19
BRYN
This time it’s me who wakes first, and I open my eyes to utter beauty: a hazy light filling the room, the sight of fluttering leaves outside my window. My quilt is bunched like waves around Mitchell and me.
I smile and squeeze Mitchell’s body against me. A week and a half ago, I ran away from this. At the time, knowing more about this man, finding out there was more to him than the superficial role he played in my life was a threat. But since then, since yesterday with my family, last night in this bed, and now this morning . . . I’m thirsty for details about him. Does Mitchell celebrate his birthday? Will I have to endure a similar interrogation from a family member of his? Those people in the pictures I found in the drawer—who are they? Those pills—does he need them? Why is he taking them?
Mitchell grumbles and shifts. Unsure what to do, I lift my arms off his chest. His eyes flutter open, lids weighed down so he’s looking through his long lashes. When he finally focuses, a sleepy smile takes up the lower half of his face. “Hey, you.”
“Hey.” My voice is a breath, caught up in the way he’s looking at me, as if we are together, as if there’s only me in his life. My heart squeezes at this despite feeling silly, because we aren’t anything but two people thrown together who’ve found attraction and comfort in each other. And yet, the way he tucks me into his chest so his heart is against my ear could fool me otherwise.
But his breathing changes above me, and I realize he’s back asleep.
I let myself fall back to sleep with him, until the doorbell wakens me.
Then I hear someone knocking.
The bed moves next to me as I pry my eyelids open. Mitchell has thrown the covers off him. He slips his shirt on. “I’ll get the door.”
“I can do it.”
“Nope. Stay up here.” He leans down and kisses me on the forehead. “I checked the time, and it’s still early, 7 a.m. Let me see who it is.” Mitchell leaves the bedroom door open and pads down the stairs.
The thought hits me that no one should be at my door this early, especially not on a Sunday. I push myself up to my elbows. Hopefully it’s not an emergency.
I find my phone under the bedside table, and it shows I’ve got no messages or voice mail, so it couldn’t be anyone from my family.
A woman’s voice filters up the staircase, and my ears perk up. I scramble out of bed. Mitchell was right, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be at Dunford, and especially here, at Paraiso.
I’m simultaneously straightening my clothes and inching my way to the landing above the stairs when I catch the tail end of Mitchell’s voice. It’s loose, easy, with the same smooth cadence of speech as when he’s talking to me, to someone familiar. “My house is up the road. Give me a few minutes.”
No way. He’s leaving? Now?
I hear the click of the door, the shuffle of his feet against the wooden floors, and the soft thuds of him coming up the stairs.
I leap into bed and scroll on my phone as if I don’t have a care in the world. But all I can think of is the possibility that Mitchell has another woman.
What feels like acid, like the sear of pain, courses through my veins. Why wouldn’t he have another woman? Look at the guy. He belongs in a calendar of half-dressed soldiers. Mr. September. More so, his appeal is huge, because below that sexy I don’t give a shit attitude is someone who definitely gives a shit.
“Is there something wrong with your phone?” Mitchell asks from the doorway.
“What do you mean?” I answer, exuding a similar nonchalance. No, I don’t give a damn a woman has come to see you first thing in the morning. Logic tells me it could be one of his workers at the vineyard or a business associate who works on Sundays. Or, it could be a person who expected to surprise him at home. Someone who routinely sees him after hours. Like another woman.
Except, now that I think of it, maybe the booty call was me. My thumb scrolls and scrolls and scrolls but the photographs and text blur and fuzz.
“You’re pushing the daylights out of that screen.”
My thumb pauses over the touch screen. “Yeah, it’s just a little finicky.” My tone comes out sharper than I expected, bringing attention to the fact I’m starting to get pissed for no reason whatsoever. I will myself to relax. “Who was that?”
With one shoulder leaning onto the doorway, he shrugs with another. “A visitor. They tried this house first because it’s the only one with the lights on.”
“They? How many people were there?’
“They, as in one. She.”
“Cool,” I say, though I never say cool. Cool isn’t my word, but it entails one simple syllable I can utter without breaking out into a fit. It’s not any of my business, right?
“I’m going to meet them—her—up the hill.”
An awkward pause settles as I try to find something interesting in my in-box. I wait one, two, three seconds for him to explain who she is and why it’s so important for him to leave right this second, especially after a night when we clearly almost had sex. Or, why he didn’t have me come down to meet this person. Because if the person was just a friend, and I’m playing Mitchell’s girlfriend on the Internet, shouldn’t he introduce me?
I’m grinding my teeth down to nubs while silence ensues. Finally, I look up at him. “Well, don’t let me keep you.” My voice is wry.
He sags against the doorway with a grin. “Are you . . . are you mad at me?
“Me? No. Gonna settle back into bed, turn on another episode, and I’m going to sleep like a baby until noon.”
“Oh good. Because I can’t imagine you being mad or jealous even. Wait—” His eyes narrow and his grin widens so it spans his face. He saunters toward me as if triumphant. “Are you jealous?”
Heat rushes to my face, my cheeks, my neck, my chest. Oh no, he’s not taking me down this rabbit hole. I’m not jealous of a damn thing. “Hell no!”
His shadow comes over me. The bed dips as he sits. He leans, lips grazing against my neck, against my tattoo. “What kind of flowers are these?”
As his tongue trails up to my earlobe, my body leans into him, betraying my brain. What was I mad about again? “Sampaguita. The national flower of the Philippines.”
“Sampaguita,” he repeats in a perfect accent. His hand moves up the inside of my thigh. Not gonna lie, that and the fact that he cares enough not to butcher the word causes me to shiver.
I breathe out a response. “It’s from the jasmine family. It’s supposed to represent simplicity and humility.”
“So, basically, the complete opposite of you?” he whispers into my neck.
I push him away, laughing. “Jerk.”
He catches my hand in his. Presses the top against his lips. “Don’t worry about my friend, okay? There’s no need to be jealous. Not a bit.”
“I said I’m not jealous.” Though suddenly I’m feeling naive, downright stupid, and vulnerable.
And this is why we can’t mix business with pleasure, even if part of it is to pretend like we’re together. The bottom line is we’re not. We don’t have a romantic commitment, nor should we have one just because we got a little frisky last night.
“If you say so.” He kisses me on the cheek. “Because I’ll be back tonight.”
Pleasure bubbles through me at first, but I catch myself. I paste on a cordial smile—a smile reserved for the customers at True North who gave me hell for every damn thing wrong with their view, food, or menu. “No need. We don’t work on Sundays, and don’t you have to spend the morning with your grandmother?” I climb into bed. “You can show yourself out, right?”
“Yeah, sure.” He flashes me a hesitant look, which I completely ignore, focusing on the TV and turning up the volume once again. “See you later.”
Mitchell backs out of the bedroom with a confused expression. He disappears into the hallway. With the final turn of the lock, he’s out the door.
After counting to ten, I scramble out of bed. I didn’t care to research Mitchell thoroughly, didn’t push to find out more about his past except for his social media accounts, but this woman has piqued my curiosity.
I type “Mitchell Dunford” in the search bar after I sit down at my laptop. It brings up obituaries, family legacy links, and Facebook accounts.
“Mitchell David Dunford, Army Captain, Golden, California.”
An article pops up from the Golden Chronicle, at the top of the list: “Golden’s Hero.”
I click on the link and skim through the article, picking up words that paint a picture of the man recently in my bed. “Captain Mitchell D. Dunford, known for his valorous service in Kandahar, Afghanistan, returns to Golden after eight years of active-duty service. A welcome-home spaghetti dinner will be held at the Main Street Firehouse. Captain Dunford will continue to serve with the Sixth Army Reserve unit in Sacramento.”
Valorous. A hero.
I stand and go to my window. Shadows reflect back from Mitchell’s side of the world. Of him and his friend, talking about who knows what. But it’s a friend he left me for, someone from his past.
We’ve spent all of our days together, but I really don’t know anything about Mitchell after all. Before last night, I was fine having a line drawn between the real us and the fake us. But we smudged that line with our blistering kisses, and I’m not sure how we’re supposed to put us back to the way we were.