it,” Mea said. I perched her on the bar and peeled off the paper. “It’s a picture,” she announced before I could completely finish the job.
“Thanks a lot for ruining the surprise, brat,” Adam teased her. She pushed out her lower lip, looking a little hurt until I winked at her. Then she beamed.
I set the paper on the counter and turned over the eight and a half by eleven frame. I recognized the photo immediately. It wasn’t one I’d seen before, but I knew the image. It was a candid shot of the two of us walking on the beach in Key West. We were holding hands and looking at each other and laughing. I couldn’t remember about what.
Adam’s mom must have taken the picture. It struck me how beautiful we were together—tan, Adam in his white trunks with the black hibiscus print that I knew so well, riding low on his hips as always, me in solid black trunks. I bit down hard on my lower lip.
Beside me, Adam exchanged a look with his parents, then wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him. I planted my face in his shoulder, still not believing he was here, still afraid I’d wake up and it would all be just a dream, and knowing that this time tomorrow, he’d be gone again.
“Mom’s been dying to give you that picture since we got back from Key West, but she wanted to surprise you with it for your birthday.” I sniffed and he squeezed me tighter. “I have one just like it. Every time you came over, I had to hide it in my closet. It’s by my bed in the apartment now.” He grinned into my hair.
I clung to him and eventually he had to force my arms from around him so he could look at me. “Okay?”
I nodded, not entirely trusting my voice just yet. His parents and Mea had left us alone, knowing it embarrassed me to lose it in front of them. The candles had burned down to little puddles of blue wax on the chocolate icing. Adam blew them out and led me upstairs.
Chapter 14
“Nate, baby, take it easy. You’re hurting me.”
I rolled to my other side and flung the condom across the room. My chest heaved from the exertion, and from anger and hurt.
Clueless, Adam turned and pressed himself to my back and trailed his fingers lightly up and down my arm. He kissed my shoulder. “You didn’t have to stop. I just meant you were getting a little, um, overly enthusiastic, and passionate, and—”
“I wanted to hurt you.”
He grew still behind me. The lava lamps along the high shelf were warm now and active. The lava swelled and stretched toward the top of the lamps, creating thin threads that eventually snapped, bouncing the lava up into fat globules that rose and slowly settled again. Red, purple, and green shadows floated across the ceiling. After a few minutes he got up and I could hear him dress. Then he quietly let himself out of the room.
I found him lying on his back on the wraparound couch in the media room down the hall, a throw pillow hugged to his chest.
I picked up his feet and sat down, pulling them back in my lap. I pressed my thumbs into the arch of his foot and slowly drew them toward his toes. He stared at the ceiling, but when I kissed his toes, he closed his eyes. “I didn’t know this would be so hard,” I said.
“I understand that, Nate. But you don’t seem to understand that this is hard for me too. There are times when I feel like I can hardly breathe I miss you so much.”
“Then don’t go back.” I didn’t plan to say it, but once I’d started, the words just tumbled out. “I don’t want you to go. Stay with me.”
“I can’t.” He made a growling noise in the back of his throat. “I’ve made commitments. I signed a contract. I have to go back. I know that’s not what you want to hear. But I wish you had told me this before I left for New York.”
“I didn’t want to hold you back. I knew this was important to you.”
“And now you don’t care?”
I winced. “No. It’s not that.”
He draped his forearm over his face. “I know it’s not,” he said, his voice thicker and softer than before. “Come here.” He tossed the pillow over the back of the couch and reached his hand out to me. I stretched out next to him. He shifted up against the back of the couch to make room for me, then fingered the bandage on my arm.
“We have to take this off.”
“Later.” I molded myself to him, desperate to keep him close to me.
“Not later. Now. Come on.”
In the bathroom he peeled off the bandage, then gently washed my arm with Mea’s baby soap, using his hands to clean the area and rinse it. I felt like a little boy with a scraped knee.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I know.” He reached for a hand towel and patted my arm dry. “Me too. I forget sometimes how much you’ve been through. You’re stronger than you think, Nate. A lot stronger. I don’t have half the courage that you do. And I couldn’t be prouder that you love me. You can do this.”
If that was supposed to make me feel better, strong, it wasn’t working so great. I looked at my arm. Fear is temporary. Regret is forever. The skin around the black slanted lettering looked and felt sunburned. “Just leave it alone until tomorrow,” Adam said, “then you can use some baby lotion or maybe some A and D ointment if you don’t use too much.”
I nodded, and then probably because I looked as shitty as I felt, he pulled me to him. “It’s just until Thanksgiving,” he whispered into my hair, but again, if he thought that would make me feel better, well, I had already checked the calendar—ninety-five days. I’d barely survived twenty-seven. The air conditioner kicked on. I hadn’t put a shirt on and the cool air made me shiver. I folded myself more snugly into him.
“Mmm. I kinda like this,” Adam said.
“Can we try again?” I said. “You did promise I could do nasty things to you.”
He grinned. “I did, didn’t I? Well, I’m a man of my word.”
I couldn’t let go of the hurt and resentment. The rest of the evening was like a bad song, set on repeat. Him, playful and sweet; me, not playful, not sweet. And all of it interspersed with moments of passion that at times felt more like fighting than loving. And even though he was next to me and he was warm and he was here, I didn’t have to look at the clock to know how little time was left before warm and here became warm and there. I scooted even closer to his back and felt the regular rise and fall of his breathing and tried desperately to memorize his smell, the warmth of his skin against mine, the feel of his fingers wrapped around my fingers. I couldn’t help thinking it would have been easier if he hadn’t come back, because letting him go again was so damn hard. I pressed my nose into the short hairs at the nape of his neck and whispered, more to myself than to him, “I don’t know how to let you go.”
He twisted around under my arm, surprising me, and settled again, facing me now, his mouth so close to mine I could feel his breath. “Then don’t, Nate.” He ran a thumb across my brow. “Look, I don’t care if I break my contract. Let them sue me. It’s not worth having you feel like this. We all have our limits. Just say the word and I’ll stay.”
