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“It’s not what you think,” she whispers, and I have to read her lips over the noise.
“And what was I thinking?” I prompt.
“That we’re on a date. That we’re more than friends.” Her voice grows loud enough to break the volume barrier, but not loud enough for others to hear us.
“His hand looked quite cozy on your thigh. For someone who’s just a friend,” I sneer.
Her hand runs down my chest and squeezes my hand. “Come outside with me.” And then she pushes past me, towing me out of the bar and away from him.
We weave through the crowd, exit the front and continue walking until she stops us beside her car in the back of the lot. When she spins around, she drops my hand and hits me with years of anger and frustration.
“What the hell, Gavin!”
“Sorry I interrupted your date with mister auto shop,” I jab, laying the sarcasm on thick. “I thought you two were just friends. Looks like he seems to think otherwise. Maybe I should go back inside and reiterate the definition for him.”
“First of all” —she points her finger in my face— “you have no say in regards to who I date and who I don’t. Second, why do you suddenly think you’re all high and mighty? What… you stroll back into town and think the whole place stopped existing when you left. That everything is exactly as it was when you left. Newsflash, asshole. Nothing is how you left it. Nothing.”
“I can see that,” I seethe, stepping closer into her space. “If it was how I left it, this conversation wouldn’t ever happen. We’d be…” I bite my tongue.
“What? What exactly would we be doing, Gavin?”
God, she is gorgeous when she gets angry. Dangerously so. And before I can form a rational response in my head, I reach for her face and drag her into me, crushing my lips to hers. Her hands shove and beat against my chest, her lips trying to pull away. But I strengthen my grip and get lost in the feel of her. The warmth. Her taste.
In two breaths, her will caves and she melts into me. Her hands fist my shirt as she kisses me with a fervor I have never known. I wrap one arm around her waist while the other hand skims up her back and gets lost in the length of her strands.
The kiss is packed with anger and frustration, fear and worry, happiness and pain. But most of all, it shares the depth of our deprivation. How neither of us has been complete since the day my mother put me on a plane and flew me thousands of miles away. How we have gone about life, but had forgotten what it was like to live.
She breaks the kiss, gasping for air as she tries to come back down to earth. When both of our bodies have calmed, she peeks up at me. “Gavin…” My name a blessing and a curse on her tongue. “Please. Please don’t hurt me again. I can’t…” she pleads. Begs me not to put her through the heartache she suffered thirteen years ago.
I yank her impossibly close to my chest, my arms cocooning her frail frame. “Shh. I know, baby. I know.” The ease with which the term of endearment slips out isn’t lost on me. It also doesn’t appear to bother Cora. We stand like this—her clutching me and me pressing her to my chest, rocking her—for minutes, maybe hours. Letting her go isn’t an option I am comfortable with, so I hold her and wait for her to break the connection. Praying she never will.
“Can we go somewhere to talk? I really don’t want to stand in this parking lot all night,” she whispers.
“Yeah. Wherever you want to go, baby.”
Somehow, we land on the beach. Of all the places we could have gone, not quite sure why she picked the beach. The park across the street from her house is more her style. But maybe she chose the beach because it is mine. Or maybe she chose the beach because that is where everything evolved for us. Where everything went from friends to something words can’t describe.
Either way, she is with me now and it is the only thing I focus on.
When we arrive at the beach, she pays a meter and we stroll north. After separating from the busier section of the beach, everything around us grows quieter and calmer. The only sounds are the crunch of sand under our shoes and the choppy water breaking on the shore. The air thick with humidity and salty on our skin. This part of the beach darker with the lack of businesses to illuminate it. A few residents out for a late-night walk.
Her hand presses softly against mine as she stops us from walking any further in the soft sand. Plopping down, our fingers still woven together, we sit on the beach and face the darkness of the Gulf. Neither of us says a word. We simply sit in silence and lean into each other for a while. Her ink-black hair whips across her face and mine.
The ease I have with Cora has never been replicated with any other person. Over the years, I tried dating. Tried putting myself out there and moving on, certain Cora was doing the same. And over time, I learned I would never find someone else who I’d want to be in a long-term relationship with. So, I shifted my ways. Became the polar opposite of how everyone knew me. Morphed into a slut. Because slutting around was easier than finding someone else and losing the one person you really wanted all along.
Because regardless of how things go between us now, Cora is it for me. The one soul on this planet, packed with eight billion others, meant for me. I have known it since the first day I saw her in high school, when she bolted into homeroom out of breath, making me out of breath. Confirmed it when we kissed for the first time, a beach not many miles from this one, and my soul sighed while my heart soared. I will never experience that with another person.
Nor do I want to.
“Gavin,” she whispers into the darkness, breaking me from my introspection.
I turn and kiss her temple. “What, baby?”
She rests her chin on my shoulder, the waning moonlight illuminating her enough to where I can make out the soft lines and strong features of her face. Eyes a muted green in the shadows. Skin seemingly paler. Lips red and full and inviting. “How can this possibly work?” Her question weighs heavy and is full of doubt.
How can I reassure her everything will work out? That I have the capability to move closer to her. How I don’t have to be located on the other side of the country to work. I know she should know this, with what she does for work. But there is only one way she will believe it all. Proof. And I have to give it to her.
My eyes hone in on hers. “I want to move back. The sooner, the better,” I admit.
