He stands, stripping his shorts and grabbing a condom, and when he’s covered himself he climbs back onto the bed, putting his back against the wall. It can’t be comfortable—the bar from the bunk has to be cutting him right across the spine—but his jaw is set, his eyes on me as he pats one hand on his thigh. “Here,” he says, drawing me onto his lap even as I’m climbing on, settling myself over him, ready to give him whatever he needs, whatever he wants so that he can feel as good and wrung out as I feel right now.
I’m drawn tight from what we’ve already done, and I hold my breath as I lower myself, letting it out slowly only when he’s stretched me enough to get halfway there. He catches my exhale, kissing me, his hands in my hair, and before I know what’s happened I’m right against him, as joined as we can be, our hips moving together. He’s got to be wound up, ready to come any second. I can feel it in the way he holds himself, and I know how to make it happen, another new intimacy I’m realizing that’s between Aiden and me, how well I know his body. If I stroke my hips down, clench the muscles inside…
But he seems to know what I’m planning, and he stops kissing me, cups my jaw, and leans forward so he can whisper in my ear. “One more,” he says, part question and part plea, punctuating it with a graze of teeth over my earlobe.
I shake my head slightly, shuddering at the feel of his stubble on my neck. “I can’t,” I breathe out, tipping my head forward, resting it heavily on his shoulder, sweat on my brow meeting the slick skin that wraps tightly over his muscles.
“Need it,” he says, slowing his hips, letting me set the pace, and when I slide over him slowly, I feel the first stirrings of something new building within, so surprising that I gasp, my breath thin. “I need you,” he says, and with those three words the tension within me ratchets up. I find a new rhythm, one that gets me even closer.
“Oh,” I breathe out, and he pulses inside me, his fingertips digging into my waist harder now. “Aiden, I—” I bite down on my lip, finishing the thought in my head, saying it over and over to myself silently as I come, short and explosive—I love you, I love you, I love you. But even the words in my mind are drowned out, eventually, by Aiden’s release, the rough sawing of his breath, and mine too.
I expect a quick uncoupling. It’s so hot now between us, our skin sticking together, and I haven’t forgotten about what that bar must be doing to Aiden’s back. But before I can make a move off of him, Aiden gathers me close, his arms tightening around my waist, his face pressed against my chest. Say something, I think, to myself or to him; I don’t know which.
But he doesn’t, and after a minute of him holding me, I lean away, gently pulling off of him while he holds the condom. When he moves off the bed, heading toward the bathroom, I see the red stripe left across his back. I imagine touching it and memorizing the indentation that’s left there.
Because I know it’ll be gone in the morning.
Chapter 16
Aiden
I wake up in the crack.
Overnight I’ve pressed close to Zoe, my chest against her back, my arm around her waist, but that means I’m sleeping right where the beds are pushed together, where either my weight or our activities last night have disrupted things, and my hip and shoulder are sinking by degrees, my head cocked awkwardly to get real estate on Zoe’s pillow.
Slowly, so I don’t disturb her, I roll onto my back and move over, missing the warmth of her body and the rich, slightly musky smell of her skin. I turn my head toward her, watch the rise and fall of her body as she breathes in the deep, even pattern of a heavy sleep. At the back of her head, her hair is tousled, some of the fine strands sticking straight up, quivering slightly from the air blowing out of the vent above us.
Zoe, married? I think, as I watch her lying there. My reaction to it—to the initial revelation, and everything she had said after—had been quick, almost violent in its strength, a feeling in my body that sounded like no. I’m not a barbarian; I don’t have any claim on Zoe’s past or future, but something about the bleak way she’d said it, and the strange, directionless way she’d talked about her past, had made me feel agitated and angry. Who was this fucking guy, fully an adult, marrying a twenty-year-old woman, still in college, dealing with the sudden death of a parent? What kind of dirtbag would take a woman’s inheritance like that? And what was Zoe like back then? Was she like she is now, controlled and sophisticated but with flashes of this irreverent, bold humor? Was she as good at reading people then? Did she chat this guy right out of his bad moods, make him forget everything that made his life feel unmanageable? Did he feel like his soul was being wrenched from his body when he was inside of her?
Fuck, it’s an awful thought, one I hate myself for even considering. Disrespectful to her, and torturous to me.
I sit up then, swing my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is cold, and outside the sky is gray, the first day we’ve been here that fall hasn’t shown up in all its glory. I’d like to fix the beds, push them back tight together and crawl back in there with her, wake her up and get inside of her again, sleep all day next to her. But that’s ridiculous, because this is it—presentation day. This is the day where I show up for what I’ve been working toward all these months. Whether it’s gray out there or not, whether I have a warm woman beside me or not, I’m in this.
Behind me, Zoe shifts, makes a soft, sleepy noise as she turns over. I look back at her, feel a thrill of satisfaction as her palm coasts over the sheet beside her—feeling for me. I press my hand over hers, letting her know I’m here, and her eyes flutter open. Even in the dim early-morning light, I can see the gold of them, how bright they are. Sunlight against the changing trees.
I am so fucking gone over this woman, it is ridiculous. Terrifying.
“Hi,” she says, and then she smiles up at me, and—is it terrifying? Isn’t it okay that I get to feel something for a smart, funny, gorgeous woman, a woman who makes me feel less like I’m on an island all by myself, just gathering supplies to stay alive until…until what, I don’t know.
“Hey,” I say, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek. This affection—it’s new for us, and I’m surprised at how good it feels. It’s on the tip of my tongue to say something else to her, something that’ll make clear that maybe I’ve got more in me than soft gestures for her, that maybe there’s some way she and I can work this out beyond the campground.
But when I open my mouth to speak, it’s all business. “I’ve got to get showered. I want to get out there early, go through it one more time.”
She nods, props herself up on one elbow. “Want me there?” she asks, and I think, I always want you there. I want you everywhere.
After today, the hardest part of this will be over—I’ll have done all I can. It’ll be up to Paul and Lorraine. After that, I can think of what it’ll be like for Zoe and me. Whether there’s some way we can make this work in another context, whether what passed between us last night might mean there’s something for us beyond all this.
I’m smiling down at her, probably goofy looking as all hell, but then the sharp ring of my phone pierces the air. “Hang on,” I say, squeezing her hand once before standing and crossing to the desk. It’s my parents’ number and right away I know it’s not good. Even if they had in mind to talk to me outside of our usual scheduled twice-a-week calls, it’s 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday, no sane time to call anyone for casual conversation. “Mom?” I say when I pick up, noticing out of the corner of my eye the way Zoe sinks back down onto her side, her expression hidden from me now.
There’s a pause, silence on the other line, and so I say it again, more forcefully, more anxiously this time.
“It’s me,” says a gruff, raspy voice, a voice I haven’t heard in what feels like months.
Oh, Jesus, I think, sick with dread. “Has something happened to Mom?”
“No. I was calling to—ah, well. To ask if you remembered something.”
I sit heavily on the too-small chair, hearing it creak
beneath me. Hell, my knees felt weak there for a minute, thinking of what news I was about to get. I’m relieved, but not overly so—it’s still too strange that it’s my dad calling, not my mom, who initiates all our family conversation these days.
“Sure, Pop,” I say.
“You remember when your mother and I took you kids to Disney World?”
I smile with the memory: the worst family vacation ever. Aaron and I had been nine, had been begging to go for at least the previous two years. We’d driven down in Pop’s old station wagon, loud with various rattles and whirs, the air conditioner broken and the gas tank guzzling up so much fuel that we had to stop all the time. My dad had been grouchy, my mom had been falsely cheerful, and pretty much the second we’d crossed into the state of Florida we seemed to encounter all manner of new allergic triggers for Aaron. He had terrible hives, his breathing was raspy and uneven, and his eyes were so watery and swollen that he could barely see, which mattered less once Mom had upped his dose of Benadryl and he’d fall asleep for hours. He’d been too sick to go to the park for the first two days, and so we’d holed up in our dingy hotel room, playing cards and watching cable. And when we finally got to the park? I don’t think any one of us had ever felt that kind of heat in our lives, rising up from the pavement like something directly from hell, the lines long and the people loud and rude, all the souvenirs costing more than we could afford. We made it through three hours, all of us trying so hard to enjoy ourselves, until Aaron had stood, a melted Dole Whip in his small hand, and said, “This is awful. I hate everything about this place,” and all four of us had laughed and laughed.
“I remember.” I’ve set one elbow on my thigh, have lowered my head to cradle it in my hand. It hurts to think about this—it physically hurts, those aches in my joints returning with a vengeance.
“There’s this one picture I found,” he says, and I can hear from his voice he’s been crying, again. Before Aaron died, I’d never seen my dad cry, not ever. He’d been almost comically stoic, even when Aaron was having his lowest times, when he was in and out of rehab, jail. But now he cries a lot, as though he was saving his whole lifetime supply of tears for this. “It’s you and your brother coming off Space Mountain. I think your mother took it.”
“Don’t know if I’ve ever seen it.” I’m so conscious of Zoe in the room. She has not moved.
“You’re holding his hand,” Pop says, and holy fuck. I have to clench my hand into a fist now, keeping it pressed against my forehead. I can feel Aaron’s small hand in mine, hot and clammy. I couldn’t speak if I tried.
“That’s all, really,” he says. “Just found this picture.”
“Okay, Pop.” I listen close to hear if my mother’s there, rustling around in the background, but it’s quiet. “Where’d you come by the pictures?” I ask, frustrated, angry. If he’s this low, this raw all the time, my mother should be keeping this shit away from him. Packing it away so he can never see it, not until he’s ready.
It’s not fair that I’m thinking that, that I’m putting it on her. She’s the one reading all the books, going to all the support groups, after all. She’d know better than me what’s right for my dad. But I can’t see sense about this, and I know it. I only want him to stop hurting.
Across the room, Zoe sits up, picks up her discarded pajamas and pulls them on, her head bowed as she stands and wanders into the bathroom.
“Just thought I’d have a look today,” he says. “Wishing you good luck, and all that.”
“Thanks, Pop. Maybe you ought to put Mom on.” Probably it was her idea for him to call me, anyways. No way has he been keeping track of when I’d be giving this presentation.
“She’s out.”
If it’s possible, my stress level rises another notch. I hate to think of him there, alone, probably surrounded by a photo album that’s page after page of gut punches. What makes it worse, I guess, is that I can’t even really picture it. I’ve never been to the condo, don’t have a sense of its layout from the pictures my mom sometimes sends. I’ve never sat on the new furniture they have down there, have never taken in their new view. I can’t picture what my dad’s looking at, other than at this three-by-five memory of his two sons, back when we were all right. When we were whole. “She coming home soon?”
He clears his throat. “I’m sure she’ll call you. Give you her own pep talk.”
The chair beneath me squeaks out its indignation at my size, at my shifting in discomfort. I don’t have a good feeling about this, him there alone. “Sure,” I say.
“You always helped your brother. Like in this picture. You were so important to him.”
I stand then, face the window, my back toward the room. So if Zoe comes in, she can’t see the way my chin tightens up in suppressed anguish. He means something good with this—he means to remind me I’d been good to Aaron and that what happened to him later wasn’t because of me. But I can’t hear that. Can’t hear anything but the ways I didn’t help him, the ways I wasn’t important enough. I wasn’t important enough for him to save himself.
“All right, Pop. I’d better get out there.”
We hang up and I take a deep breath, steady myself against the tremor of grief he’s just set off with nothing more than a few quiet words of well-wishing. In my mind, I start rattling off the opening lines of my presentation, something concrete to grab onto. The day stretches out in front of me like a huge, yawning void. If I get this right today, my whole future changes. Everything about my life will be different.
Again.
“Are your parents okay?”
When I turn to face her, she’s leaning in the wide doorway into the bathroom, her hairline wet from washing her face, her skin scrubbed pink and clean. Her voice is quieter than usual, and I know it’s because of what she’s asking. She’s tiptoed around the subject of my parents since that first day we met, and I guess that’s smart of her. The question is innocent, but it’s the same thing she asked that day, pressing her way into my life on her quest for forgiveness, and I’m so keyed up from that exchange with my dad, from my nerves about the presentation, that I can only hear her guilt. Ten minutes ago I could barely think of anything but how I might manage to keep her, but right now, in this moment, she feels like part of the problem, not the solution.
“They’re fine. I ought to get ready.” I move toward the dresser, start pulling out clothes for the day.
“Aiden,” she says, a statement all on its own, and I still, briefly. “You don’t have to do it.”
I don’t do anything but stare at her, stripped of every single thing she came to me with when I first met her. Her dress, her heels, her perfect makeup and hair. She’s beautiful. Beautiful, and as terrifying as ever.
“I will go with you right now and we can tell Paul and Lorraine the truth about us, about this. You can tell them it’s not the right time for you to do this.”
It’s my last out, and she is serving it up to me like a gift. I don’t have any doubt about what she’d do if we went down to that lodge and stood in front of Paul and Lorraine. She’d try to tell them both it was her fault, this whole fake engagement. I wouldn’t let her, but she’d try. It’d be awful, telling Paul and Lorraine. It’d be awful, calling my parents and telling them I’d given up on the camp. It’d be awful, starting over with that pile of blood money, or watching it get bigger in some cold, stale bank account, statements delivered to me every month while I try to wait this out, wait until it’s not so painful.
It’d be awful, thinking I’d let my brother down.
Still, for one brief, hopeful second, I think about what it’d be like to leave here with her beside me, both of us untangled from this lie, this life.
Too brief, though, and too hopeful.
I know where my loyalty lies. I know the promises I’ve made.
“No,” I tell her. “I can’t.”
If she’s angry at me, she hides it well.
I’d skipped the group lunch, done another run-throug
h, which means I’ve done it so many times I’ll be dreaming of it for days. I’d done the same when I’d been doing my training for the paramedic exam—I’d fall asleep at night and see myself wandering around a grocery store or shopping mall, unable to leave until I’d identified for every cashier the arrhythmias in an EKG, always my toughest challenge. Back then, there hadn’t been half as much riding on getting it right, so I figure the dreams this time around will be worse.
When I’d finally shown up at the lodge, Zoe had been there, in her regular seat at the table where we always eat for group meals, looking as calm and casual as she had on that first day we were here. “Hi,” she’d said, waving me over, smiling brightly. “Val was just sharing some ideas for honeymoon locations.” She’d been as calm as she wasn’t on that first day, when talk of weddings had made us both skittish and awkward.
By the time Val and Sheree had given their instructions to the camp staffer who’d be staying behind with the kids—this particular presentation an obvious nonstarter for the youth set—I’d been sweaty with nerves, and Zoe had stood by my side, patted my lower back twice, softly. “Ninety minutes,” she’d said. “Less than ninety minutes, and this whole thing will be over.”
That had been—haunting, I guess. More haunting than comforting.
But now we’re in it, fully in it—Zoe beside me the whole time, all my practice paying off, I think. I’ve not stumbled over the details once. I’ve answered every question.
Luck of the Draw Page 23
