The floor is carpeted but also covered with a brightly colored woven rug of fuchsia and turquoise. It's a nice complement to the tapestry and gives me a calming feeling when I look at it.
On the far end, there is an enormous bay window with a wide tabletop made of wood with authentic knots. When I run my fingers over it, I find it smooth to the touch.
“This room is beautiful,” I say, admiring the towering lamp with the shade that looks like a layering of skirts.
It gives off a warm, almost candle type of light and he shows me how to use the dimmer to change the color from warm to cool to pink and practically any other color that I want.
“I'm glad you like it,” Liam says. “Well, I'll leave you alone so you can get situated. I got some takeout for dinner from this fabulous Indian place in town. I hope that's okay.”
I put my hand over my stomach and feel it rumble.
“That's an okay,” I say with a smile.
A few minutes later, after I unpack my suitcase and place most of the clothes into the empty dresser across from the bed, I walk back into the living room and see Liam pouring the takeout on colorful, Western-style plates.
“These are beautiful,” I say, running my finger over an empty one with an intricate yet abstract design of a woman making tacos.
“I got them at a flea market not far from here. This old man was selling them and he had a few people lining up to make offers. I actually wasn't sure what everyone was offering to pay and made a kind of lowball offer, but I guess he could see that I really wanted them so he gave them to me.”
“Wow, that's awesome,” I say. “I actually love going to the markets.”
“Yes, me, too.”
“Have you ever been to the one in the Rose Bowl? It's a huge flea market they have every Sunday in Pasadena in the parking lot of the Rose Bowl stadium.”
“Yes, I have. More than once. It's pretty cool, but I actually have found more interesting things down in Long Beach.”
“I’ve never been to that one,” I say, raising one eyebrow.
“Well, I'll have to take you sometime then.”
I smile.
He's flirting with me.
It's kind of a relief because this is the first time it feels like we are actually flirting since I came out here.
As we dig into our food, our conversation becomes a lot more casual and easy-going. The tension that seemed to exist when I first got here all but disperses and I start to feel a lot more comfortable.
“To tell you the truth, I was taken back a little bit by the fact that you showed me to my room,” I say after he pours me my second glass of wine.
The first one has already gone to my head and makes me feel a little bit less inhibited.
“Well, I didn't want you to think that you owed me anything. You came here for a week and I wanted you to be comfortable.”
“I appreciate that,” I say.
“You know that doesn't mean that I don't want to… You know… be with you,” Liam says and takes a sip of his wine.
He looks at me in that mischievous way that sends a shiver up my spine.
I strain my back and bite my lower lip.
“So… Why don't you?” I ask coyly.
Without needing anymore of an invitation, he reaches over the table and presses his lips onto mine.
He catches me completely by surprise, but then I immediately kiss him back.
Once our mouths collide and our tongues find each other, my heartbeat speeds up and I have to pull away to calm my breaths.
“What's wrong?” he asks.
I sigh deeply and pull my hands one on top of the other in my lap. I look up at him as he sits back in his chair.
“I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to… Make you uncomfortable.”
“No, not at all. It was actually really nice.”
I don't know why I suddenly feel so nervous. My heartbeat is pounding so loud that I can barely make out what he's saying.
I have a history of panic attacks and suddenly it feels like one is coming on.
Liam continues to say something, but at this point I can't understand a word.
“Just ignore him,” I say silently to myself. “Take a deep breath. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth, just like you learned in meditation.”
I should meditate every day, I know this, and so many people do to all of those meditation apps. I did for a while and it made me feel a lot better. The panic attacks have subsided, but then I got lazy.
Still, I haven't had one for a long time. I have no idea why my anxiety is suddenly rearing its ugly head.
“Are you okay?” Liam asks and I realize that he is leaning over me, with his arm around my shoulder.
I look at him, but all I see are black spots interspersed with bright spots.
“Just ignore everything,” I say to myself, focusing my eyes straight ahead.
I breathe in through my nose and out of my mouth.
I do this over and over again.
Slowly, very slowly, but also very deliberately.
Then the spots start to disappear.
My breathing calms me down. My anxiety subsides and when I look at him again, everything is fine.
“I'm sorry about that,” I whisper. “Sometimes I have these little panic attacks. I haven't had one for a long time but it's only just come over me.”
“Please, don't apologize for that. Are you okay?”
I nod.
“Are you sure? Is there anything I can do?”
“Can I have some tea? Something decaffeinated?”
“I have mint and decaffeinated Irish breakfast.”
“Mint is great,” I say.
When he rushes over to the kitchen to put the kettle on, I get up slowly from my seat and walk over to the couch.
Instead of plopping down, I descend onto it very slowly.
I continue to breathe, deliberately, taking note of every breath. I stare straight ahead and think of the color blue, light turquoise, reminiscent of the glazing on one of the pots on the coffee table.
When Liam comes over with our cups of tea, he hands me mine and watches me as I take a sip.
“Okay,” I say, smiling out the corner of my mouth. “I think I'm all better now.”
“It's okay. Just take it easy. I didn't mean to make you panic.”
“It has nothing to do with anything that you did,” I reassure him.
“Really? I kissed you and you had an anxiety attack.”
He laughs, trying to be self-deprecating, but I'm certain that he is concerned.
“Seriously,” I say, taking his hand in mine.
It feels good to interlock our fingers. His hands are rough and strong. Not at all like the hands that belong to a writer.
More like those of a cowboy.
They make me feel safe and loved.
“I'm fine,” I say, looking straight into his eyes. “I have a history of panic attacks and they tend to come on very suddenly. I want to be here. I want you to kiss me. Please don't take this as a sign that I don't.”
17
Liam
I wish that things had been different when Emma first arrived, but my mind was elsewhere.
I had cleaned the house and prepared a few salads because I wasn't sure what kind of food she prefers to eat. I did the laundry and put fresh sheets in the guest bedroom so that she wouldn’t feel like she had to sleep in my bed.
I was excited to see her again and I can’t believe that she said yes to come here for the week.
Then something changed. I go on Facebook, log into my old account, and see that my sister has had a baby. I haven't talked to her in seven years and when I left, she was just a baby herself, barely twenty-two years old.
Now she's married and a mother.
I have missed everything.
A big lump forms in the back of my throat and I can't think of anything except for the person that I used to be.
I have this brand-new life.
I have more money than I’ve ever had in my life, but I don't have my family and I never will.
My thoughts are still on Kristen when Emma arrives.
I should be welcoming and polite and I am, at least as much as I can be, but my mind isn’t here and I know that Emma feels it.
I'm creating this tension between us, when I should really just come out and tell her the truth, but I can't.
I can't tell her anything because she's a journalist and the story will make her career.
The truth is that I don't trust her, not yet.
We barely just met. We have had a few moments, but we don't actually know each other.
She was engaged to a childhood friend of mine and now she isn't anymore.
What's to say that once she finds out the truth about me that she won't drop me just as quickly?
After I show Emma to her room and leave her to unpack, I turn my attention back to my phone.
I look at all the pictures that Kristen has posted and read all of the posts. She was in labor for twenty-four hours and she had an epidural, but it all went well.
Now I have a nephew who was born weighing 8 lbs. 7 oz. and his name is Tennyson.
Kristen is an English teacher and she got her master’s degree in English Literature and Romanticism.
Tennyson is one of her favorite poets and the name of her firstborn son is not lost on me.
I jump when Emma walks back into the room and quickly put my phone away.
I know that she doesn't feel like she quite belongs.
I want her here, but today is just a bad day for me. I thought I could handle it.
I thought that I would be okay with having access to that part of my life, but now I know that it would’ve been better for my mental health if I had never even looked her up in the first place.
When I started this new life, I was supposed to start with a clean slate. No one was supposed to know who I was or anything about my past. That's why I have a new name now and that's why I write under a pseudonym.
A month ago, I happened to run into Alex in Beverly Hills and he recognized me immediately. We haven't been in touch in years, but he’s someone from my past who knew me as Liam.
What he doesn't know is that it's not the name I use now. That's not the name that appears in any of my official documents and that's not the name that I use to write.
I keep pushing myself to make things work with Emma, but I’m not sure what that means exactly. Then she has a panic attack.
When I bring her tea, I rub her back and I kiss her.
Suddenly everything changes. It's almost as if we don't need to talk about what is going on between us but instead just let ourselves exist in this moment.
When our lips touch, the world starts to make sense again.
She may not know who I am and she may not know what I have done, but our bodies make sense together and that's enough for now.
She touches me gently, but I'm not in the mood to be gentle.
When I push her against the wall, she smiles at me and kisses me harder. I want her and I don't want to take my time.
She may not know who I really am or anything about my past, but she has to know that I am a true person right now.
I kiss her harder on the lips, until my mouth almost hurts.
It's a good kind of hurt, the one that you think about long after.
Her kisses get sloppy and out-of-control just like her hands. One moment she buries them in my hair and the next she runs her fingers up and down my back.
I pull off her shirt and she pulls off mine.
I unclasp her bra and press my body against hers.
It hasn’t been long since we touched, but it feels like it has been years. I have missed this more than I can say.
I need to be inside of her. A part of me wants to take my time, but I can't bring myself to do it.
My hands are frantic.
They pull off her pants and hers unbuckle my belt. She jumps up and wraps her legs firmly around my hips, pulling me close to her.
I'm not inside her yet.
She's teasing me. I like it.
I grab her right underneath her butt and carry her to the bed. I throw her down and get on top.
She smiles at me and reaches up to kiss me again. This time however, I don't let her. I flip her over on her stomach. I press her hard into the bed and I run my fingers up and down her spine until she moves into the pillow.
I split her legs open and run my fingers down her inner thigh. I can feel the wetness and I feel her wanting me, but I don't press inside yet.
“You’re teasing me,” she mumbles.
“Of course.”
I want this moment to last as long as possible and yet I want to be inside of her as quickly as possible.
I take a deep breath and calm my breathing.
I stare at the roundness of her butt and how it sticks up in the air.
“Put it a little bit higher,” I say.
She does, getting on her knees. With her head still in the pillow, I run my fingers down the slope of her back. Then I follow the curve of her body.
I bend down and kiss her between her legs. This surprises her as she jumps a little bit further up. I lick her and kiss her over and over again.
“Getting close,” she whispers, grabbing the bedspread with her hands.
“Not yet,” I whisper and pull away slightly to take a little look.
The inside of her is red and plump, infused with blood, throbbing for me.
I thrust my fingers inside of her, making sure to stimulate her clit.
She points her toes and then relaxes them with each thrust. I watch the way that her body moves and she watches mine.
When I can't stand it anymore, I slip on a condom and push myself inside. I open her up wide and she moans my name into the pillow.
I grab onto her hips to move in and out of her. Her body moves with mine as if we are listening and dancing to the same song.
Then something starts to course through her body, almost as if it were a wave.
She starts to moan louder and louder, muffling herself with a pillow, her body thrusting harder and harder against me.
At the same time, an explosion goes off within me. I have held it back enough, now I let myself go.
“Emma,” I whisper and collapse on top of her.
18
Emma
The following morning, I wake up around seven and run my fingers over the empty spot next to me on the bed.
Liam is not here.
I rub my eyes and rise slowly, keenly aware of how tense my muscles feel from the exercise I got last night.
I stretch my arms high overhead, then slip on my leggings and a T-shirt, making my way into the main room. Skylar greets me with excited jumps and I pet her head and give her a little kiss on the nose.
I look for Liam in the room on the other side of the kitchen, but he's not there.
I look out of the enormous bay window onto the sun-drenched hills of the desert outside. There's a little lizard doing push-ups on a flat boulder and a few crickets hopping around nearby. My stomach growls and I realize that I need food.
On the desk next to a half-drunk cup of coffee is Liam's laptop. It's closed and plugged into the charging cable.
I look around and given the open floor plan of the house, I know that if he's here, he's probably somewhere in the bathroom.
I'm tempted to open the laptop and see what he is working on.
I run my fingers over the top, wondering if I should. Of course not, but I'm still tempted.
No, this is his workspace and he's entitled to his privacy. I will not snoop around in search of something that he's not willing to share with me.
Eventually, I decide against it.
When I walk back into the main room, I look out of the glass door and see Liam far in the distance. His body is moving swiftly, but he's out of breath.
When he gets onto the porch, he doubles over, drenched in sweat, and
looks at the time on his watch.
“How was your run?” I ask, opening the door.
“Good, really good,” he says, trying to catch his breath.
“How long did you go for?”
“Five miles,” he says with a huff.
We are out on the back porch. It's wooden, resembling the kind of porches popular in saloons and westerns.
It wraps almost all the way around and has a deep brown railing, also made out of wood, which can double as a hitching post.
Liam lifts one foot up onto the railing to stretch out his hamstring and I see muscles protruding on his tan legs.
When he switches sides, he pulls off his sweat-drenched shirt, exposing a tight, neatly arranged six pack.
I can't help but lick my lips.
“Do you run every morning?” I ask.
“I'm trying to get back into it. I haven't for a while and my depression got the best of me.”
“Your depression?”
This is the first time that I have heard of it, but then again, I don't really know him very well.
“I get these spells. I know that you're not supposed to call it that anymore, maybe episodes? Anyway, it comes and goes. Every month or six weeks or so, I feel all the energy sort of drain away and it becomes really hard to do things.”
“Have you tried medication?”
“I don't think it's bad enough to require medication. Whenever I work out and eat right, I always feel better. So, I'm trying to get back into a good routine so that I can keep the momentum going through times when I feel like that.”
I nod my head, surprised by how open and frank he is about something that so many people are embarrassed about, especially men.
I'm about to ask him something else about it, but he gives me a brief kiss on the cheek and then says that he has to go jump in the shower.
When I hear the kettle beep, I go back into the kitchen and pour myself a cup of black tea. Then I come right out onto the porch and stare at the majestic mountains reaching up into the bright blue sky.
I have lived in Southern California for years, but it continues to surprise me with its beauty. Unlike the cliffs, the sand, and the towering palm trees by the beaches, the beauty of the desert is understated and yet opulent at the same time.
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