Page 50 of Breakaway
"The wine was a seven-eight."
"Go to sleep."
"Seven-eight. Notes column: consumed before Wes said he loves me. Premium applied."
His breathing evens out. His weight settles against me. His hand stops moving on my chest and his fingers spread wide and go still.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand. The camera roll opens to the photograph from this afternoon. His feet in the wet sand. The water pulling back around his toes. The light on his skin and the whole ocean behind him.
I set it as my wallpaper.
He is asleep on my chest with the balcony door open and the ocean steady through the room and three days of this trip stillahead of us. The world feels more full than it did hours ago when I took that picture.
?
Chapter 18: Wes
Icut the limes before he gets here. Two glasses, two wedges, the knife rinsed and set on the towel. The villa is the same villa we’ve come to the last two years. White walls, blue shutters, the bougainvillea on the left side thicker than last year. The lock still sticks. The water pressure is still poor.
The taxi pulls up and I hear the door. I hear his shoes on the tile walkway, the bag hitting his hip, the pause before the knock.
I open the door before he knocks.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey."
He’s wearing the t-shirt I bought him in Wynwood and it sits differently on his shoulders than it did a year ago, looser where it used to pull. His face is the same face but the lines under his eyes are deeper and his jaw is sharper and I am noticing all of this in the time it takes him to set his bag inside the door.
"How was the flight?"
"Long. The layover in Charlotte was brutal." He picks up the glass I left on the counter. Sees the lime. Holds it up and tilts it toward the light. "Seven-two. Good skin, good juice ratio."
"You just got here and you're already rating the lime."
"The lime is the first impression." He drinks the sparkling water. Sets it down. Looks at the room the way you look at a room you are trying to recognize. "Water pressure still a six?"
"Still a six."
"Three years and nobody has addressed this."
"I mentioned it to the owner when I booked."
"Adequate is not a complaint, Wes. Adequate is a permission slip. You have to say it's a six or they think you're fine with it."
"I am fine with it."
"You have been fine with a six for three years and I have been suffering." He pauses like he might say something else, and then doesn’t.
"I'm glad you're here," I say.
"I'm glad I'm here too."
He puts his hand on my arm. His fingers are warm and his grip tightens once and I feel his body shift toward mine, the whole weight of five months leaning into the three inches between us. I pull him in by the waist. His forehead presses against my shoulder and he breathes out and his ribs expand under my hands and I can feel them. Every one.
Later, in the bedroom with the fan turning and the balcony door cracked, I reach for him and he reaches back and the distance closes in the only way we know how to close it from here. His body is against mine, my mouth against his. It’s been almost two months since we were together, but our bodies move instinctively together, quick and urgent.
After, I clean us up. He rolls onto his side. His hand is on my chest and the distance is back, sitting between us like a third person in the bed. His breathing slows and I think he is asleep but he’s not.
