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Dylan follows me slowly down the hallway to the master suite at the back of this wing. She stops about every three feet to look at another picture on the wall. There are a lot of small giggles with one-liners about Little Mav and Little Goose. She seems to especially like the one of Wes and me at our prep school graduation. Maybe I look more familiar to her.
“You were eighteen.”
“Yeah only,” I reply. “God, we were young. Sometimes that feels like another lifetime.”
I set our bags on the long white bench at the foot of the bed and turn on my bedside lamp. Dylan has yet to come into the room. She lingers just outside. “What is it?” I ask.
“Do you really feel that way? Like it was another lifetime?”
“Some days I do. So many things have changed. So many things have come and gone.”
“Our age difference never hits me that often. When you said that, it was like a hard punch. I’ve only seen you as you. It’s easy to deny it. When I see you like you are in that picture, it’s real that you’ve lived a whole other life.”
“That’s really intense for this late at night. Would you like wine? Water? Beer?”
“White wine would be nice, Eli. Thanks. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
The downturn in her mood is screaming like neon. I didn’t mean to be dismissive of her revelation, but it’s never far from my consciousness. It’s something I carry around with me. I don’t want her to dwell on it. I don’t.
I found an excellent bottle of dessert wine nested in the middle of the wine cooler. While it’s breathing on the bar, I activate the heat lamps along the path leading to the hot tub. The shovel is where it always rests, on the hook outside the door. The motion lights pick up the sliding door as I step out and feel a gentle crunch under my feet.
The shovel feels good in my hands. I don’t get the opportunity to push snow around very much. I don’t count the gentle brushing away that my balcony gets once in a while as real shoveling. We need a dry path to the tub. I clear that with about four passes, and what I didn’t get, the heated tiles absolutely will. Per Wes’s instructions, I should only have to remove the tub cover and power it up.
Quickly the jets begin to circulate and the steam rises, blowing back across the newly fallen snow. Oversized thick robes hang from the back of the bathroom door just inside the sliding glass. This bathroom is new since I was here last. It has a heated rain shower in it with a wide bench and sauna.
As I’m admiring the tile work and hidden features, the sound of bare feet behind me alerts me to her presence. I tug down on my outstretched arms over the glass, giving a much-needed pullto my tight muscles. The cotton of her robe brushes against the skin on my back before her lips meet my shoulder blade.
“I see you’re ready,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry I got all moody.”
“You’re allowed.”
“Today was a lot, you know?”
“Trust me, I do.” I turn around, allowing my arms to fall around her. “Let’s unwind a little bit then go to sleep until we feel like getting up. If we don’t get up, that’s okay too.”
“Sleep all day, food that’s bad for us, all the alcohol and sex all night. That sounds like the perfect getaway to me.”
“There’s my girl.”
My girl.
Those words fall out of my mouth without thinking. I haven’t asked her if that’s what she wants to be. We’ve certainly never said the ‘L’ word. We have all these unsaid agreements between us, all these unspoken truths. What happens if words are put to them? I know I can take that next step. Can she?
The chill hits her body under the robe on the walk to the hot tub. I purposely walk behind her so I can see everything that happens. She points off in the distance at a pair of deer just on the tree line. I set the wine glasses down on the deck, resting my hands on her shoulders. She watches in wonder until they disappear into the night.
I tug on the ties of her robe. “Need help?”
“I won’t say no.”
Chill bumps rise from the base of her neck down to her navel as the thickness of the fabric begins to fall away. I can tell she feels the tingle elsewhere too. Dylan slides her hands inside the robe over mine, which have begun to explore her skin. With my cheek moving slowly against her temple, I draw a line from her hip, down the crease of her leg, into the top of her barely-there hairline.
“Are we staying out?” he breathes. “Or are you getting in?”
I laugh a little. “Both. Equally. Test the water. Let me watch you.”
“I know it’s your favorite thing.”
