"I know." He doesn't stop.
Two fingers push into me, curling up on every stroke, while his tongue circles slow and deliberate, and I'm not twenty-three anymore but my body files this away like no time passed at all — every place he used to go, and he finds all of them without asking, like his hands remember the map even when the rest of him had to relearn my face. He adds a third finger when I start rocking against his hand, and the stretch of it, combined with his mouth working exactly the right pressure, has my thighs shaking around his shoulders inside a minute.
I come against his mouth, hips jerking, his name breaking in half in my throat. He doesn't let up until I push at his head, oversensitive, laughing and swearing at the same time.
He comes up over me before I've caught my breath, settling his weight between my legs, and I get a hand around his cock — hot, thick, the head already slick — and stroke, root to tip, twice, until he swears against my ear, low and wrecked.
"Now," I say.
"Not done being patient." He's lying. He lines himself up, drags the head of his cock through how wet I am, once, just to watch my face do something, and then pushes in — slow, one long relentless stroke that has both of us groaning at the same time. He's bigger than I remember, or I've just forgotten, and either way I feel every inch of the slide, the stretch, the fullness of him bottoming out. For a second neither of us moves. Ten years condensed into one held breath and his forehead dropped against mine.
"Okay?"
"Move."
He does. Hard, deep, unhurried strokes that have his hips snapping against mine, one hand braced by my head and the other gripping my hip hard enough to leave marks, holding me exactly where he wants me while he fucks me the way I remember he can when he stops holding back — full-body, deliberate, nothing careful about it. I dig my nails into his shoulder blade. He groans against my throat, a sound I feel more than hear.
"Look at me," he says. "Want to watch you."
I do. His jaw is tight, sweat gathering at his hairline, and when he shifts his angle so every thrust drags against the spot that makes my whole body clench, I go over again — sudden, hard, my back arching off the bed, his name torn out of me.
He follows a few strokes later, hips stuttering, a rough broken sound against my neck as he comes deep inside me and stays there, both of us shaking, his weight braced on his forearms so he doesn't crush me.
He doesn't pull out right away. Presses his mouth to my temple, breathing like he ran here.
"Ten years," he says. “And you’re more perfect than ever.”
six
Owen
Iwakeupatfive-thirty out of habit. It's still dark, barely, the room going the very pale grey of pre-dawn. She's asleep on her side, facing me, one hand tucked under her chin.
I stay still.
I watch her sleep for a few minutes, which is something I haven't done in ten years and which I'd forgotten is one of the small private pleasures of sharing a space with someone you care about. She sleeps differently than she used to — more contained, less sprawled. More like a woman who's learned to take up an efficient amount of space.
I realize that I was wrong. Not just about telling her to go. About everything I've been telling myself since. That she left because she wanted a different life. That Silver Ridge wasn't enough. That I was the one who stayed and that staying made me right.
She left because I let her. Because I saidtake itwhen I should have saidstay, if you can, and I'll find a way to make it worth your while.
I get up at six, make coffee, sit at the kitchen table.
She comes out at seven in my flannel shirt. I don't say anything about that because I'm forty percent certain I'll say it wrong.
She pours herself a cup and sits down across from me and looks like someone who is preparing for a conversation they're not sure they want to have. She's quiet for a moment.
Outside, the morning is starting. I can hear the birds.
"Okay," she sighs. "Tell me what you want to say."
I take a breath. I've been sitting here for an hour partly because of this.The saying-it.
"I told you to go," I say. "I told you to take the job. And I've spent ten years calling that the right call. Telling myself I was respecting your choice. That it was what you needed."
She's watching me.
"It wasn't the right call," I say. "I was twenty-four and proud and I didn't know how to saystay without the job if you have to, and I'll come with you if I can, but I need you to know that I want you to stay.I didn't have the language for it. So I said the easier thing."
