Move the Stars

by Jessica Hawkins

  “You saw how I reacted on the beach that night. There’ve only been a few other times I’ve gotten that upset.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “It mostly has to do with my dad.”

  “And the time they sent you to solitary confinement.”

  “And that.” He nodded. “If I let my temper get the best of me at any moment, it could change everything for me. I could go back to jail. Worse, I could hurt you.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Not because I thought he’d ever get physical with me, but because I could hear in his voice that he believed he could. “You wouldn’t,” I said.

  “You don’t know that. I told you how it was with my dad. There was no telling what would set him off. And I’m the same, Lake. That was what landed me in SHU.”

  “You never told me why you snapped.”

  “I never told you to protect you from that world.”

  “But we can’t have secrets from each other now, Manning.”

  He pulled me close, kissing me on the lips. “Your safety and happiness will always be my priority.”

  I read between the lines. He would keep from me the things that might hurt me. “I don’t want to be in the dark, Manning.”

  He looked anywhere but at me. “Hmm.”

  I didn’t think I could ever make Manning do anything he didn’t want to, which was why it was important he see me as an adult, not the girl on the construction site. “We’re going to be partners,” I reminded him.

  “We already are. We have been. Don’t you know, no matter what was happening around us, that you were always in the center of my mind? That I would never do or say anything to let anyone hurt you?”

  “Anyone but you. You hurt me most of all.” As I said it, I slipped my hand back into his. I wasn’t sure why, except that I knew this conversation was hard for him. Still, I couldn’t stop from pressing the wound. Maybe it was revenge, or maybe it was that my insecurities needed coddling. I didn’t think I’d ever tire of hearing his thoughts.

  “I was selfish. I didn’t want to be away from you. I wanted to feel like a good man, and that’s how your sister made me feel.”

  “And I didn’t?”

  “You just made me feel good. So good, I thought it meant I was bad. How could I feel such a connection for someone I shouldn’t? Can you see the logic in any of that?”

  I twisted my lips. What would have happened if Manning had not come into the house that day at Tiffany’s invitation, which later resulted in their first date? I’d been a child then, admittedly more naïve than most. I couldn’t have handled such a man as him, not like Tiffany. What if he’d done all the things I’d tried to get him to do, like take off my clothes in a truck while I was away at camp or kiss me on my sister’s kitchen counter while she slept in the next room? Would he still be here if any of that had happened? If not for Tiffany, would he have left for good to get away from his feelings for me?

  We passed more beautiful, glossy stores. Whenever their doors opened, warmth seeped out. “I wish we could spend this Christmas together,” I said. “I’d cook you a turkey and you’d fix my heater. We could watch movies under the blankets and maybe fool around a little.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “Not maybe. Definitely. Sounds perfect. Next year, Birdy, I promise you.”

  I was stealing my sister’s husband, shattering her world so I could build my own. But my love for Manning was stronger than anything else. If I got to live eighty more years with him, I wasn’t sure I’d change anything about the past few that might’ve prevented that. And I understood why loving me sometimes made him feel like a bad person.

  In that instant, it was true for me, too.

  12

  Lake

  “Have you loved other girls?” I asked.

  “I can tell you this much,” Manning said, lacing up his skates on a bench. “I’ve never gone ice skating with another girl.”

  We’d circled around the city to Rockefeller Center. It’d taken a little bit of convincing on my part to get Manning to do this, but not as much as I had thought. “Why’d you agree?” I asked, standing over him. I’d had my skates on in a third of the time it was taking him.

  He glanced up at me, which wasn’t saying much. His head came up to my breasts while seated. “When you smile like that, it’s hard to say no to you.”

  “And how come you never skated with any other girls?”

  He tightened the lace on one boot and stood up to his full height, causing my head to fall back. With the blades, he must’ve been over six foot six. “You know why.”

  “Because you’ve never been asked?”

  “I’ve been asked.”

  “Because you don’t know how?”

  “I’ve played hockey before. I know how.” He took my hand, intertwining our fingers. “It’s because I wasn’t in love with any of them, Birdy.”

  “But you’ve been in love before.”

  “I’ve loved, and been loved, but I wouldn’t say, after knowing you, that I’d ever been in love.” His brows sank. “I know that isn’t enough. Not by a long shot. But it’s something.”

  We made it about three laps around the rink before I fell. While holding Manning’s hand, I’d been watching him, not where I was going, and nearly collided with a child. When I overcorrected, his grip was strong enough to keep me from flying, but I still landed on my butt.

  Manning bent over me, lifting me by my armpits. “Are you hurt?”

  I beamed up at him. “No.”

  “I’d better inspect you anyway.” He led me over to the rink’s low wall and lifted me onto it by my waist. I shivered as I remembered him putting me on a brick wall on a hot, sunny California day years ago. “This hurt?” he asked, feeling around my outer thighs.

  “No.”

  He extended my arm, checking the red spot where I’d hit my elbow. He lowered his head to tenderly kiss the skin. “How about this?”

  I giggled. “Of course not.” I hooked my skates around the backs of his thighs and pulled him between my legs. “But you should inspect more places.”

  “Which places?”

  “I think I hit my lips on the way down.”

  He narrowed his eyes at my mouth, then pecked me. “Seems all right to me.”

  “And also my . . .”

  He was completely mine, on the hook, hanging on my words as if we were the only two people in the rink. And his eyes heated as if I were the only female on Earth. “Yes, Birdy?”

  “Never mind.”

  “If you won’t tell me where you hurt yourself, I’ll have to go ahead and inspect everywhere. But best if we wait until later, when we’re alone.”

  I wrinkled my nose, smiling. “I like that plan. Will you get on the wall with me?”

  “How come?”

  “So I can pretend we’re back at the beginning. Like it’s the first day I met you.”

  He didn’t look at me, but upon me, his face full of adoration. “Why would I want to go back there? It was pure torture. I remember it clearly enough.”

  “Me too. You were as important as the sun.”

  “The sun blinds you.”

  “Yes you did.” I nodded. “I’ve seen nothing but you ever since.”

  “Selfishly, I’m glad for it.” He wrapped his arms around me, surprising me with a slow, uninhibited kiss. “If it’s all right with you,” he whispered into my mouth, “you stay on the wall, and I’ll just stay here.”

  “It is easier to kiss like this.”

  “It’s easier to do a lot of things like this. If we weren’t in public right now, I’d open a few pesky buttons and zippers and be inside you.”

  I held onto him as the image of us together hit me hard. Sex was possibly the best thing I’d ever experienced, and we’d barely done it that much. “Can we go somewhere?” I asked.

  “Where would you like to go, my love?”

  “Anywhere. I have business with a few pesky buttons and zippers.”
>
  “Mmm.” He kissed my neck, nipped my earlobe. “Yeah. Let’s go somewhere.”

  “Your hotel?” I asked.

  “Ah.” He pulled back a little. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s . . .” Hesitating, he rubbed the underside of his jaw. “I’m expensing the stay, obviously, but I put the room on my credit card, and I’ll get reimbursed.”

  “Oh.” It took me a few seconds to put it together. “Your credit card, which doesn’t only belong to you.”

  “I can bring my things to your place,” he said. “I felt bad last night about scratching you up with my stubble.”

  His five o’clock shadow was the least of what bothered me. I took my arms from around him. “Go then. Get your stuff and we can meet later.”

  “Hey.” He pinched my chin to keep me from turning away. “Do you want to make love in a hotel I paid for with an account I share with your sister? What’s the alternative?”

  I wiggled to get off the wall and he let me. When my blades hit the ice, they began to slide out from under me, but he caught me by my waist like I was some kind of doll, setting me upright again.

  A woman around my mom’s age approached us, slowing to a stop with her pre-teen daughter in tow. “We were just saying you two are the most adorable couple we’ve ever seen,” she gushed in a southern accent.

  “Mom,” the girl said, rolling her eyes before she sped off.

  Manning tensed and moved to stand a few inches in front of me. He reached back and took my hand. It felt protective rather than loving, as if something had him worried. For whatever reason, his uneasiness melted my anger.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “It’s awfully sweet,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out if you’re the high school sweetheart type of couple or if you’re in that honeymoon phase. Which is it?”

  “We met in college,” he said. “So I guess it’s the first one.”

  “Well, you’re precious.”

  “Yes,” he said, squeezing my hand. “She is.”

  “Oh my. He’s a keeper.” She winked at me, teasing. “Are you married, and if not, when’s the wedding?”

  Wedding? There was no wedding, and maybe there would never be. At least not anytime soon. And if there was, it would be a pretty lonely affair without my family in attendance.

  He’s already married.

  I almost said it to see her reaction. Someone had to stop us, and maybe it was this woman. Things couldn’t keep going as well as they had.

  “In the summer. That’s her favorite time of year.” Manning moved his arm around my shoulder. “It’ll be intimate, just close friends.”

  “And family,” the woman added.

  “No, no family.”

  I couldn’t have my own family at my wedding, but neither could Manning. Realizing that actually made me feel closer to him. I cozied into his side. “Are you sure that’s my favorite time of year?” I asked. “I never told you that.”

  “You’re a summer baby.” He looked down at me. “Born in June, grew up in the ocean and under the sun. Or has that changed?” He grinned. “Are you an ice queen now?”

  I couldn’t pick a favorite season. I loved them all for different reasons—although winter was certainly pulling ahead based on today. “Any time of year is fine with me,” I said.

  “She’s an easy bride,” he told the woman. “Doesn’t need much, and neither do I. Just her.”

  “Let’s see the ring,” the lady said.

  Manning smiled. “I haven’t asked yet.”

  She gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth. “And I ruined it. Did I ruin it? You’re too sweet.” She winked at me. “Marry him. Surely you’re already beating the women off with a stick. No reason to delay.”

  Manning’s mood visibly lightened. “You hear that? Why delay the inevitable?”

  Feeding off their playfulness, I relaxed. “Okay. I guess so.”

  She clapped her hands. “Oh, you’ve made my afternoon. My entire trip. I’m going to go home and tell all my girlfriends I witnessed a proposal.” She pushed off. “Best of luck to you both!”

  “Why’d you lie to her?” I asked as Manning watched her skate away.

  “Not a lie so much as a fantasy. Didn’t any of that sound good to you?”

  “You said we met in college, though.”

  “I was teasing.” He skated back from me, our hands locked between us. “Come on. I’ve seen enough of your New York for one day. Now I want to go back to heaven.”

  “And that would be . . .?”

  “My precious girl,” he said, mocking the woman’s accent, “in her precious bed.”

  I pulled on his hand, but he was so solid that all I did was glide toward him. When I collided with his side, I leaned on him for a kiss. No matter how much of my weight I gave him, Manning never budged, not even in skates.

  13

  Manning

  Lake’d been asleep for ten hours. I’d worn her out, whereas I was just getting started. I’d woken up throughout the night and morning to check on her. My visions of bad-things-happening shouldn’t have been as severe as they’d been when she was younger. Back then, she’d been naïve, and she still was in some ways, but she was an adult now. She could care for herself.

  Those visions hadn’t gone away, though.

  When the woman at the ice skating rink had approached us, my heart’d locked in my chest, my instincts turning predatory. I’d felt threatened by a woman in her forties and lied about meeting Lake in college because for the briefest of moments, I’d expected her to say, “Get your hands off that child.”

  It was ridiculous; nobody would look twice at us now, but it’d seemed as if she’d known, on some level, how old Lake had been when I’d met her. Known all the reasons Lake and I weren’t supposed to be standing on that rink, touching and kissing as freely as we’d been.

  Lake slept soundly on her stomach. It didn’t even look as though she were breathing. I moved some of her fine blonde hair off her neck, soothed by how warm her skin was. I wanted to touch and be touched by her. I wanted to have her now and keep having her until it became too much. I couldn’t help the feeling she could be taken away from me at any moment.

  There was a lot to figure out, a lot left to say, but I didn’t want to go there yet. For two more days, Lake and I were a regular couple in love. We didn’t need anything but each other. My stomach grumbled. Each other, and some food.

  Lake stirred, smiling before she even opened her eyes. “That feels nice.”

  I realized I was petting her. “I woke you. I couldn’t keep my hands to myself.”

  “Did you have sex with me?”

  “While you slept?” I heard the alarm in my voice. “I generally prefer you to be conscious.”

  She smiled wider. “I guess it was a dream then.”

  “So all the sex we had over the past forty-eight hours wasn’t enough? You dream about it, too?”

  “All signs point to yes.”

  I was understandably hard. Not only had I just woken up, but she was on her stomach, the sheet light over her shoulder blades. It’d be the perfect moment to have her from behind for the first time.

  “Is it late?” she asked.

  “Hmm. I’d say around noon.”

  Her head shot up. “Noon?”

  “You were out like a light.”

  “Shit.” She turned over, keeping the sheet around her breasts as she sat up. I pulled it down so I could see her, thumbing a bubble-gum pink nipple as I salivated. “I’m supposed to be arriving at work right now.”

  “Can you call in?”

  “I already did yesterday and the night of the show,” she said, standing. “Damn it.”

  I reached for her hand, pulling her back on the bed. “It’s not inconceivable that you’d be sick for four days. Tell them you have the flu or something.”

  She sighed, letting me fit her back against my front. “I already sai
d it was food poisoning.”

  “Well, you’re not a doctor. How could you have known?” I nuzzled her neck. “Besides, I have another job for you.”

  “Does it pay more than minimum wage?”

  “I’m hungry, Lake. I need to be fed.”

  She twisted in my arms to look back at me and sigh. “I guess it’s a good thing I picked up all the ingredients for the Lake Special on our way home last night.”

  When she’d turned, her crotch had brushed mine, and now I had a dilemma on my hands. I was horny for her. I was also starving.

  She wiggled out from under me and grabbed a thin robe off the back of her door.

  “Do you need to be clothed to make sandwiches?” I asked.

  She smiled as she tied it closed. “What if Val comes in?”

  As she left, I got up to take a piss. I guessed it was too much to ask for Lake and me to have a space of our own, but I really fucking hated that we couldn’t just relax.

  On my way out of the bathroom, I pulled on my underwear and found Lake in the kitchen, peppering the counter with ingredients. “I’ve been craving the Lake Special since I had it the first time six years ago,” I said.

  “You had the real Lake Special last night,” she teased.

  “I did.” I came up behind her, pulling some of her hair aside to kiss her neck. “And I’m going to have at least a few more helpings today.”

  She pointed at a cabinet. “Can you get down the plates?”

  “You mean these?” I asked, reaching for a stack of dishes in the door-less cabinet right in front of us.

  “No. I have special plates on the top shelf. In case . . .”

  “In case?”

  “I ever had an important guest.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her, reaching above her head to the top cabinet. “What do you do when I’m not here to get them down for you?”

  “I have a stepstool.”