* * *
“Remember that first day we met?”I asked, a question popping into my head that I only felt comfortable asking after he’d been inside me. I was a deeply strange person.
“No. Refresh my memory? Ouch. Nipple.”
“What did you mean by I feel like I’ve known you?” I asked.
We were back in bed, showered but not dressed.
He rolled to prop his head on his elbow and study me. “It was a weird way to say that,” he admitted.
“Was it because of George? Maybe because he had mentioned me?”
“I don’t think so.” He grabbed a strand of my hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “I can’t explain it, really. I felt like something in me recognized something in you.”
I lay on my back and looked at the ceiling and felt him shift back too. “Brooks believes in something like reincarnation. She thinks that sometimes you meet people you were close to in past lives and your souls recognize each other.”
He was quiet for a while before he found my hand in the blanket and held on to me. “I like that.”
My throat felt inexplicably tight. “Yeah,” I whispered.
I kept waiting for Harrison to say more. I felt tense with something I wasn’t sure about. I was too lost in my thoughts to know how I felt about all this. I am sure it would make things more complicated and harder down the road, but I couldn’t regret it. Not even for a second.
I had thought about telling him that when he started to speak.
“Hey, before I forget. Not to talk shop at a time like this.” He grabbed my boob, and I rolled my eyes. “Don’t forget that trip I have to take is in two weeks. I have to go back to LA. I’ve been avoiding my team for long enough, and they can’t push it back anymore.”
“Okay, I remember.” I sat up. “Wait. Two weeks? That’s Collette’s birthday. You didn’t forget about that, right?”
He rubbed my back. “I’ll be back before that. It’ll just be four days during the week. She’ll be in camp every day, and with everything starting to settle down, I figured I couldn’t keep pushing it off.”
Four days. I felt so heavy. The lightness that made me feel like I was floating off to space crashed me back to earth, and even the safe cocoon of the pool house couldn’t stop the realities of the outside world from crashing in.
I didn’t want to think about how this would end. I didn’t want to have to be strong and make hard choices. I wanted to be cared for and taken care of like I had been. I wanted someone to love me above all else and choose me every time. Make choices for my needs to keep me protected and happy. I wanted to be loved and love.
No. A visceral fear settled into my bones. A gripping of my heart so sudden it felt like I’d fallen off a cliff.
No.
I wanted independence. I wanted no weight, no responsibility, a life on the road with nobody to abandon me. I wanted to find myself again.
“Right. No. Of course. We know the realities of your work,” I said and managed to keep my voice light despite the growing ache and turmoil inside me.
Harrison pulled me into his arms, lifted my chin, and lay a soft kiss on my mouth. “I’m just going for a bit. Not leaving. I feel like it’s important to make that distinction.”
“You don’t have to explain. You don’t owe me, us, anything.”
He chewed the inside of his lip. “Right.”
I wouldn’t weigh down this glorious evening with my Frowny Frankie energy. It had been so good. More than good. Incredible.Let yourself have this.
If I were a woman of freedom, living a life of adventure, never tied down, I would need to be able to make physical connections and let them loose. I wouldn’t be able to have an emotional crisis every time. That wasn’t who I wanted to be.
I straddled Harrison’s lap with no warning. His eyebrows shot up.
“I guess we just have to take advantage of our time.”
I crawled farther down his body, planting kisses as I went.
“Oh. Well, who can argue with that,” he said.
