Bloom

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  He’s beside me, standing closer than normal. Close enough that his arm brushes mine. He slides his mug toward me as if he’s only here for a refill.

  “Everything okay?” he asks in low voice.

  “Yeah. You?” I fill his mug and slide it back toward him. His hand wraps around mine, warm and rough and firm, and holds it there, blocking Max’s view with his body.

  I venture a quick glance at him, and his mouth quirks up at the corner. “Yeah, I’m good. Want to go to the beach today?” he asks.

  “Sure,” I say with a cautious smile. I wait for him to pull the rug out. I wait for the phrase ‘we need to talk’, but it doesn’t come.

  Ginny takes the day off work, under the impression that she is coming down with whatever illness James had. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed when she and Max decide to come with us. On the one hand, it will be impossible to hold a serious conversation. And on the other hand … it will be impossible to hold a serious conversation.

  “You had to wear the bikini, didn’t you?” James groans under his breath when I come downstairs.

  “I thought you were all done staying away from me?” I whisper back.

  “That doesn’t mean I need to spend three hours next to you dressed like that,” he sighs. “Especially after last night.”

  He stays by my side as we walk, close enough that our hands brush, a small frisson of electricity that makes the surface of my skin come alive. I look at him out of the corner of my eye — his strong jaw and the curve of his bicep at rest — and feel something spasm low in my stomach. I’d be so much better off right now if we hadn’t been interrupted last night.

  We lay our towels down, James not-so-subtly nudging Max aside when he walks up beside me.

  “Want me to do your back, Elle?” Max asks.

  James snatches the sunscreen from his hand. “I’ve got it.”

  You’d think, with the anticipation I’m feeling, that we were both in bed naked. I sit up and face away from him, hugging my knees to my chest, waiting for him to begin. His hands whisper over my skin, and the anticipation builds. He lifts the back of my bikini, sliding his hand beneath it, and I actually shiver. His low laugh in response brushes my ear.

  It’s only when Max calls him on it —“Gee, James, I had no idea you were so thorough. Do my back next.” — that he stops.

  “Want me to do yours?” I ask.

  He hesitates and we exchange a look. “Sure,” he says, laying down on his stomach. I could spend hours applying sunscreen to him, memorizing the feel of his skin and the tightly bunched muscles of his back. And I probably would were I not a foot away from Ginny, though she seems to have noticed nothing.

  “So tell me about your date,” says Ginny sleepily.

  I feel James tense beneath my hands. “Nothing to tell, really. We got dinner and saw a movie and that was it.”

  “Nothing more? Did he try to get you to come home with him?”

  James tenses again.

  “Yeah, but I told him I wasn’t feeling well.” James relaxes.

  “How’d he take that?” she asks.

  “I believe his exact words were ‘I have a bed at my place too.’”

  A barely audible growl comes from his throat.

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” she says.

  “Yes you can,” snarls James.

  Ginny scowls at him. “Why are you eavesdropping anyway? No one asked for your opinion.”

  His proximity distracts me. Even as I lay there talking to Ginny, I’m so attuned to him that I barely know what I’m saying. It’s almost a relief when he and Max walk down to the shore to throw a football back and forth. But my eyes follow him even then. Every muscle is delineated when he throws. Really not what I need right now.

  “Why are you watching them?” asks Ginny suspiciously.

  “Why are you watching them?” I ask her back.

  “Because I wanted to see what you were staring at.”

  I shrug. “I’m bored. Nothing else to do but watch. They’re good.” I see a flash of disgust cross her face before she finally puts her head down again.

  I glance up at James when he returns, and he’s already looking at me. “We should probably talk?” he asks in a low voice, as he sits.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Here it comes. I nod.

  “I’ll go back to the house. Make an excuse and follow me in a few minutes?”

  I agree with trepidation. If he was going to tell me he’s not interested, would he have grabbed my hand this morning? Would he have spent so long putting sunscreen on my back? No. But then why do we need to ‘talk’?

  “I’m gonna head in,” he announces.

  “I’ll go with you,” says Max.

  I feel James’s whole body sag beside me. We exchange a quick glance and what I see in his face heartens me. I doubt he’d look quite so aggravated if he were merely being denied the chance to have an awkward conversation.

  But it’s hard to know for sure when we never get a minute alone. Ginny and Max don’t leave our sides during the day. James goes into work before me, and by the time I arrive the bar is packed. It stays that busy most of the night, but that doesn’t stop me from focusing on him. No matter where I move in the restaurant, I’m conscious only of him, as if I’m the minute hand of the clock and he is its center. I look toward him and he turns, holds my eyes, his mouth moving a mere fraction, that secret smile of his for once directed at me.

  I feel boneless and breathless, so much so that when I turn from the deep freezer and slam into him I gasp, feel the last remnants of air in my lungs expire. He grabs my hips to hold me steady.

  “Hi,” I say weakly. The moment I stand this close to him, my chest against his and our mouths millimeters apart, my heart begins an irregular, fluttering rhythm.

  His lips move upward again, infinitesimally. He doesn’t let go of my hips. “I’m finding it very hard to get you alone,” he says, looking at my mouth.

  “So we can ‘talk’?” I ask. I smile as if I’m teasing, but I feel frozen as I wait for his response.

  His mouth moves closer. I feel his breath brush against my lips. “Among other things,” he says, and then his mouth closes over mine, a light kiss that shouldn’t affect me nearly as much as it does. It’s a whisper of a kiss that still makes me shiver.

  “That’s all I get?” I ask.

  “When I have to walk back into a crowded bar in about 20 seconds?” he laughs. “Yeah.”

  I shrug one shoulder. “Your loss,” I smile, and begin to move around him but he pulls me back into place, tugging me into him and finding my mouth at the same time. He pushes my back to the freezer, his fingers bruising my hips to pull me closer. It’s a different sort of kiss, desperate and without thought, the way he kissed me at Brooks’s party. The kind that makes the bright lights and the din of the restaurant seem to disappear.

  His eyes are dark when he pulls away, his hands still tight on me as if he’s not sure he’s willing to stop. “Better?” he asks.

  “Much,” I say breathlessly.

  His eyes flicker over my mouth, rest there for a moment while he struggles with his indecision, and finally he releases my hips. “Soon,” he says quietly, almost to himself.

  His shift ends an hour before mine. He waits at the bar instead of going home, and he watches me out of the corner of his eye, making it impossible to behave naturally. My waitressing skills perhaps worsen, if that’s possible.

  “Are you meeting Max here or something?” Ginny asks.

  “No,” he says, with a quick glance at me. “I thought I’d just hang out here and give you guys a ride home.”

  “We don’t need a ride,” she says. “I drove.”

  He looks only at me when he replies. “Then I’ll just be waiting at home.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You don’t need to wait, James. I’m 19.”

  He’s still looking at me. “Yeah, I know. I’m still going to wait.”

  She frowns after
he leaves. “He’s acting weird,” she complains.

  “Weird how?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “He’s acting all, like, happy and mellow. You don’t think he started smoking pot with Max do you?”

  I try to hide my smile and I can’t. Happiness spreads through me, makes me feel airborne. “No.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” she says. “Max could talk anyone into anything.”

  “Oh?” I grin. “Is that right? Even you?”

  “No,” she scowls. “Not me.”

  I have no idea how this is going to work, with Ginny at home with us. I only know that I want it to work. That I’m willing to lie or do all manner of unadvisable things to make it happen.

  And I don’t want to smell like grilled meat if it does, so I go shower when we get home while Ginny heads to the back. When I find them on the deck, his eyes sweep my face and then descend, stuttering briefly over my thighs before he raises them again, darker than they were before. My hair is still wet and my face is bare and I’m in nothing but shorts and a tank, but the way he looks at me makes me feel loose-limbed and feverish.

  “What’s up with everyone needing to shower after work?” Ginny grouses. “Now you guys are both clean and I smell like a walking hamburger.”

  If she was more observant she’d notice the guilty smiles on both our faces, but she’s too busy griping about work and Max to notice. For 30 minutes we sit there. He watches me, his eyes growing feral, and I want to cry in frustration.

  Finally Ginny yawns and turns to me. “You ready for bed yet?”

  I definitely am, but not in the way she’s thinking. “No, not yet.”

  “Come on,” she whines. “I want to hear what really happened with Nick, away from prying ears.”

  I shoot a quick glance at James and watch that muscle pop in his jaw.

  “I already told you what really happened,” I say. “I wasn’t into it.”

  “Well of course you’re going to say that with James sitting there acting parental. Come on,” she whines.

  I take one lingering glance at James and reluctantly go inside.

  What she really wants to talk about is Max, and the fact that he is once again not sleeping at home. When I have no comment on that, she asks if she should break up with Alex. I tell her yes, I think she should, and she proceeds to argue about all the ways he’s a perfect boyfriend and would make a perfect husband. I get a text during all of this from James.

  CAN YOU COME BACK DOWN?

  I smile. WHEN SHE FALLS ASLEEP?

  He writes back: I CAN’T WAIT THAT LONG.

  I write: YOU CAMPBELLS ARE VERY DEMANDING.

  And then Ginny says, “Who are you texting this late?”

  “Uh, um,” I falter. “A friend from school?”

  He replies: YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW DEMANDING I CAN BE. BUT YOU’LL LEARN.

  That’s when I know I can’t wait for her to fall asleep.

  “I’m dying to start my new book,” I tell her. “Will the light bother you?” I ask this only because I know it will. Ginny’s read some study about how light during sleep throws off your biorhythms and decreases your functional IQ. She won’t even allow a digital clock in here now.

  She tsks. “You know I can’t sleep like that.”

  “I’ll go downstairs,” I tell her, and she smiles at me so gratefully that I kind of feel like an asshole for lying to her. Not enough of one to stop me, however.

  I get downstairs and tiptoe in through his open door, closing it behind me.

  He’s already in bed. “Thank God,” he groans. “Come here.”

  I walk toward him almost shyly, and when I get to the side of the bed he pulls me down and rolls me beneath him. It takes that much time for my nerves to evaporate, lost in a haze of want.

  “Do we need to talk about this first?” James asks, his eyes flickering to my mouth before they return to me.

  “Not unless you need to,” I whisper.

  “I don’t need to,” he says, lowering his head. He runs his fingers over my cheekbones as his lips graze mine. He’s careful – restrained - with me, as if I’m spun from something fragile.

  His mouth moves over me, soft, fluttering kisses, a promise of things to come. They aren’t enough. I strain for more, arching against him, desperate for the delicious weight of him as he lowers on top of me.

  It’s a relief when his control begins to slip, when the sweetness grows heavy. When the hand at my hip finally slides beneath my tank, grazing my skin, pulling his name from my lips with a needy exhale.

  His hand cups my breast and it’s my response that seems to change things, that makes him abandon his patience and restraint. His breath rasps as he finds my mouth again, as he grabs the strap of my tank top and yanks it down. His hand slides inside, the rough pad of his thumb brushing over me before he pulls the other strap down and lowers his head, replacing fingers with mouth and tongue and teeth.

  My hands go to his hair as I gasp his name but instead of continuing he pulls away entirely.

  “We have to stop,” he pants, flinching as if in pain.

  “Stop? Why?” I breathe. I think I could come just thinking about the way he pulled the straps of my tank down if I contemplated it long enough. Stop? Now?

  “I promised myself … ” he begins. “It’s enough just to spend time with you. It doesn’t have to be more.” But the quick pace of his breath belies his words. As does the erection currently wedged hard against my leg.

  “But - do you not want more?” I ask. It’s an effort not to sound anxious.

  He sighs and presses his mouth to my neck, planting a soft kiss there. “You have no idea how badly I want more,” he says, his voice low and quiet beside my throat.

  “Then don’t stop,” I urge him.

  “Elle,” he says hoarsely, “I’m trying to do the right thing here and you’re making it so hard.”

  “Yes, because I don’t want you to do the right thing,” I argue. “And because it’s not the right thing.”

  He rolls off of me, gently pulling my tank back up. “Last night was too much. It would have gone too far and I just … can’t. After you left, I promised myself that I wouldn’t get carried away again. And I already have. I’m already not thinking, I’m already practically ripping your top off and rationalizing it to myself,” he says.

  “I loved that,” I whisper. “I want you to not think.”

  He closes his eyes and exhales. “Let me be with you just like this for a while first,” he says. “Please.”

  I agree, because there’s not much else I can do. A part of me would like to prod further, because my guess is that this is somehow related to the age difference, but then he turns toward me and captures my mouth, and I can’t quite think well enough to form the question.

  Chapter 35

  The next day I wake and for once there’s no worry and no regret. I can savor everything that happened without worrying that it won’t happen again. A smile spreads over my face, and I would squeal if it wouldn’t wake Ginny. He likes me. After all this time. My mother can make her bad decisions, my father can forget I exist, Ginny can continue to veer unpredictably between sweet and spiteful. James Campbell has finally chosen me.

  It’s early, and I’ll feel it later, but right now I’m too excited to go back to sleep.

  Downstairs, Max is already up and showered and the coffee is brewed.

  “When do you sleep?” I laugh.

  He just grins. “Life’s too good to waste it sleeping.”

  “So who did you not ‘waste it sleeping’ with last night?”

  “If I knew her name that wouldn’t be nearly as fun.”

  I look at him curiously. In a way, his sleeping around doesn’t really seem to line up with everything else I know about him. Sure, he wants to have a good time, but he doesn’t have shallow friendships, and despite his jokes he’s actually been a good friend to both Ginny and me. “You seem like the kind of guy who would want a relationsh
ip, Max,” I tell him. “Is it really such a terrifying idea to you?”

  “No,” he says. “But a relationship wouldn’t really work for me.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I lead a pretty unsettled life,” he says. “Am I going to meet some girl in Colorado and then spend the six months I’m down here waiting for the next winter? Or vice versa?”

  “Maybe you’d meet someone who wanted to migrate with you.”

  He shakes his head. “That’s not the kind of girl I’d want to be with long-term. The girls I’m attracted to are more goal-driven than that.”

  I laugh. “So your type is someone more like Ginny?”

  “No,” he says, looking slightly panicked. “That’s not even vaguely what I just said.”

  I take my coffee out onto the deck. It’s my favorite time to be outside, a slight breeze in the air and just warm enough without being hot. You can actually smell the heat seeping through the pines, the world rising. I hear the door slide open behind me and turn to find James.

  “Hey there,” he grins. That smile of his does things to me. The day is just getting started and I think I may be spending it every bit as worked up as I did yesterday. He sits, turning his chair just enough that he can see me while sitting beside me. “I missed you this morning.”

  “I snuck back upstairs in the middle of the night. You never know what time Max is getting home.”

  He nods. “I know. It just would have been nice to have you there.”

  I smile. “If Max wasn’t sitting in the kitchen I’d suggest we go there right now.”

  His eyes darken. “Max just left.”

  “Ginny won’t be up for hours,” I reply.

  He pulls me to my feet. With a quick glance inside, he puts his hand at the small of my back and hurries me to his room. The second we’re inside and the door is shut, he presses me to the wall. “This is better,” he whispers against my mouth. “Good morning.”

  He kisses me sweetly, and then his lips part, as do mine, and we meet each other. Slowly at first, our breath mingling, tongues gliding. But then he leans into me, all weight and heat, and something is triggered. There’s a low hum in my throat – a sound of desire, of aquiescence — and he is suddenly kissing me harder, his hands digging into my skin as if he can’t grip me tightly enough. He scoops me up and throws me on the mattress, and then he is above me, consuming me, pressing me into the bed with his weight.