hands, still within his, to his chest and covered his heart with them. “I know I have to prove it to you and I will.”

  She was silent. The moment she’d dreamed of for so long was in reality, scary, raw, and painful — three emotions that had never surfaced in her dreams. “I’m so afraid.”

  Nodding, Aiden gave her a sad smile. “Me, too.”

  Pulling her hands from his, she held out her right pinky, pointing it at him. Smiling, he locked her pinky in his for a pinky swear.

  “Leap of faith?” She was asking him to join her.

  “Leap of faith,” he committed. Smiling, he brushed the hair from her face. “Now there’s only one thing I need to prove.”

  “What is that?”

  “How hard I can make you come.”

  “Mission accepted.” She wound her arms around his neck.

  Aiden lifted his arm, looked at his watch and nodded.

  “You’re looking at your watch? Seriously?” What the heck is that about?

  “Mmm-hmm. This is going to be so torturously slow, you’re not going to remember you missed me,” he said with a wolfish grin.

  “Yeah, well, then you’d better get started, we’ve got a lot to make up for.” She took his hand and moved it between her legs.

  “Feels like you started without me.” He smirked.

  “For someone who once told me he can’t be this close to me without being inside me, you’re very late to this party.”

  “You know I’m good at making a big entrance.” He dipped two fingers inside her. “God, you’re wet.” He noted, slipping in a third finger. “And being fashionably late is a thing, you know.”

  “I don’t know about that.” She smiled, trying not to gasp as he found just the right spot and applied more pressure. “I think there’s something to be said for coming on time.”

  “I think it’s about time for your first coming.”

  He smiled, slowly massaging her to the brink with his thumb, then lessening up, and letting her fall back a little from her release, holding it at bay, like a prize she was straining to grasp. When her breathing steadied, he reapplied the pressure, quickly bringing her back to the edge, and swiftly pushing her over. Her sounds filled in the holes he’d been hiding in his heart as her body wracked with quakes.

  “And I can’t wait to see, and hear, your second coming,” he whispered in her ear, nuzzling his nose into the silky strands of her hair.

  “I think you should join me. I don’t like to come alone.”

  “Want to know what I want?” he asked.

  She nodded, wondering.

  “I want to be inside you and just look at you. That’s what I want.”

  Lining herself up, she slowly moved down the mattress, until she could feel him. Opening her legs, she reached down to guide him in, sliding down the length of him and taking him deep inside her.

  “Much better,” she commented.

  Neither one moved. Lying very still, they stared at one another in silence having wordless conversations that spilled their darkest moments, as they uttered words they would never say for fear of scaring the other off. And in silence, they let the words fill pages and create chapters, that they’d one day revisit. But not today. Today’s pages were yet to be written.

  It was Aiden who finally spoke. “This was my fantasy. This.” Except this time, he was in the present. Connected. Something he had successfully avoided since the day he had told her that they were through. What ended that day was any true connection to another human being as he carried out his self-imposed preservation mission of exile.

  Wrapping his hands around her bottom, he pressed her to him, as they continued to silently gaze at one another. The pressure, combined with the sensitivity from her first orgasm, and the sublime sensation of him filling her, sent her up the wave a lot faster than she expected, and she propelled herself to the edge by squeezing him.

  “It would be really impolite to come without the host.” His voice was hoarse.

  “Hurry up, because I can’t wait.”

  With that, he flipped her onto her back and pressing her legs back toward her shoulders, plowed into her. “This is so much better than the fantasy.” Changing his motion into a circular grind was all he needed to do to bring on the second coming.

  “Did I doze off?” Holly asked Aiden across the pillow.

  “Doze? You were snoring like a buzz saw,” he teased.

  “Someone wore me out.” Softly, she traced a long scar down his cheek, exhilarated by his comfort when he didn’t flinch.

  “Get used to it, Angel.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Anything.”

  “Right now, you feel like you to me. You know what I mean? But do you find it hard maintaining you? Is it work not to go to a dark place?

  “That is a really great question.” Pausing to think for a moment before sharing his thoughts, “What I’ve found so far is being at work for a long stretch of time definitely takes its toll on me. I am totally depleted after a shift. Being in the bars when there’s a crowd, I can only do for a limited time and I just have to leave. I’m getting better, with the help of my therapist, in evaluating where I am in a situation. So, like if I feel I’m at a seven, I probably need to bring myself back down to a two, and most likely the best thing for me to do is disengage and be someplace quiet.”

  Nodding, Holly thought, this is good to know, so I know when he needs his space, and don
’t take it personally. “How do you recharge?” she wondered.

  “I come back here. I put on headphones and listen to music or watch the Mets lose, and I draw. That really pulls my focus in and calms and relaxes me.” Rolling over, he went to grab his sketchpad from the nightstand to show her his work, but instead was met by the pencil tin and not the pad. Picking up the tin, there was a perplexed look on his face from finding it out of place, not in the drawer. And the sketchbook was not where it was supposed to be.

  Seeing his confusion, Holly confessed. “I picked up your sketchpad last night looking to see if there was any information about your whereabouts. I didn’t expect to find the drawings, and they were just so beautiful, and I cried on the Acebo sign,” she admitted. “I was waiting for it to dry and I was going to try and fix it. And that’s when I fell asleep.”

  “You cried on the Acebo sign?” He looked both amused and confused.

  “I did.” She nodded. “One big fat tear hit it like a bullseye. Splat and smudge.”

  Laughing, he asked, “Why did it make you cry?”

  “It’s your first restaurant, and a man’s first always has a special place in his heart.”

  “That’s why it’s the perfect name.”

  “Aiden…”

  “Holly…”

  “I have felt like a puppet on a string. And then to see you’re naming your restaurant after me, and yet, still telling me to get out of your life, well I just got really emotional. But when I saw that drawing…”

  “What?”

  “I stopped worrying that something bad had happened to you. I knew you were okay. And I also knew that you loved me. Whether you were admitting it to yourself or not.”

  “Mostly not. But when I walked in this morning and you were fast asleep in my bed, I was so happy to see you here. And I haven’t felt that happy in a really long time. After the great meetings of the last few days, it felt like my lucky streak continued and you were going to be the first person I was going to get to share it with. And nothing could be more right than that.”

  “The sketchpad is on the counter.” She pointed across the room.