chapter twenty-nine
A noise wakes me. I look around my dark bedroom and grab my phone to check the time. 2:00 a.m. I pull on a pair of sweat pants and open the door to the hallway. In the dim light shining from the street into our hallway window, I can see Skylar’s bedroom door open. I stop at the threshold. “Skylar?”
I walk through her room and check the bathroom. Empty. I make my way downstairs only to see the light over the stove illuminated like always. Skylar uses it as a night light. A habit from when she was a child and she would wake up for a glass of water. Her father got one too many stubbed toes walking her to the kitchen, so he started leaving the light over the stove on every night.
We don’t need it. The light from the lamppost comes through the windows by the front door, spreading just enough light in the main level so you can see where you’re walking. Still, she leaves it on every night. And if she forgets, I turn it on for her.
“Skylar?” I look at the couch to see if she fell asleep on it. I look in the playroom. I start to panic and decide to run back to my room and get my phone to call her. Passing by the basement stairway, I see a faint light. I descend the stairs and can’t help smiling at what I find at the bottom. I quietly watch her sift through the stack of pictures from between the couch cushions that she doesn’t know I know about.
My feet are cemented to the ground as I stare at her. Her hair is pulled up, long tendrils escaping the messy bun on the top of her head. She has on a short silky robe that falls slightly off one shoulder, revealing a matching spaghetti-strap nightgown. In the soft light of the lamp, I can’t tell what color her nightgown is. I hope it’s green. I know it would make her eyes look amazing.
She reclines back into the couch, pulling one of the pillows over her breasts. One of the pillows I used to sleep on when this couch was in my room. She brings it to her face, closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath through her nose.
Holy Shit. She’s smelling me.
She’s looking at her secret stash of pictures and smelling me.
I clear my throat and she jumps. She looks at the pictures in her hand and quickly shoves them down into the side of the couch, depositing the pillow right on top of them. Does she really think I didn’t notice her looking at them?
She’s quiet. She doesn’t say anything about my senior picture that I put in the mix. Maybe she didn’t see it yet. Maybe she just got down here right before I did.
She sits up and tucks her legs under her, eyeing my bare torso. Her obvious enchantment with my exposed skin makes me want to pound on my chest like King Kong.
I walk over as if I’m completely unfazed by her gawking. “Are you okay? Did you have more of those false contraction things?”
Relief washes over her face when I don’t call her out on the pictures. She shakes her head. “No. Well, yes, I get them occasionally, but that’s not why I’m down here.”
I try not to smile. I know why she’s down here. I know exactly why she’s down here. She wanted to see me. Smell me. She wants me, but being the stubborn woman she is, she just can’t admit it and let us get on with things. Things like kissing. And touching. And making love. And more kissing.
I eye her full lips and wonder if pregnancy has made them fuller, or if they’ve always been like that.
She puts her hands on her prominent belly and sighs. “I miss her.”
I close the distance between us. I’m now able to confirm that her nighttime attire is in fact green. I long to reach out and touch it, knowing it’s probably as silky as her skin. As soft as her wavy hair. I sit down next to her, leaving only a few inches of space between us.
“Me, too,” I say. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she was looking at pictures of Erin and not ogling me.
She nods. “She was my best friend,” her small voice cracks out.
“Mine, too.” I grab her hand in mine, letting them fall to the couch between us.
Her fingers tense, but she doesn’t pull away. “I’ve never known someone so genuine and kind,” she says. “Erin was like a sister to me. Sometimes I feel so selfish, being pissed off that she died and can no longer be my friend. Not that I don’t have great friends. But it’s just . . . I don’t think I’ll ever have another friend like her.” She sniffs and wipes a tear. “I talk to her, you know. At night. I tell her about my job, about Bean, about life.” She looks over at me. “Do you think she hears? Do you think she knows what’s going on down here?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder the same things.”
“Do you think she would be disappointed in us?” she asks.
I shrug. I can’t answer that. Not without guilt weighing down on me. Not without making Skylar feel guilty as well. I feel like a dick not reassuring her, but the fact is, I just don’t know.
“She was the only one who never judged me,” she says.
I watch as the tears roll down her face, some being stopped by her lips, only to be swiped away as her tongue comes out to catch them. It’s all I can do not to reach out and wipe them. But we’re talking about my wife. Seems an inappropriate time to touch her so intimately.
I give her hand a squeeze. “I never judged you, Skylar.”
She pulls her hand away, tucking it under her leg to restrict my access to it. “Yes, you did.”
“I did?”
She nods. “When we first met. I know you were only being diligent about the whole surrogacy process, but you made a snide comment about my promiscuous past.”
I close my eyes. I did say that. But not for the reason she thinks. “I’m sorry. You’re right that I said it, but it wasn’t because I was judging your past.”
Her head tilts to the side as her skeptical eyes question me.
“I said it because I was being a jackass. Because when I saw you, something inside me shifted.” I shake my head, still harboring feelings of guilt over it. “I loved Erin. I always will. And I never would have cheated on her. But I couldn’t deny my instant attraction to you. It scared me and I was trying to deflect my feelings.”
Her eyes soften and she lets out an almost inaudible laugh. “I have a confession to make, too.”
“Really?” I turn towards her, putting my arm on the back of the couch.
“This couch. I didn’t move it out of the bedroom because it reminded me of Erin. I moved it down here because it smelled of you and it was . . . distracting having it up there.” Her eyes fall to my chest once again. I wonder if she can see the way my heart beats faster every time she looks at me like this.
“Distracting, huh?” I find it hard to hide my smirk.
She ignores my expression, pushing herself up off the couch. She walks across the studio. She grabs a tissue from the desk and blots her eyes. The tissue box and the folder lying underneath it teeter off the desk, falling to the ground.
“Oh, sorry,” she says, leaning down to gather the photos that scattered across the floor.
Before I realize what happened, she gasps. “What are these?”
I try to scoop them up, but she pushes me aside. She spreads them over the desk and turns on the overhead light to get a better look. Shock washes over her face as she takes in the pictures. They’re the close-up photos I took of her weeks ago as she slept on the couch. Intimate photos of each body part. Then there are the ones I took while I waited at the coffee shop. Several of the pictures show the locket as it lies between her breasts.
Her hand comes up to touch the locket. “What the hell, Griffin? Why were you taking pictures of me when I didn’t know it?” She turns around to face me, tightening her robe as if it will add a layer of armor to protect her vulnerability. “These pictures are fucking creepy.”
I roll my eyes at her, but keep my comments about her word choice to myself. “Oh, right. I’m the creepy one.” I walk over to the couch and pull her stash out, holding them up for her to see. I thumb through them and grab a few that she took at the picnic. “You did the same thing, Skylar. You took pictures of me.”
“Ugh!” She stomps over and plucks the pictures from my hands, depositing them in the trash bin. “It’s not the same thing.”
“It’s not? What is it then? Why do you look at those pictures?”
“Because I miss Erin, you ass.”
I go over to the trashcan and pull one of the pictures out. “Because you miss Erin, huh?” I hold up the picture in front of her. “Look at this one—this close up of my face. Do you sit and look at it, fantasizing about my stubble rubbing between your legs?”
Her jaw drops. She grabs the picture from me, tearing it in two.
“Why are you so damn stubborn, woman? How come you keep stringing along John, knowing full well that I’m the man you want in your bed?”
“You?” She shakes her head. “If I recall, I had you in my bed. Then you ran away, Griffin. Why would I want to make that mistake again?”
“It wasn’t a mistake. We’re supposed to be together, Sky!” I yell at her.
“How come—because Erin said we should? And would you quit fucking calling me Sky!” she shouts.
“That does it,” I say, pulling her to me and crashing my lips into hers.
Her whole body stiffens, but she doesn’t push me away. She relaxes her lips and lets me kiss her. I take her full lips between mine, lightly sucking on them, playing with them, letting her get used to me. She lets me swipe my tongue across her bottom lip and then push it into her mouth. Our kisses start slow and reserved, but quickly become more demanding. Passionate even. I can’t recall another time in my life when a simple kiss had my body on the brink of detonation. I pull her harder against me, squishing her belly between us. I grab the back of her head and angle her to deepen the kiss. She whimpers a soft, reluctant moan, but it’s enough to make me crave even more of her. It’s enough to let me know that she wants this.
Our tongues weave together as if they’ve done this a thousand times—not only a few. Our breathing becomes a choreographed dance, her exchanging each breath for mine in perfect synchronization. If our heartbeats were audible, I’m sure we’d find them to be precisely in time with each other. If I kissed a million women, I wouldn’t find another kiss as perfect as this one.
Her hands grasp my shoulders and then run through my hair, gripping it as if it’s her lifeline.
My hands wander every inch of her bare arms, from her fingertips to her neck. When my lungs scream for air, I pull back just enough to fill them, while trailing kisses along her jawline up to her ear. “Sky,” I whisper breathlessly when I get there. “I want you so much.”
As if my voice snapped her out of a dream, she puts a hand between us and pushes me away. “No. I can’t do this.” She turns and walks towards the stairs.
“Why not, Skylar?” I call out after her. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel it. There is no way in hell a kiss like that was one-sided. That kiss was the best goddamn kiss of my life. And I’m willing to bet it was the best kiss of yours.”
Before reaching the stairs, she turns to me, her eyes burning into mine. Her head shakes infinitesimally. “You just don’t get it, Griffin.”
I watch her disappear up the stairs. I rack my brain to figure out what the hell she’s talking about. I sit on the studio couch, replaying every conversation we’ve had in my head. I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ve said I want her and the baby. I’ve re-decorated for her. I’ve gone out of my fucking way to show her how I feel.
Haven’t I?
Mason’s words from the other day seep into my thoughts. Does Skylar think I’m only trying to be with her to honor Erin’s wish? Surely that kiss proved differently. I momentarily flash back to something my mom said before she died, when she was trying to impart me with all her worldly wisdom.
‘Women take everything literally, Griffin. Never assume girls know what you want. Always tell them. We’re silly creatures and sometimes you have to just spell it out for us.’
I look up at the calendar on the wall. The party is two weeks away. I have fourteen days. Fourteen days to figure out how to get Skylar to be with me. Fourteen days to think of a way to spell it out for her. Fourteen days to plan out how I’m going to put my heart on the line for the woman I’m positive I’m in love with.
I look up at the ceiling. I look all the way through it to the night sky and what lies beyond. For the first time since she died, I talk to Erin. “If you’re out there; if you do know what’s going on; if you have any way to help me fulfill your dying wish—and my living one—now is the time to let me know.”
I go to turn off the light but something on the floor catches my eye. It’s Skylar’s locket. It must have come undone when we were kissing. I lean over to pick it up. I run my fingers over the etched flower. I unwittingly hold in a breath as I spring the locket open.
A piece of paper falls out. It’s folded over and over into a tiny square. I open it up. It’s a small copy of Erin’s tattoo. This is what she chose to keep by her heart. Not a picture of Erin like I thought. Not a picture of me, like I’d hoped. But a representation of the future she longs for. The future I desperately want to give her. And in fourteen days, I have to convince her I’m the one to do it.