IN THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF MORNING, here on the porch, there are so few traces of the night Rhyson and I shared out in that shed. A fresh beginning crisps the air. The heavy, velvety pre-rain cloak has been shed. No breeze stirs the chimes out back, and only the faint caw of a bird here and there disturbs the quiet. If it weren’t for the puddles lining the graveled driveway, I wouldn’t even know the rain had come and gone.
One thing remains. The intimacy bred between our bodies still grips us. I stand in the strong circle of Rhyson’s arms, and every time I look away I’m afraid I’ll miss something. The last few days have drawn us impossibly, inexorably closer, and it’s hard to imagine anything that could separate us. Except I know there is something. A nasty secret that could crack the very connection walling us away from the rest of the world every time we’re together. Love, fear, regret, guilt stir inside of me. I’m as at odds with myself as early Spring, with its morning frost and afternoon heat. One thing is clear. I don’t want him to go.
But a discreetly designer duffle bag rests on the top step, and there’s a plane idling somewhere until Rhyson arrives, ready to take him back to LA.
“Two days.” He leans down, cupping one side of my face and kissing the other. “I’ll be back in two days.”
“When are you taking me on that vacation? And where did you say we were going again?” I ask, faking innocent as best I can.
“You think that works?” He binds both my wrists in one hand, pulling me closer until his words mist my lips. “You think you can just bat those pretty eyes and I’m putty in your hands, don’t you? You think you have me wrapped around your little finger, huh?”
That’s the furthest thing from what I think since Rhyson is always trying to boss me around and control every aspect of my life, so I just stare at him, slightly stunned, even though he has to be joking.
He bends to whisper in my ear, dusting kisses down my neck.
“You’re right. I’m totally wrapped, but I’m still not telling you.”
“Just a hint?”
“Okay. I can guarantee you it’s somewhere that won’t require clothes and allows for a lot of open air fucking.”
A laugh cracks my face open, and I throw my head back.
“You make it sound like a sport.”
“Once you get your wind back, it will be,” he says, his voice a husky promise.
I laugh into his neck, committing to memory his clean scent and the warmth, the strength of his chest under my hands. Clinging to the impression of his lips on me. I tip up, angling my mouth under his, opening him up for me. Sliding in to deliver the wordless message of how much I will miss him while he’s gone. These last moments we have together are a cup, both bottomless and full, with this kiss running over the side, spilling out, dousing us with need and love.
The screen door opens behind us, and Rhyson jerks back, breaking the sweet, heated contact. He looks over my head, running his fingertips over his mouth, chagrin all over his face.
“Shit.” He rolls his eyes at himself. “I mean, shoot. Morning, Aunt Ruthie.”
I can’t bring myself to tell him Aunt Ruthie doesn’t really care much about swearing, except in the house of the Lord. She and I are having too much fun watching him struggle with it. I glance over my shoulder to find her standing at the screen door entrance, and sure enough, her mouth sets in a firm line, but if you know her like I do, you see full-on mischief in her eyes.
“Morning.” Aunt Ruthie steps out onto the porch, looking between the two of us. “Didn’t hear you two come in last night.”
Before I can answer, Rhyson starts stammering and umming.
“Um, well, we . . . we just kinda . . .” He looks at me for help. No freaking way am I helping him. Rhyson doesn’t let anyone get to him, so to see him flustered by my harmless little Aunt Ruthie is too good to pass up. “I guess we just fell asleep in the shed, right, Kai?
“Did we sleep?” I ask innocently, pressing an inch closer. Swear to God, he jumps back like I’m a hot poker, giving me “what the hell” wide eyes.
“You slept in that old dusty place?” Aunt Ruthie shakes her head and shrugs. “Well there’s some eggs and grits in the kitchen if you want to grab some.”
“I just had some coffee. Thank you.” Rhyson gestures to the duffle bag on the step. “I need to get back to LA for a couple days, but I’ll be back.”
“Be safe then.” Aunt Ruthie turns her attention to me, most of the laughter at Rhyson’s expense gone. “I’m going into town to run some errands. Thinking of clearing out some space in the office, giving some things to Goodwill. You might wanna look to make sure there isn’t anything you want to keep.”
The words run a tiny razor blade across my heart, nicking open places I thought were healed. By “office” she means Mama’s old bedroom, where she drew her last breath. By “some things” she means my mother’s things.
“I might take the sewing machine back with me.” I shrug. “Not much else at this point, I don’t think.”
“Just check to make sure.” Aunt Ruthie pats my shoulder and gives it a squeeze.
“All right.” I glance up at Rhyson when he grabs my hand, compassion and love in the look he gives me. Is he just naturally sensitive? His artist’s nature? Or is it just with me? Is it that chain that connects us? A conduit that runs straight from my heart to his.
“This you, Rhyson?” Aunt Ruthie tips her chin toward the yard and a black Escalade sidling up beside the one Rhyson drove us from the airport in. We took a chartered flight here, so we didn’t have many onlookers. I’d been so exhausted I didn’t even question why none of Rhyson’s security detail was traveling with him. I’d just enjoyed the privacy.
“Yeah, that’s me.” Rhyson meets the questions in my eyes with a small smile.
“Well, I’ll see you when you get back.” Aunt Ruthie gives Rhyson a hug, which makes him grin at me over her shoulder like he just got perfect attendance at vacation Bible school.
This man of mine.
“She likes you, Rhys,” I tell him as Aunt Ruthie crosses the yard to her old Ford Tempo. “I’ve never seen you so . . . nervous with anyone before.”
“Not nervous. Just . . . it’s important to me, okay?”
“I know it is, baby.” I peck his cheek. “Is that Gep?”
I shade my eyes, watching him and another hulky guy get out of the Escalade. The second guy drives away in the other SUV, almost identical to ours, and Gep leans against the truck, checking his phone.
“Yeah.” Rhyson toys with my fingers.
“He just got here?”
“No, he’s been here. He and another team member were staying in town.” He gives me a hooded look. “He’s pretty much always with me, even if you don’t see him.”
“In Berlin?”
“Up the hall, two rooms down. I only get so much privacy. You know that. And half the time the little I get is a bit of an illusion.”
“At the beach?” The day had been so special. I hope Gep wasn’t hiding on a boat in the harbor watching with binoculars or something.
“That day it was just us.” He links our fingers on his chest. “I promise.”
He considers me for a moment before speaking again.
“We’ll need to assign someone to you after we go public, Pep.”
“To me?” I unlink our fingers to lay a hand on my chest. “I don’t need security like you do, Rhys. I’m not that famous.”
“Not to sound like an asshole, but I am that famous, and if you’re with me, you need security.” He pauses. “That’s my life. That’s our life, you know?”
“I don’t want that until I really need it.”
“You really need it as soon as everyone knows you’re mine. I didn’t push before, but now you have some degree of fame on your own, too.” He bites the inside of his jaw, like he’s weighing his next words. “You meant what you said last night, right? About our future? About kids? All of that?”
“You know I did.” I say it so softly anyone else on the porch wouldn’t even hear. Like it’s our little secret from the world how committed we are to each other, and maybe I want it to be.
“You know me, Kai. Do you honestly think I’m gonna have you walking around some mall with my kids unprotected? At Whole Foods? The movie theater? That’s not our normal. It doesn’t work that way, and I need you to accept the way it does work.”
It feels like my bottom lip has slid into a slight pout, but that would be childish, so I tighten my lips around any counterpoint I could come up with.
“Baby, please. I don’t want to spend the last ninety seconds we have together arguing about something you know damn well I’m not caving on.” He slides his palms down my back until they cup my butt, pulling me up onto my toes and into him. “Yield.”
It’s hard to be obstinate when he has me like this. When I can feel how much he wants me, how much he loves me. When I want, more than anything, to make sure he knows I feel the same. I flatten my elbows against his chest and nod. He drops a final kiss into my hair.
“Gep’ll work out the details when you get back to LA. In the meantime,” he says, reaching into his pocket and retrieves something, but closes his hand over his palm so I can’t see what it is. “I have a parting gift for you.”
“I get a parting gift when you leave?” I laugh, shaking my head. “And just for two days?”
“What can I say? I’m an extravagant guy.”
He opens his hand, and my mouth falls open. Delight and shock mix up to spread a huge grin over my face. He has the little sheer bag containing all the broken pieces of the ballerina my mother gave me so long ago.
“Where’d you find this?”
“Find. Stole. Semantics. I may have opened some of the boxes packed in your room when you left on tour. I wanted something of yours while we were apart.” He shrugs. “I wanted something of you with me.”
That self-consciousness comes over him like it does every time he’s thoughtful, like he’s not used to how well sweetness fits him.
“I didn’t know . . . still don’t know . . . what it is,” he continues. “But I figured something this broken worth holding on to had to be special to you.”
It’s so broken and so special my fingers tremble as I take it from him.
“I’ve been looking for it.”
“I’m sorry, Pep.” He frowns, palming the side of my neck. “I didn’t even think about that.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s a ballerina. Mama . . .”
My words evaporate as I remember the day my ballerina broke. The day Mama broke in our living room. I couldn’t ever really put either of them back together after that. I slip the bag in my jeans pocket.
“I’m glad you had it with you,” I say, leaning into him and turning to kiss his palm.
“Well, I’m returning it now that I have you back.” He takes my chin between two fingers. “And not planning to let you go anytime soon.”
He draws me up for a kiss that turns me liquid, his mouth searching out even any lingering sadness until I taste nothing but him, see and feel nothing but him. His kisses take me hostage. We cling to each other on the porch, slowing the kiss until we just share breath, his head pressed to mine.
“I don’t want to leave you.” He kisses my forehead. “But that plane won’t wait forever, and Gep’s getting this show for free.”
I had forgotten the somber security guard still leaning against the Cadillac SUV, ostensibly checking his phone.
Rhyson moves to pull away, but I grip his neck, reaching up to whisper in his ear.
“I live you.”
He pulls back enough to look at my face, and every promise and dream of our future from last night in the shed rushes back, filling up this moment that’s just ours, even with Gep looking on. He nods.
“I live you, too, Pep.”
Reluctance marks every motion as he grabs the duffle bag and starts down the steps. He walks backwards and keeps talking.
“What’s the rest of your day look like?”
“I’m gonna try to make Mama’s soap.” My smile is a recipe, equal parts content and sad. “I’m down to my last bar.”
“We can’t have that. I need cinnamon pear in my life.” His eyes grow more serious with every step carrying him away from me. “Take care of yourself ‘til I get back, okay?”
I lean against the porch rail and nod, emotion crowding the words out of my throat. It’s only two days, but after being apart, after last night in the shed, after these last few moments, two days feels like forever. He gives me one last smile and then turns to go.