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“The only thing I need from you,” I interrupt him, “is to keep doing that with your hands.” We’re both quiet for a spell, Godzilla terrorizing Japan on the television. “Are your parents normal people?”
“My parents sacrificed everything for me,” he answers immediately.
I wish I could meet them one day but I don’t say that aloud because he’s been touchy about his family and, well, I’m not his girlfriend. “Tell me about them, off the record? What’s it like having parents who love you?” I try to joke at the end but there’s a touch of truth to it I try not to think about.
He thinks for moment before he speaks. “Mum worked at a distillery, the oldest on our island. Pop was a marine mechanic. I used to head to his shop after school and help him fix the boat motors. The whole town worked on cod boats, pretty much, so we did a lot of fishing when I was young.”
“Did you ever see Nessie?”
“Aye, all the time I’d spot Nessie while wearing my kilt and playing bagpipes, smartass.”
He can’t see my face but it’s covered in a huge grin. “So your dad worked on boats and your mom worked at a distillery.”
“Aye.”
“And your dad built you a kart when you were three. When did you start racing competitively?”
“Five.”
“FIVE?” I try to turn my head and look at him but he turns it back straight, always having to be in control of everything. “And your brother?”
“Sixteen. Thinks he wants to go into F1,” he sighs.
“You don’t want him to,” I say, knowing the answer and understanding a little more of why now.
“No. Be right back.” He scoots off the bed and disappears into the bathroom. Water is running and I wonder if he’s in the shower, his way of stopping the conversation he might still be uncomfortable with.
A few minutes later the bathroom door opens and Lennox strolls back to me on the bed, stark naked. “Well, hello,” I wag my eyebrows at him. Silently, he lifts me up, one arm under my knees and one under my head, and carries me into the bathroom.
He’s drawn a bath in the deep two-person soaking tub. He sets me on my feet and looking into my eyes, he pulls my tank off, slides my pajama pants to the floor and helps me into the tub before stepping in to join me on the opposite side. The warm water surrounds me and the bubbles waft up the scent of the hotel’s spicy’s body wash. Neither of us speaks as he gently runs a bar of soap over my whole body.
Something is different in his face, his eyes, but I can’t place it. I study him in silent appreciation.
When he’s washed everything on me, I twirl my fingers asking him to turn around. He spins and I take the soap from him and start on his back, massing as I go, though my hands are nowhere near as strong. The soap drops into the water and my hands run over his back tattoo. I’ve studied it every chance I’ve had. A massive fish is swirling and trying to eat a smaller fish thrashing to get away. Both fish are thick outlines filled with bold Gaelic designs inside, ropes and knots twisting. A' bhiast as mutha ag ithe na beiste as lugha is written, the writing following the curve of the writhing bigger fish. “What does it mean?” I whisper, not wanting to break our silence but needing to know.
“I guess the closest translation would be ‘Big fish eat little fish’.”
I ponder at all the meanings that could have to a man like Lennox and trace the outlines with my fingers.
“The great devour the small. The powerful swallow up the insignificant.” He sighs, his hand trailing up and down my leg next to him.
Boom, mic drop. Take my heart, take it all.
My chest tightens, my heart breaks open and fills with feelings for him I can’t control anymore. Nothing about this man is insignificant. I’ve been made to be the little, insignificant fish my whole life, too. Fuck all of those people who make us feel like this.
Us.
I scoot around to his front and climb into his lap, kneeling over him. I take his face in my palms and stare into his eyes, the green of moss and pine and sage, amazed at the man he really is, the one he lets me see. I kiss him senseless, he reaches for a condom from a toiletry kit on the sink and sheathes himself. I sink down on him in the water. I pull his head into my breasts and he wraps his arms around my waist, helping me raise and lower on his hardness until we
both come apart again in each other’s arms.
Eighteen
“Yes, I know that love is like ghosts. Oh, and the moonlight baby shows you what is real. There ain’t language for the things I feel. And if I can’t have you then no one ever will.” - Lord Huron - Love Like Ghosts
Lennox
Usually, on my recovery day, which is nothing but a fancy way of saying lay around like a bum all day, I take full advantage and sleep for ninety percent of it. I tossed and turned all night and am kicking around my flat at headquarters now somewhere between restless and ruinous.
