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“Well, it ended up great, but it could’ve gone the other way. And then Courtney and Kaede too, though that was their doing. But I’m always the puppet master, and now I feel like someone else has my strings in their hands.” She mimes her arms lifting at the elbow and dangling loosely as though she’s out of control of herself. “It’s humbling to feel this way. I hate it.”
“Or perhaps there are no strings at all?” I hypothesize. “Even with Violet, you might have pushed her, but she made those choices. And us? I stepped in—my own doing,” I remind her. “And you went along with it. That’s your part in this. Each choice we make, thousands every day—what time to get up, what to wear, what to eat, who to spend time with, what to do—all direct us one way or another. None are wrong, none are right. They simply exist along a path of our life, creating new experiences with each decision.”
“Very philosophical,” she agrees.
“Are you regretting the choices you’ve made?” I’m not sure I want this answer, but it seems prudent to ask.
She shakes her head quickly, but it doesn’t seem to be a knee-jerk reaction. To the contrary, it seems as though she’s thought about this quite a bit. “No. Not regretting things I’ve done or things I want to do. Just realizing my own limitations and respecting other people’s too.”
That definitely sounds like she’s talking about me. But she sounds resigned to where she thinks we’re going. Truth be told, I have no idea where we’re headed. That’s usually how I live my life. I enjoy the possibilities of not knowing, of making those choices each day and seeing where that leads.
Except there is one very specific thing I would like to choose.
Tonight.“Another surprise?” Abigail says. I can hear the fresh delight in her voice. “Two in one day. You’ll spoil me.”
“I would be honored to have that privilege.”
I asked Esmar for recommendations for tonight’s plan. He’d sagely nodded and said he knew just the place. I hope he’s right.
I follow his directions to the letter, carefully walking Abigail down the patio outside the resort to the beach. We turn right and begin the short walk to the secret cove Esmar told me about in whispered tones after extracting a promise that I won’t tell the tourists. That he told me feels like a sign of acceptance as one of the crew.
“It’s so pretty out here tonight,” Abigail whispers into the darkness of the night, though there’s no one around.
Further down the beach, I duck around a large rock and follow the new curve of the shore as the beach behind us becomes invisible. We are truly alone now, in a private paradise of our own.
I pull the blanket from the bag I’ve carted along with us and spread it out along the sand. “Sit with me, mia rosa.”
She daintily lowers herself to the blanket, and I pull things out of the bag like a magician. “What all do you have in there?” she asks.
“Strawberries and champagne. Cheese and bread. What would you like?” I prepared the platter of food this evening, packaging it up carefully to make the trip. The plastic glasses took less prep and seem cheap, but glass is forbidden on the beach and I didn’t want to risk one breaking. However, with the sweet bubbly in them, they seem perfectly adequate.
Holding one up, Abigail toasts, “To moonlit romantic picnics in paradise.”
“Si. And to beauty personified before me. It is a sight I am fortunate to behold.” We click our cups together and I see the shy smile on Abigail’s lips. She’s not bashful in the slightest, but sometimes, her worries float to the surface and make her seem so. “You are beautiful,” I repeat. I do not want her to ever doubt or question her loveliness for even a moment.
We sip at our champagne, talking of food and flowers, of the past and home, carefully avoiding any discussion of the future. We talk philosophy and point out constellations in the stars that we can’t see at home in the city.
Lying back, our hands connected between us as we stare into the dark abyss above us, I can’t wait any longer. I can barely believe I’ve waited this long to taste her, touch her, feel her beneath me.
“Abigail.” A statement, a question, and a plea in three syllables that she has heard her entire life, but she knows this time is different.
“I’m ready too. Please, Lorenzo. Make love to me.”
Bold and direct, that’s my Abigail. It’s sexy as fuck to think she could be feeling even a portion of what I am for her.
I want Abigail.
For now. For more. Forever.
Forever?
I don’t know what makes me think of a future where we could live this charade out in truth, but it teases along the edges of my mind like the promise of a hazy fog, blurring out other possibilities until there is only Abigail.
