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I thought back on our past conversations about his work, fishing, and what it was like to grow up in Silver Point. Pairing that with the few things I had learned about how my mom spent her time in this time making pottery, swimming in the lake, and going for long walks and bike rides, one thing was abundantly clear. What a guy like Derek found attractive was vastly different from what guys back in New York went for.
I tried to imagine a stick-thin model like Natasha coming here. She’d starve, for one. Because I hadn’t seen a single vegan option on any of the menus around town, and she’d be lost at cooking her own veggies from the market. Two, she’d hate the dirt and the bugs and, most of all, the boredom. Not to mention there was the isolation from the outside world.
As much as I didn’t feel like I belonged there, none of those things had really bothered me to the point of being intolerable. The isolation and boredom part was frustrating, but not the end of the world.
“I guess I have been holding my own here after all,” I boasted to myself.
My eyes scanned the clothes strewn around my bed and landed on a few random old things I had brought for doing dirty work on the house. There was a pair of ripped-up old denim shorts that my butt looked great in, and then there was my baggy AC/DC shirt that was tattered thin but still somehow made me feel sexy in my own way. It was that letting loose, carefree grunge kind of sexy.
Maybe that was exactly the side of me that I needed to show Derek more of. Up until now, he had only seen the version of me that wore expensive designer clothes and radiated everything big city right down to the kind of work I did for a living. But there was more to me than that; I was learning. There was the side of me that liked watching the wildlife on long, slow walks or bike rides. The me that talked to ducks and let hours drift away while I sat in the sun on the deck. That was the Melody that would drink beer with him out on a boat, and it was time for him to meet her.
I slid into the cut-off shorts and baggy t-shirt, pulling my long wavy curls up into a big ponytail on top of my head. I started to put on some makeup in the mirror, but stopped myself. I had always tried to be so perfect around Evan, thinking that would be the kind of woman he’d want to marry. And look at where that got me. Besides, that wasn’t sustainable. After ten or fifteen years of marriage, I wouldn’t be waking up before him to rush to the bathroom and brush my teeth and put on mascara only to crawl back into bed and pretend I woke up looking that way.
No, it was time for me to start letting it all hang out. I was in the mood to be raw and real, and if that meant pushing Derek on what the hell was going on between us, so be it.
I started down the stairs barefoot with zero makeup on, finding Derek in the back sun room where he often went to saw down pieces of wood so he could open all the windows for ventilation.
Before saying anything, I stood there and admired him for a moment. He was sweating through his tight gray t-shirt as he sanded down a large plank of wood. His big muscles were bulging, as always. But now, I couldn’t see a hint of them without the vivid memory of what they looked like bare and exposed, writhing and thrusting around on top of me.
He noticed me while I was still entranced by the sight of him. I didn’t even bother tensing up or apologizing. I just smiled and let him watch me look him over.
“Hey,” he said in a surprised tone, looking me up and down in return. “I hope we didn’t wake you. I saw your text and assumed you were sleeping in or something.”
“No. I’ve been up for a while now.” I walked closer, circling him to study the work he was doing. “So, what’s going on here?”
“I’m sorry?” he puzzled.
I pointed to the big hunk of wood laid out before him. “What are you working on?”
“Oh. It’s a new door going out to the garage. The old one was warped, and it was letting in a draft,” he explained. “It’s all cut to size. Now I just have to sand out any imperfections and smooth out the edges. Then cut out the holes for the door knob and lock.”
I shook my head. “Show me how.”
“What?”
“Show me how you do it,” I repeated more insistently. “I have nothing better to do, and I figure while you’re here, I might as well learn a thing or two from you. Even though I’m not keeping this lake house, it doesn’t mean that I won’t want to own a home like it someday. It’d be good to know a thing or two about fixing stuff.”
“Okay,” he grinned, shaking his head in disbelief. “If you insist.”
“I do,” I said firmly, crossing my arms.
“Come here,” he waved, positioning me to stand in between his rock-hard chest and the wood plank. Then his eyes darted down to my bare feet. “Put some shoes on first. You don’t want to break a toe.”
I dipped into the hall to slip on some sneakers, then eagerly made my way over to stand in between him and the board. He leaned over, pressing me underneath him. His hands pinned mine down on the wood as his whole body folded over me.
“You have to get down to see it from this angle,” he rasped. “Then you can see the divets and bumps in the wood.”
I swallowed hard and tried to steady my shaky breath, but it was impossible to act normal with him so close to me and his hot breath on the back of my neck.
“Like that one there?” I said, licking my lips. The heat of his body against mine made me feel parched dry.
He grunted in affirmation, then spread my hand across a piece of sandpaper. He guided it over to the bubbled-up spot in the wood and pressed firmly, sliding it back and forth. Those motions were too good of a reminder of other rhythms our bodies had shared.
“Until it’s nice and smooth,” he said, pushing my hand and the sandpaper aside. He spread his palm across the surface to demonstrate.
Finally, he stood back and released me. It took me a moment to catch my breath.
“And the holes for the lock and knob?” I asked.
