Both Sides Now

by Barbara Ferrer

  Rm 711. Need to see you.

  I started to toss it to the console, but for some reason, looked again. The blood rushed through my ears, leaving me dizzy—as if I’d just caught a puck upside the head.

  Jesus. I'd read it wrong.

  Rm 711. Need you.

  Libby

  February 5

  I’d left the door propped open with the latch, so there wasn't even a knock. One minute I was alone, the next, he was on a knee in front of my chair, his hands resting over mine in my lap.

  “Not the smartest idea in the world to leave the door open like that. You never know what kind of asshole might just barge in.”

  “Sort of what I was counting on.” I kept my stare fixed on the window, at the unending sheet of gray beyond because, wouldn’t you know it, the day was drizzly and foggy—bay and sky merging together into a murky soup that obscured all but the faintest outlines of the skyline. But I couldn't quite face him—not yet. Because if I looked down and saw pity—it might just break me. I wanted to say what I needed to and then…then I’d look at him and figure out what to do from there.

  I took a deep, shaky breath and braced myself.

  “When I was with you—not just when we made love, but all the time we spent together—it was—”

  “The most normal I’ve felt in a long time,” he finished.

  Oh God, he knew. He knew. But even so, I still couldn’t risk looking away from the window. Because even though he’d figured it out—even though he felt the same way—I still wasn’t done.

  “I…want that again, Nick.” My voice stayed clear and amazingly steady, though each word came out slower than the last. A wrenching, painful, rip-my-soul-out admission. The silent confession to myself had been so goddamn hard. Saying the words out loud—to him—wasn’t just an admission of need on my part. It was acknowledgment that a huge part of my life had come to an end and would never again be what it once was. “I…need it. With you.”

  And then, when I finally looked away from the window and tried to see what might be lurking in his eyes—afraid of what I might find there but needing to know—I couldn’t. Because he was lowering his head to my lap with a quiet sigh. His words emerged quiet and slow, but as steady as mine had.

  “I do too.”

  My gaze returned to the window and we stayed like that for a long time.

  “It doesn’t have to be about sex.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But, Libby, tell me it didn’t feel good.” The touch of his hand to my face had me turning away from the window to meet his gaze. “And I’m not talking about the sex itself, but the release, the being able to connect so completely with another human on all levels, without reservation. All the way down to your soul.” Slowly, he drew his fingers across my lips, leaving a trail of heightened sensation in their wake. “Tell me it didn’t leave you feeling as if you could breathe again.”

  Breathing like I was doing now, our faces close enough that I could practically feel the dark stubble on his face grazing my skin; so close that each breath he exhaled became my next inhalation. So close that it wouldn’t take more than a twitch on my part or his for our mouths to meet, to seal the connection between us.

  “You said I was your friend.”

  I nodded. “And friends are there for each other.”

  “Right.” His hands found mine again, palm to palm, fingers sliding together, locking tight, feeling the subtle shift of bone and muscle and sinew. The cool metal of both our wedding bands warming from the contact.

  “Let me ask you something, and I want you to really, really think about the answer before you say anything.”

  Another nod, feeling his breath as a caress from jaw to cheekbone as I did.

  “Would you be doing this—at all—if it was anyone but me?”

  I didn’t have to think about it. “No. Would you—”

  He was already shaking his head. “And I know you love Ethan and I love Kath, but the fact is, they don’t have enough in them to give us this. And it’s a gift we can give to each other—in friendship. Una benedición, as my abuelita would say.”

  “Somehow, Nick…” I freed one of my hands and ran it through his hair, feeling the cowlicks and waves trap my fingers. “I’m not thinking this is exactly what your abuelita would consider a typical blessing.”

  His mouth brushed mine in a fleeting caress before he rose, pulling me from the chair in the same motion. Gazing down at me, he copied my gesture, running a hand through my hair, cupping the back of my head in his palm. “She’d probably be pretty firmly of the opinion that there’s a reason we were dropped into each other’s lives, Libby.”

  “Sounds like something Nora might say,” I said. “Probably after consulting our astrological charts or something.”

  “Does she know?”

  I shook my head. “No one does.” None of Nora’s damn business, even if she, of all people, might stand a chance of understanding. If I felt so inclined to share. Which I really didn’t.

  “So it’s just ours.” The sigh punctuating his comment gave it a sound of relief, and not in a way that suggested he was worried about being found out.

  “You like that, don’t you?”

  “God, yes.”

  All of a sudden I was having trouble breathing, the fast shallow breaths leaving me mildly lightheaded. Nerves? Anticipation? Guilt? All of the above? Who knew. But before I could get too worked up, Nick, who’d picked up on my agitation, began a soft massage on my scalp that had my eyes closing as he drew my head to his shoulder. The scalp massage was having the effect of turning every muscle in my overtired body to Jell-O, prompting me to slide my arms around his waist and lean more fully against him as he backed up toward the bed.

  “Nick.” I wanted this. I’d asked him here for this, but paradoxically, I was still terrified. I was absolutely certain what we were doing was okay, at least by the odd standards we’d outlined for ourselves, but a tight knot of emotion still twisted in my stomach. And again, he picked up on my agitation before it had a chance to escalate.

  His hands rested lightly on my hips, his expression serious. “You look exhausted. I know I am. Let’s just sleep for a while, maybe get something to eat after.”

  I dropped my gaze to his waist where my fingers were playing with the hem of his T-shirt. “And after that?”

  “Whatever you want. If all we do tonight is sleep, then that’s fine.”

  That knot of emotion kept twisting in my stomach but with a more defined purpose, sending warmth out through each limb. I unbuttoned my shirt, after which I slid my sweats down my legs and kicked them off. Wearing nothing but a loose-fitting T-shirt, I slid into the bed and watched as he quickly stripped off his T-shirt and jeans before joining me. But rather than curve himself around my body, he turned me so we were lying face-to-face, his fingers tracing my eyebrows, my jaw, my lips, even the edge of my ear making me shiver.

  “Remember what you told me at Ray’s funeral—that we’re allowed to be angry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t you think if we’re allowed anger that we’re also allowed peace?”

  “Peace?”

  Both his hands framed my face, his gaze searching mine as intently as I searched his. “When I’m with you—it’s not just normal that I feel, but peaceful, too. Right now—I need some peace in my life. Just…something that’s calm and soothing and that I can hold on to when all the rest of my life is falling to shit.”

  My voice came out hoarse as I said, “You know, you’re pretty eloquent for a hockey jock.”

  He shrugged and slid his hands to my back, drawing me close. “I even read books without pictures.”

  Laughing together, adding another layer to that little world we were creating, was the last thing I remembered before drifting off.

  Libby

  Discovery. That’s what was different so far, I realized.

  That he loved to stay close and keep an arm around me while he slept, I already knew. Also how his b
ody gave off heat like a furnace, but his feet stayed unbelievably cold, so, of course, he’d tangle them up with mine, trying to get them warm.

  Strange, what I already knew.

  But he had a tiny little mole on his cheek, a dark spot kissing along the shadowy line marking where stubble gave way to smooth skin. And when he was sleeping and really relaxed, one side of his mouth tended to turn up. Hadn’t noticed either of those things before.

  Which brought to mind the second part of the equation. It wasn’t so much simply discovery; it was also the luxury of time. Admittedly, our time was limited, but it was ours, with only one possible demand that could take us away from each other. So now, we had the time to discover those things that tension and fear and desire hadn’t allowed us last time. I mean, discovery hadn’t even been a factor outside of figuring out how our bodies best fit together.

  That part, I knew would work just fine. Now it was time for the details. The little things that you studied and burned into your memory banks and kept close enough to be able to summon at will. The stuff that you tended to fixate on and moon over and wonder about in the early stages of a relationship. Except…Nick and I didn’t have a relationship—at least nothing you could call conventional. Still—didn’t mean I wasn’t curious.

  “What is it?”

  “Hockey?” I lightly traced the thin scar that ran for about an inch from just inside the left corner of his upper lip.

  His hand covered mine, his finger rubbing over the scar with a little more force than I’d used before bringing our hands down to his chest. Another detail I’d noticed before—the rubbing—usually when he was upset.

  “Yeah.” The tip of his tongue came out, touched the scar. “Was screwing around in practice my rookie season, wasn’t wearing my helmet, and caught the blade of a stick.” His free hand pulled his lip back, one finger tapping the two teeth behind the spot where the scar was. “And like a true hockey jock, these are implants.”

  “Ouch.” I couldn’t help but run my tongue over my own teeth, all there, albeit slightly crooked since Nora had deemed braces an unnecessary, bourgeois convention. We’d used the money to go to an ashram for the summer instead.

  He shrugged. “It happened so fast, I honestly didn’t feel shit—at least not right away. And luckily, the resident who stitched me up was a plastic surgeon wannabe doing a rotation in the ER, so I didn’t come out of it so bad.”

  “Not bad at all.” I lowered my head and kissed the corner of his mouth, my tongue following the line of his scar and beyond, up to the tiny little mole on his cheek.

  “Does it bother you?”

  I drew back and sat up. “Does what bother me? Your scar?”

  “God no. You don’t seem like the kind of person who’s bugged by such superficial crap.”

  “I’m not.” I sighed as his hand shifted to my thigh, stroking gently. “So what then?”

  “My being such a bonehead.”

  “Come again?”

  “You know—potential jeopardy to my livelihood…my general health.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He didn’t have to say a word. His expression said it all. “You said this happened your rookie season, which meant you were what? Twenty-two?”

  His gaze dropped as he nodded, studying the pattern his hand was drawing on my thigh as if he’d be tested on it or something.

  “Pretty much everyone’s a bonehead when they’re twenty-two.”

  “You were married with a viable career.”

  “Yeah, but I also didn’t have what anyone would call a conventional upbringing. And I was so concerned with not following Nora down the boneheaded path it probably had the net result of making me a huge stick in the mud.”

  Ha. Probably nothing. Meet the girl voted Most Likely to Become a Prison Matron during her senior class gag awards. Except, I don’t think it was so much a gag. Thank God for Ethan. He’d saved me from my own prissy, self-righteousness by making me see it for the armor I’d adopted as a defense mechanism.

  “I don’t think you’re a stick in the mud.”

  “And I don’t think you’re a bonehead.” I reached out and traced the scar with my thumb, letting it trail across his lower lip. The way he was gazing at me…it seemed as if there was something still on his mind.

  “What is it, Nick?”

  “I want you to like me, Libby.”

  Okay. Didn’t know what to say to that. “Of course I like you,” seemed like the natural response, but it also seemed more than a little ridiculous. Come on, he had to know I liked him. So, maybe not the exact response he was looking for.

  “How so?”

  He grabbed my hand and lowered it to his chest, rubbing his thumb across the knuckles in a light, impossibly gentle movement. “Maybe this sounds stupid, but…I don’t want you to think I’m just some idiot who takes unnecessary risks. That I don’t think, tú sabes?”

  “All right,” I said slowly, waiting, because the one thing I was getting was that he had to tell me in his own way.

  “That’s when she left me. I’d convinced her to at least give our relationship a chance, even if it was a long-distance thing, even if she was against my playing hockey as a career, but then I had the accident—” He sighed. “She said it was one thing for me to try to make it as a pro when the odds were against me, but jeopardizing my chances—my future—by being a brainless idiot was more than she could deal with. She wasn’t wrong either. I was in the pros, I was kicking ass, having a great time. Last thing on my mind was stuff like long-term consequences of my actions.”

  Ah—okay. I got it now. “Nick…what we do, what’s between us—” I took a breath, considering my next words. “It lasts as long as we need it to. And when the time comes, we walk away, no regrets. That’s as much as we need to know in terms of consequences.”

  “I don’t want you to think I haven’t considered what might happen.” His voice still retained a trace of just-woke-up softness. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Oh, Nick.” I cradled his face in my hands, and gently kissed his mouth. “Mi vida, you’ll never know how much that means to me. But honestly? I don’t know how I can possibly be hurt any more than I already have been.”

  To the tune of having built up a whole new suit of armor and still the hurt found a way in, insidious and mean, striking when I least expected it, the bastard. But rather than stripping it away, Nick had found a way to come crawling into my suit of armor with me, providing another layer against the pain. Again, I kissed him, harder, more completely, sliding my hands from his face, down his neck, to his shoulders as his mouth opened beneath mine.

  God, but the man’s mouth needed to be registered as a dangerous weapon. One second his tongue was tracing my lips, the next, running along the edges of my teeth, the tip of it even teasing the roof of my mouth in a way that sent corresponding shivers to every other erogenous zone in my body. He trailed a slow, devastating line along the sensitive skin behind my lips, his teeth tugging on my lower lip gently, then biting more sharply as I echoed each gesture.

  My lungs burning, I pulled back, sucking in a deep breath and trying to ground myself—just for a second. That feeling of spinning—of falling down Alice's rabbit hole—it was terrifying. And exhilarating. But when he would’ve pulled me back for another kiss, I shook my head, dropping one against his neck instead.

  “Let me,” I whispered, waiting until I felt his nod, his hands stroking my back.

  Straddling his waist, I began working my way down his body, doing more of that discovery thing, filing the details away. He had an athlete’s body—and he didn’t. Yeah, he was broad through the chest and shoulders and pretty muscular overall, but it wasn’t like he was this walking homage to weight room worship. More like the muscles were so tightly knitted to his frame, they were simply a smooth, integral part of his physique.

  Leaning down, I kissed each nipple, teased them with my teeth, which made him gasp and arch his back again, his fingers flexing on
my hips like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to pull me away or keep me right where I was. Like he had a choice. I took his hands in mine, holding them tight as I kissed my way down his stomach, circled my tongue around and in his navel, wetting the narrow trail of hair leading to and from the small indentation until he was shaking, his thighs tense and trembling.

  “Let me,” I repeated, more as warning than asking permission. I dragged the waistband of his briefs down over his hips, taking a deep breath of healthy, aroused male, my own desire cranking up another notch. But I could be patient. More discoveries to be made, after all.

  “Another hockey memento?” I lightly traced my fingers down the side of his left hip to the top of his thigh.

  “Yeah.” He arched again, this time more sideways, like he was seeking a more complete touch. I obliged, rubbing my palm over the warm skin, even though by doing so, it obscured my view of the tattoo. Just a few simple, black, curving lines that created a graceful, dark jungle cat.

  “Interesting location.”

  “Considering how many guys I played with had them, my dad knew it was probably a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’—so he just made me promise to get it somewhere it could be covered up.”

  “Why?”

  “So my mom wouldn’t have a heart attack.”

  “Seems a shame,” I murmured against his thigh, working my way up to the ink with slow, sweeping strokes of my tongue.

  He gasped, one of his hands finding purchase in my hair as I traced the tattoo with my tongue before turning my head to drag a slow, open-mouthed kiss across his lower abdomen to the opposite hip, tiny hairs prickling against my lips.

  With my hands, I stroked a long line from his knees all the way up as far as I could reach and back down again. Maybe he wasn’t ticklish, but he sure did like this kind of touching, arching and stretching into my hands just like the big, dark cat his tattoo depicted. “Why a cat?”

  “Had…a coach say…the way I moved across the rink reminded him of a big cat prowling, waiting to strike.”