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I might fail. She might trample my heart again, but to be able to finally claim her as mine, is a hell of an upside.
The door slides open, Regan steps out onto the balcony, and my eyes nearly fall out of my head.
I’ve seen her naked and it shouldn’t make me nearly swallow my tongue. But as she walks toward the hot tub, bathed in silver moonlight, I see Venus, - my ultimate woman – come to life.
She’s got on this tiny silver bikini. Her dark hair is swept back and off her face and sits piled on top of her head. It gives me an unobstructed view of her exquisitely symmetrical face, and her long, graceful neck. Her wide, thickly lashed eyes look bigger. Her kiss swollen lips are slick with the coconut lip balm she bought from the small gift store in our hotel lobby.
“Where’d you go?” she asks as she climbs in and sits next to me.
I reach over the side and lift up the tightly rolled joint. “To get this, our tour guide told me where I could.”
“I didn’t know doctor’s smoked weed,” she looks scandalized when I lift it to my lips.
“And, now you do. And it’s not something I’d do if I had to work in the morning,” I say, light it again, and hand it to her.
She gives the joint a dubious side eye, her pert, sunburned nose wrinkling. “I’ve never tried it. I don’t want to be hungover.”
“You won’t be hungover. But, no pressure.” I pull it back to my lips.
“Wait.” She lays one of her small, neatly manicured hands on my forearm.
“Change your mind?” I ask with a knowing smile.
She nods, but instead of taking it from me, she leans forward. “Show me how?”
There’s meaning layered in those three words that gives them a gravity that I’m helpless to resist. It pulls me to her the wa
y the moon and the sun pull the tide.
She puckers her lips to make a tiny ‘O” for the joint, I put it to her lips, my heart hammering wildly when her lips touch the backs of my fingers as she draws in the heady smoke. I slip my other hand behind her neck and pull her forward, so that our lips are almost touching. When she exhales, I pull the curling white smoke into my mouth.
Her eyes dart to my lips. I trace small circles on the soft, damp nape of her neck. She sighs and a wide smile spreads on her face, her eyelids droop as the joint starts to take effect.
I take her hands in mine and lift them to press a kiss to each of her palms.
What started as a casual caress turns into a genuinely interested inspection. Her nails are short and painted in a glossy color that reminds me of Marble Slab’s sweet cream ice cream. They’re elegant and with not a single chip in sight. But her fingers and the back of her hands have faint scars that are completely at odds with the rest of her.
“Don’t look at my hands,” she says and pulls them out my grasp and tries to tuck them under the sheets. I grab her wrists and pull them back up and after a few seconds she stops resisting and lets me look at them.
“Why not?” I ask.
“They’re terrible. My kids are picky eaters, and most nights I make three different meals, and my hands take a beating, nicks and cuts, oil splatters, whatever. I draw as little attention to them as possible. Nude nails, no extravagant rings.”
She curls her fingers inward and I lower my head to press kisses to her knuckles as I uncurl them one at a time so that I can press our palms together. My hands dwarf hers.
“They’re beautiful. And your kids are lucky. Even before I went to Blackwell, I don’t remember my mother cooking a single meal.”
She turns our joined hands over and examines mine. “Tell me about her. Where is she?”
“Right now? In College Station. Hayes came back to town and she scampered. She doesn’t need money since my stepfather left her an annuity. We’ve all been estranged from her for years, except Dare – my youngest brother.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.” The pity in her eyes makes my skin feel one size too small.
“Don’t be. I’m not. Like you said, family isn’t for everyone.” My mother didn’t completely abdicate her role. But she didn’t do much more than was required to keep Child Protective Services off her back.
All the things a parent is supposed to guide you through— friendships, falling in love, learning to drive, getting applications in on time —I taught myself, and then tried to teach my younger brothers. I did the best I could, but it wasn’t always enough.
“Yeah, but still, I’m sorry,” she repeats, her expression not at all what it should be. I don’t want to talk about my mother and tarnish the shine off this last night with the bitterness just talking about her evokes.
