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Sleeping in his bed, sleeping next to Fox… it actually sounded like a grand idea. My body ached for it. I could feel my cells rioting in place, making the urge to say yes so strong, I had to bite my tongue to stop myself.
I knew what my answer had to be: “No, no. I shouldn’t… Not tonight” What was I saying? I wanted it. The idea of sleeping next to this man set my blood on fire and my heart on turbo. I wanted Fox so fucking bad… And that’s when I knew I had to stop myself. Was that the rum talking? Was it the endorphins that still made my body feel like I was a jellyfish? Or was it the fresh (albeit admittedly mild) pain of breaking up with my girlfriend and losing my stability that was pushing me into this?
Or was it simply because I wanted Fox’s body on mine like a flower wanted sunlight?
“Right, of course.” Fox, to his credit, instantly backed off the idea. If he had asked again, I think my answer might have been different.
That’s when I spotted a photo on a nearby mantle. It was held inside of a five-by-seven matte-black frame and looked incredibly unassuming, tucked in between two large books, one with the words Guide to Miami Birds printed down the navy blue spine.
“Is that you?” I asked, pointing at the framed photo with my chin. There was a smiling young boy that I already knew had to be Fox. They had the same almond eyes and wide, bright smile. It was one of those Macy’s photos, with the painted-on picnic background and the questionably bright lighting. He wasn’t alone in the picture. There was a woman who also shared the same almond eyes that had cast a spell on me hours before. She radiated happiness as she held an arm around her son’s shoulder, their heads pressed together.
“Yup,” Fox said, confirming what I had already figured. But instead of falling into a heartwarming story about the time that photo was taken, which I also assumed would happen, Fox seemed to tense and pivot the conversation. “Did you enjoy the drinks tonight?”
That was… an odd segue. “Um, yeah. Really great rum. Where’d you get it?”
“Brought it back from a trip to Jamaica.”
“Nice… nice.”
I wanted to ask him about that photo so damn bad. Not because I was a nosy person, or because I wanted to make him feel uncomfortable. It was only because I wanted to know more about Fox. I wanted to know about what made him the man he was, who raised him, who shaped him. I wanted to hear all the stories about him learning to ride a bike and scraping his knees only to try again, or the stories of his holidays with his family, or whatever other stories Fox had to tell.
I just wanted to know… “Is she your mom?” I asked, steering the conversation back to the photo.
“Yup.”
Okay, I was done. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it and I wasn’t about to press.
And then Fox surprised me. “I was seven in that photo. It was for my birthday. She wanted to do something special, said she loved the number seven, thought it meant only great things. She was big into that kind of stuff. We went to the mall and got the photo taken. I remember her being so excited that morning, and then excited later when we were picking out clothes at the mall to wear for the shoot and took the photos. She wasn’t too excited when we had to return the clothes afterward, but we had the photos. Those we never had to return.”
He was looking up at the mantle, a distant smile on his face. I could feel the sadness radiating from him like a sudden change of temperature in the room, as if the air had plummeted.
“She’s beautiful,” I said, meaning it. The shot may have been taken in a mall, but she was giving it all to the camera. Her hair was full, and her complexion was flawless. Her face caught the overblown light like a professional, working her angles not only to look completely happy but also exceptionally beautiful.
“She had a beautiful soul, too.” He took a breath.
I got up from the bed, springs squealing, and walked over to the other couch. I took a seat next to Fox and placed a hand on his knee. I don’t know what drove me to do it, but the human connection seemed to have helped. He sniffed and straightened his back, looking up at the ceiling. “Life’s fucked-up, ain’t it?”
“It can be, yeah.” I rubbed Fox’s knee, totally aware that this wasn’t a “friend” thing to do and doing it anyway. “But it can also be really fucking beautiful, Fox. And a lot of that beauty only shows up after the bad shit happens. Like it needs that fertilizer to grow.”
