Page 9 of Second Chance Summer

Bad timing.

I get up and walk to the bathroom, and once I’m in the safety of the women’s restroom, I breathe deeply, pacing the floor, fighting back tears and willing myself not to become the emotional wreck that I am behind all of this outward display of strength. Bent over at the sink, I hear the door open. I don’t pay it any attention, thinking it’s just someone coming in to use the restroom, but something in my body, in my psyche, tells me it’s someone else.

It’s him.

It’s the man I have soul ties with. The only man I’ve ever loved.

“Lanai?”

“Hendrick, what are you doing? You can’t be in here.”

“I locked the door.”

There are three stalls in here, and he’s talking about he locked the door. We’re going to get banned from this restaurant and possibly the entire resort.

He walks up to me, puts his hands on my face to move my head up toward him. He says, “Why can’t we do this without the therapists, the doctors, this retreat? Why can’t we just fix this?”

“We’ve tried, Henny.”

“Then we keep trying until we get it right. I’m not perfect, Nai, but I love you. You do know that, don’t you?”

A tear falls from my eye because I know that’s true. There’s no doubt in my mind concerning his love for me. I love him, too. It’s just the other things I don’t like, and maybe they shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Am I messing this marriage up with unrealistic expectations?

Hendrick wipes the wetness from my face and pulls me closer to him – to his lips – and kisses me for the first time in months. I almost forgot how good he was at it – at emptying my mind of all worries with that hot tongue of his. My thoughts fail me when he’s exploring my mouth, and for this short, blissful time, I forget that we’re at odds and remember all the times when we were good. When everything between us made sense. His arms around me, his thick tongue filling my mouth, the moans emitting from my throat, the throbbing between my legs – it all makes sense, but only with him.

My husband.

How is it that we can be this way – in a state of distress – yet still yearn for each other the way we do? It baffles me because as easily as we can be this, we can drift right back to the opposite end of the spectrum and be people who can’t take the same first-class flight to Hawaii.

At the moment, I feel like my body has taken flight because Hendrick lifts me from the floor and places me on the counter where he stands between my legs and dives deep into my mouth again. His tongue searches every crevice, every tastebud. He rolls his tongue, pulls back, licks my lips, and kisses me again with deep strokes. Then he tatters kisses down my neck.

A knock at the door nearly paralyzes me.

“Henny,” I say desperately. “We gotta get out of here.”

“I don’t want to,” he utters against my lips, looking like he’s drunk in love.

“We don’t have a choice. We’re holding up the whole restroom, and somebody’s at the door,” I say desperately while he continuously feasts on my neck. “Henny—”

“Stop interrupting me.”

I laugh a little and say, “Hendrick Vaillant—if you don’t get your mouth off my neck.”

“This my neck,” he says and drags his tongue down to my collarbone, causing my body to jerk. I’m trying to keep moans at bay while at the same time fighting to succumb to his seduction.

“Dr. Makalua is probably wondering…wondering where…where we are,” I tell him.

“I don’t care. Dr. Akuna Matata can wait.”

I laugh at his new name for our doctor. I’m so tickled, tears come to my eyes. He stops kissing me and just looks at me instead.

“What?” I ask, still smiling and wiping my eyes.

“I haven’t seen that in a long time. Your smile. The way you laugh until you cry. I miss it.”

I slide off the counter, smooth out my dress, and peer into the mirror to fix my hair and make sure my smudge-proof lipstick held up to its name. It did. I take Hendrick’s hand and say, “Come on. We gotta go.”

Luckily, whoever was at the door has since left, so there’s no one here to witness us exiting together.