The Weight of Life

by Whitney Barbetti

  “This is beautiful. Thank you.”

  He pressed his forehead to mine. “I wanted to do something. After all, I broke your kissing rule.” He glanced back toward the kitchen and then back at me, a wicked smile on his lips. “And we did, you know,” he raised an eyebrow and I couldn’t help but touch his face, to feel his skin under mine. To feel the smile as it stretched his skin—to know I was the reason for it. “And that was before we even had a date. It’s all very scandalous.”

  “So, this is a date.”

  “Pfft.” He laughed and took the seat beside me. “Look, this? Isn’t a date. Not my idea of a date, at least.”

  “But there are candles, and wine, and I smell something in the kitchen…”

  “Pizza,” he supplied. “You smell takeaway pizza from my favorite place.”

  I tilted my head to the side. “It has the makings of a date.”

  “It might, but I don’t want this to be our first date.” He laughed and rubbed a hand over my shoulder, wearing a sheepish expression. “I might’ve managed the electricity, but there isn’t even running water, so if you have to use the loo, you’ll have to run next door. Truth be told, I’m pretty shite at this.”

  I threw my head back and let out a laugh. “Oh, Ames.” Somehow, it charmed me even more. The fact this not-a-date date wasn’t good enough to him, that there was no running water and the pizza was takeout, and one of the tables had lights wrapped around it—all of that made it more special than the most perfectly choreographed date.

  “It’s perfect. The best non-date I’ve ever been on.” I covered his hand with mine.

  “Wow, you’re setting the bar high already and we haven’t even eaten yet.”

  “Because it’s not about the food, Ames,” I told him softly.

  “And the food’s pretty damn good.”

  I linked my fingers with his. “It doesn’t hold a candle to the company.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving. All that dancing made for one hell of a workout.”

  “I bet. I’m still thinking about you in those tight leggings and that sexy top.” He stood. “I’m going to grab the pizza.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  In the back, across the stainless steel island, were three boxes of pizza. He flipped the top on each one with a gusto that made me pinch him gently. “I think you overestimated how hungry I am.”

  “Well, I got three kinds. I don’t know what kind of pizza you like.”

  I rubbed my hand on the island and exchanged a heated look with him, remembering being splayed out on this island just a week before. “I like pizza. You can’t ruin pizza.”

  “On that, we agree. This one is plain cheese. This one is pepperoni and bacon. And this one—if you want to get really British—has baked beans.”

  “I’ll take a slice of each.” I leaned on the island, looking over each pizza. The crust looked crunchy and seasoned—absolutely divine.

  Suddenly, the table moved under my weight, sliding just slightly across the floor.

  “I think you forgot to lock the brakes on this thing.” I tucked my tongue into my cheek, once again remembering Ames’ skill with this table.

  “Maybe. Or maybe I didn’t forget.” He winked at me as he pulled slice after slice and put them onto a white plate.

  I stepped around the island, getting a better look of the part of the room I hadn’t seen my first time through here, and he sighed.

  “What?”

  “That sound.” He nodded at my heels. “It makes it sound like a real restaurant back here.”

  I gave him a sad smile and remembered my conversation with Lotte. I wanted to bring it up with Ames, to see if I could help him with some clarity—but I knew right now was not the perfect moment to bring it up. “It sounds great,” I told him.

  He’d picked up the paint cans and newspaper that’d been all over the place and shoved them to one side of the room. But he’d left one thing intact.

  “I told you I was keeping it,” he said, coming up behind me and looking down at the paint stain. The blues and reds had formed a dozen different shades in their mixing together across the concrete. It didn’t go with the rest of the room with its gray floors, but it almost looked intentional, in the way it stayed somewhat circular in shape, in just that one spot.

  “It’s so pretty.” I tested it with my shoe and it came away dry.

  “It’s interesting. Like walking through an art show and seeing one wild painting that doesn’t fit with the aesthetic. I like it.”

  “Me too.”

  We walked back to the table with Ames carrying our plates of pizza. I took my first bite of the baked beans pizza while he poured the sangria into large glasses.

  I made a little noise which caused him to look at me. “You like?”

  I pressed two fingers against my lips as I chewed and swallowed. “It’s so surprising. I would’ve never thought to pair beans and pizza together, and yet it works.” I took another bite and chewed it just as thoughtfully. “Okay, this is really good pizza.”

  Ames smiled in a way that made his eyes go soft. It was one of the many Ames smiles I was still discovering, and each one I filed away in a safe place in my memory.

  The sangria was delicious, as I’d expected. But I’d been right in saying it was the company that made the night special for me. The entire dinner, Ames was thoughtful. Refilling my glass, grazing his fingers across my knuckles, and scooting his chair so close to mine that he nearly landed in my lap once.

  “If I was keeping this place, I’d throw away all these chairs and buy booths instead,” he said on a laugh.

  I couldn’t stop touching him. I’d find reasons to run my hand over his shoulder, around his neck, through his hair. At one point, when I stretched, he gently grasped my leg and put it on his lap, making small circles over my skin. I didn’t want to not be connected to him in some way. And every time we weren’t touching, I was inventing new reasons to touch him again.

  As the candles had burned down to nubs, Ames and I talked and talked. When he asked me to speak in my Australian accent, I’d indulged him and made him toss his head back on a laugh. “It’s so good, Mila. You’ve a real knack for it.”

  “Being here has been good practice. There’s a coffee shop near my hotel and I go there and just listen, repeating phrases and practicing the nuances of all the different accents I hear.” I propped my elbow up on the table and dropped my chin into my hand. “It’s fascinating.”

  His answering smile was slow-spreading. “You’re fascinating.”

  With the low light, and the flicker of the candlelight in his eyes, the moment was saturated with intimacy. And, for a second it made me nervous. “Shut up,” I whispered.

  His lips spread wider. “I’ve realized you say that a lot when I’m embarrassing you.”

  “If I say it a lot, it must mean you embarrass me a lot.”

  “I can’t help but pay you compliments, Mila.” He shook his head and lowered his voice. “When I say you’re beautiful, that you smell like something as abstract and ridiculous as sunshine, that you absolutely dazzle me—I’m not saying that for any reason except to state a fact.”

  I shivered, but not because it was cold. “Maybe I need to get used to it,” I said without thinking. Nine days loomed in front of my mind and as if Ames could see it, he placed his hand on my knee, pulling my attention back in.

  “I’m not the first person to pay you compliments.”

  “No, but with you it’s different. Colin—he wasn’t terribly affectionate, with his words or his hands. And that was fine by me. I didn’t crave more than that, not like I do with you. And, I hate comparing Colin and you in the same sentence, because you’re not even on the same playing field with one another. It’s just different.” I took a sip of my sangria and eyed the empty pitcher. “I don’t expect you to be like him, to do the things he did, to treat me how he did. Everything you’re doing is just right, to me. There is no comparis
on. There are differences, but I’d be lying to you if I didn’t sometimes think about him. Even when I’m here, with you.”

  He sighed, running a finger over the lip of his glass until it hummed. “I get it. You remind me of Mal, but you’re different, too.” He licked his lips. “Mostly you remind me of the way she made me feel—which is the only thing I want to be similar.”

  My eyes widened as I grasped what he was saying. Hurriedly, he continued, “The last few days, I’ve picked up my phone and wanted to text you, I miss you more than I care to admit. I’m not a sappy man, with sentimental notions. But knowing that I had you to look forward to, that I’d get to talk to you, to touch you, after several long days at the pub? Well, it was a good feeling.”

  I tilted my head to the side, taking him in. The candlelight flickered softly, reflecting in his brilliant eyes, and I bit my lip. “If you had texted me that you missed me, I probably would have abandoned my family in a heartbeat and ran to you.” I played with the stem of my glass. “I’m on uneven footing with you. I don’t know the right things to say to you. The last few weeks caught me off guard. You caught me off guard.”

  “I only want you to say what you feel. And you caught me off guard too, Mila. There hasn’t been a single soul to catch my eye the way you have, since Mal.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be maudlin in talking about her.”

  I shook my head quickly. “No, don’t be sorry. I like to hear about her, about your life together.” I clasped his hands with mine and squeezed, hoping he knew just how earnest I was in that. “You’re talking to someone who gets it, remember?”

  He brought my hands to his lips and pressed soft kisses against each knuckle. I had to work to keep my breathing even. “I have to remind myself of that sometimes, I admit. You know…” he paused to run his thumb over the knuckles he’d kissed. “This is so much easier than I thought it’d be.”

  “What’s easier?”

  “For starters, just … breathing. Without feeling guilty for it. I admire your resilience, your strength, in going through what I’m going through. And I don’t say this to diminish her significance in my life, but sometimes I wish I could have the attitude you do about all of this.”

  “People grieve differently. What’s right for me doesn’t mean it’s right for you. And besides,” I rubbed my foot under the table against his, “you’re surrounded by it all the time. With Asher and Lotte, and Free Refills.” I waved a hand around us. “This place.”

  “I know. Maybe I’m making it harder on myself. But I don’t regret sticking around.” His eyes took a brief faraway look, and I wondered about what he was thinking. “I’m surprised I can talk about it, about her, with you and not see you shake with jealousy.”

  Because I wanted to be closer to him, I slid off my seat and sat sideways on his lap, wrapping my arm around his neck. I sighed and settled against his chest. “How could I be jealous?” I rubbed my hand over his sweater and tilted my head back in order to look him in the eye. I summoned all my courage, swallowed down my fear, and said, “How can I envy someone who loved you?” I brushed the hair away from his forehead and watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “I can only be thankful for it.”

  “That’s an interesting perspective.” He rocked me gently in the chair, swaying to a song we couldn’t hear.

  “The thing that keeps me going, that makes it okay to wake up each day and keep moving, is knowing that I loved Colin with my entire heart. And he loved me too. I’d like to think we gave each other happiness in our time together, limited as it was. And I’m grateful for that, that he died with love in his heart. So how can I be jealous that someone loved you as much as Mal did? It’s a beautiful, wonderful, heartbreaking thing to have loved someone who is no longer breathing the same air you are.” To emphasize my point, I ran my forefinger over his ring. “It’s that ‘loved and lost’ quote. I can choose to wallow in misery, or I can choose to be the same person I was before—the person worthy of the love he gave me. The choice was easy for me. Colin wouldn’t want me to be sad forever. And Mal wouldn’t want that for you, either.”

  “I just don’t know if I can find my way to one hundred percent happiness.”

  I rubbed the neck line of his sweater. “Maybe it’s not about being happy. Maybe it’s about being okay. Accepting it for what it is. Accepting that life is itself a constant work in progress.”

  “But you’re happy, Mila. All the time.”

  I sighed and smiled softly, just a tease of the corners of my lips. “Not all the time. But we all heal differently. I loved Colin,” I swallowed, and said my next words carefully. “But I love deeply, and vastly.”

  The arm around my waist tightened. “I know you’re right. And I think, that maybe, I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “Summer.” When I crinkled my brow, he took a sip of his sangria. I could feel his heart calm, the beats slow to a rhythm not unlike my own. “The sun shines the longest in the summer, making the days last longer than the nights. And when I first saw you on the bridge, you looked like summer to me. It made no sense, not at that time of night, on the cusp of autumn, that I could look at you and see so much sun. There’s comfort in night, in the dark—a safety that the sun cannot guarantee.” He shook his head on a laugh. “I’m babbling.”

  I pressed my fingers to his lips, to stop him from dismissing what he’d said. “If I’m summer, what are you? You’re not winter—you’re not ice.”

  He held the sangria close to his chest and, softly, he said, “I don’t think I’m winter. I don’t know what I am, except for a person who wants to brave the sun, as long as he can.”

  “Ames,” I said, hoping he could hear the depth of feeling in my voice. “Thank you. For tonight. For this.”

  He twisted my hair in his hands. “I wanted this place to be special for one night, you know? To be a place someone could take a date.”

  And he’d picked me. My chest expanded and deflated, and expanded once more, wider than before, making room for him—at long last.

  I framed his face in my hands, and kissed him with all the warmth I possessed. “Come back to my hotel with me tonight.”

  He squeezed me tight, and kissed me until I was breathless. My fingers roamed over his sweater, gripping it tightly and holding him hard to me. When we pulled away, his eyes were dark and insanely sexy.

  As he shut off the lights and locked the doors, I stood back by the front just watching him. There was no question in my mind that I was falling in love with him. I hated that word. Falling. It sounded so involuntary, as if this was an accident—and calling what I was feeling an ‘accident’ cheapened its experience. Falling was inherently scary. But I wasn’t afraid. I’d lived through heartbreak already, and lived with the hollow it left, and still I had a capacity for loving; I didn’t believe in letting it rot away, unnurtured. There was no such thing as too much love, not when there were millions of others in the world with not enough.

  He hailed a cab back to my hotel, and we sat in the darkened silence, wrapped up in each other. My head on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around mine. Our hands clasped in his lap, our breaths even, and a sense of comfort that had nothing to do with the heater, the smooth roads, or the driver’s skill. We kissed probably a hundred times in that car ride; soft, breathy kisses that moved into deeper, warmer kisses—tongues clashing and teeth nibbling.

  We were quiet all the way through the hotel lobby, up the elevator, and down the hallway to my room. And once the door closed behind us, leaving us in the dark, I took the initiative and pushed him right up against the door.

  His hands went to either side of my head, and yanked my face to his. I wrapped an arm around his neck and he stooped to pick me up, walking further into the room with my legs wrapped around his waist. He fell to the bed and in a fit of impatience, we were a tangle of legs and breaths as we kicked off our shoes. He tugged the sleeve of my dress down one shoulder and nipped along my exposed collarbone.


  I gripped a fist in his hair, my nails biting into his skull, impatience dominating my entire body as I writhed on his lap, seeking more of him. He tugged the other sleeve of my dress off my shoulder and sucked at my skin, leaving hot open-mouthed kisses that cooled in the air of my hotel room.

  My impatience won, causing me to push his shoulders down so he was flat on the bed. I crawled over him, my hair like a curtain around us, as his hands came up to my breasts and squeezed. The shock from it caused my head to bow and he flipped me over onto my back and ground his hips against mine.

  I wanted to scream an answer, even though he hadn’t asked me a question. That pressure had scorched a line right through me. My hands fumbled on the buttons on the front of my dress, as he whipped his shirt off and undid his pants with a speed that I couldn’t match.

  By the time he was shed of his clothing, I was still working on the last few buttons when he took over. In hindsight, a dress with two dozen buttons down the front was probably not my wisest choice for attire.

  When the last button was finally free, he grasped the dress on either side and opened it up. He let out a sigh, and goosebumps lit my flesh.

  The reverence in his eyes when they met mine was enough to make me feel like an earthquake had begun from the inside and was getting ready to break loose. He sat back on his haunches and reached for my hand, pulling me up into a sitting position so he could pull the dress all the way off of my shoulders.

  When his finger teased the skin just under the strap of my bra, I lifted my face. He kissed me before I could kiss him, and ran a finger along the line of my spine until he came to the clasp of my bra. I tugged the straps down, eyes on him in the moonlight, until only the cups were supporting my breasts.

  He wasn’t smiling—no, there was no humor in his face. He was completely serious, his eyes burning, and there was a tick making its presence known in his jaw. The bra came loose and slid down my body between us before he tossed it away. He scooped me up and leaned us forward on the bed, pulling the comforter back and laying me down on the cool sheets. Before covering me back up with the comforter, he grasped the sides of my panties and rolled them down until I was free of them, leaving me completely naked in the dark of the room.