Calm Like Home

by Clark, Kaisa

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply innocently, grinding my hips against him.

  He smirks at me, his eyes dancing brightly over mine, and shakes his head. “I’m onto you.”

  “All right, Westbrook,” I relent, withdrawing my hands with a flourish. “Let’s get it over with. Let’s watch some bears eat somebody. But I really don’t think these bears are representative of the larger population. They’re probably outcast bears. You know, the really mean ones none of the other bears want around,” I say lightheartedly.

  He chuckles and whispers into my ear, “Calm down, my bear. I’m sure they aren’t all like this.”

  He kisses my cheek lightly and I snuggle back into his chest. We stay wrapped up in each other long after the movie is over, the room lit only by the light of the fish tank. Adam reaches for the remote to my sound bar and begins streaming music from his phone, turning the volume way down. I watch the fish absentmindedly, my head pressed against his chest, feeling him softly stroking my hair. I drink in each tender motion, feeling complete calm, feeling perfectly at peace.

  After a time he whispers, “I’m going to miss you tomorrow at the Jack concert. Would it be okay if I came by after?”

  Like he even needs to ask. He’s over here practically every night now. This is becoming just as much his place as it is mine. I’m terrified for what that means when he finally goes away. Will it feel empty? Will it feel like he’s missing? I force the thoughts from my mind, wanting to enjoy his presence while I still can.

  “I’d like that.” I beam up at him, tracing my fingers along the defined lines of his chest.

  A grin spreads across his face when he sees me smile and he kisses the top of my head. “I think I figured it out.”

  “Hmm?”

  “What you remind me of. I’ve been trying to pinpoint what it is,” he says, still smiling. “You’re like a sunset,”

  “A sunset?” I grin incredulously.

  He nods. “You’re so warm, so full of light, so calming, so beautiful I can’t look away.”

  I grin and kiss his cheek, his forehead, his nose. “You can be so cheesy, Westbrook.” I gently shake my head at him, still beaming at his words.

  “Hey, I thought that was pretty good!” He feigns hurt feelings but he’s grinning right back at me.

  “It was wonderful,” I murmur. Every inch of me is smiling now, every inch exuding joy. “And sweet, and thoughtful.”

  “You are. You’re my sunset.”

  His lips pull over mine with exquisite tenderness and my heart sings in my chest. I feel so treasured, so adored, so complete. He sighs contentedly against me, his hands running through my hair, and I breathe him in. As my lungs expand I try to push away the pang of sadness that hits square in my chest, the nagging at the edge of my consciousness reminding me I only have so many more kisses before the last one, the one that is goodbye.

  As we lay, our bodies entwined, closer than we’ve ever been before, I want so badly to finally push all these thoughts swimming through my head out my mouth. I want to tell him what he means to me, how he makes me more, makes me better. I want to ask him what we’re doing here, if he feels the same. I want to ask him what will happen between us when the summer ends. But the truth is, I’m terrified. I’m terrified of hearing his silence, terrified of what the distance might mean for us. I don’t know how we can ever survive as anything less than what we are now, ensconced in one another’s arms, feeling perfectly complete, feeling perfectly as one.

  Chapter 12

  “I see how it is,” Annabelle grumbles as she pulls her door open the night of the Jack concert. “Only hang out with us when your man is out of town.” She lets out a chuckle. “Then again, I can’t really blame you.”

  “You’ll always be my best girl, Annabelle.”

  “Well pretty soon I’ll have you all to myself. Then he’ll be the one who’s craving your company instead of me.”

  I feel my stomach lurch at her words, the sharp stab of truth searing my belly.

  “So did Damien go tonight too?” Carly asks as we join her on the couch.

  “I’m not really sure. I kind of forgot to ask.” A slow smile creeps across my face and Annabelle tosses a couch pillow at me.

  “You naughty girl!”

  “What?” I ask, wide-eyed. “I didn’t say why.”

  The sound of my phone ringing in my purse interrupts my thoughts. When I retrieve it I’m surprised to see Adam’s name on the display. I can’t help it; I’m instantly beaming.

  Seeing my reaction, Annabelle calls out, “We all know who that is!”

  When I answer I hear loud music blaring in the background and know he’s calling from the concert.

  “My bear!” he yells loudly into the phone so I can hear him over the music. “They’re playing Banana Pancakes and all I can think of is you and me in your bed!” With how loud his voice is I’m fairly certain that Annabelle and Carly and anyone in his vicinity can hear him too. I can make out Damien shouting dramatically in the background, “Oh bear!”

  “I’ll see you tonight!” he shouts into the phone before hanging up.

  The girls are both watching me intently and burst into laughter when I put the phone away.

  “Geez, Alexa, what’ve you done to him?” Annabelle laughs. “He can’t stand to be away from you for five minutes.”

  If only that were really the case. Then maybe I wouldn’t be so terrified at what his departure means for us.

  “So what about you miss thing?” I raise my eyebrows at Annabelle trying to divert the conversation away from me. “Whose heart are you currently breaking?”

  She grins devilishly. “Preston and I are talking. Actually that’s probably a bad word for it. Preston and I are meeting at night and not talking.”

  I relax into her couch, welcoming the distraction of a night with the girls. I try to let myself get swept up in the conversation and laughter, but each minute apart from Adam is magnified, drawn out, torturous, an ominous forecast of what’s to come in only a few more days when he finally goes away.

  It’s the dead of night when I feel the bed shift under his weight. His arms wrap tight around me in the darkness and he pulls me into him, kissing my forehead, my temple, my cheek. I nuzzle my face against his, still half-asleep, rejoicing in the feel of him around me again. His face is still pressed to mine and I can feel his mouth pull into a broad smile.

  “My bear,” I barely hear him whisper. It’s so soft I wonder if I’m actually dreaming. “I’m home.”

  I stir at his side, shifting closer. Always closer. This night apart has given me a brief glimpse into what his absence will truly be like. There’s nothing I want more than to push the inevitable away, to avoid it all costs, to pretend it isn’t happening. Just when things have become so intense, so real, so true, it’s almost time to let him go.

  I blink my eyes open once, twice, and there he is. He’s sleeping face down on the pillow, his stomach pressed into the mattress. I’ve never seen anyone sleep that way. How can he breathe? Just to be sure he is, I kiss his shoulders and stroke my fingers along the musculature of his back. He mumbles something into the pillow I don’t catch, but knowing he’s awake I clamber onto his back, planking over him, kissing his head and neck and shoulders.

  “Am I squishing you?” I ask gleefully.

  He turns his head to the side. “You’re so heavy. I can’t breathe,” he deadpans.

  “Really?” I shriek.

  He presses his palms into the mattress and lifts us both into a push up, me still lying on his back. I squeal with delight then roll off him when he lowers us.

  He wraps me in his arms and pulls me into his chest, kissing the top of my head. “Stay with me.”

  “What?” I grin up at him.

  “Come on B, call in sick. Stay with me today.”

  “I can’t do that,” I protest. “I’ve never called in sick a day in my life, not even when I’m actually sick!”

&nbs
p; “Which is exactly why you should call in sick today. We can stay in bed all day. I’ll be real, real nice to you, I promise.” He has a twinkle in his eyes when he adds, “Many, many times.”

  He leans in to kiss me then sweeps his fingers delicately over my chest, instantly igniting me. I squeal away from him.

  “You’re such a bad influence on me. I wouldn’t even know what to say!”

  “Tell him you’re not feeling well. He’ll believe you because you never do it. But do it soon, otherwise he’ll think you’re too hungover to get out of bed. It is Sunday morning after all.”

  I sit up, my stomach a nervous wreck. I can’t believe I’m actually considering going along with this. But what could be better than spending the day in bed with Adam? The deciding factor, the thing that pushes me over the edge is not his touch, or his charming smile, but the fact that in five days he’ll be leaving. I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to have a lazy Sunday with him again, so I buck up and make the call.

  The phone rings twice before Jim picks up. I lower my voice, trying to find the perfect balance of sounding miserable without overdoing it.

  “Hey, Jim. It’s Alexa. I’m so sorry to do this to you but I’m really not feeling well. Do you think you can manage without me today? I don’t want to leave you in a bind or anything but I really don’t feel well at all and I think the guests will notice.”

  “Stay home,” he mutters. “I don’t want you in here breathing on the food.”

  “Thanks, Jim. And again, I’m really sorry about this.”

  When I hang up Adam’s mouth is hanging open.

  “You sure you haven’t done that before? You’re a pro!”

  “Hey, you make a mean offer, Westbrook. I had to call in the big guns.”

  Our day proceeds exactly as he described. We stay in bed all day, completely engrossed in one another’s presence. We lay in a hundred different positions: side-by-side, our heads sharing a pillow; my back pressed to his chest; his limbs splayed out over mine; us lying face to face, fingers interlocked. We snuggle and cuddle and rotate, but always we are touching. We whisper when we don’t have to. We stare into each other's eyes. I memorize the sound of his heartbeat. I commit every mole, every line, every divot to memory. His fingers stroke through my hair, running between the strands, rolling and smoothing, relaxing me, settling my mind. And he is incredibly nice to me. Several times. He’s beginning to know my body better than I do, and I can’t say I’m complaining.

  We’re lying naked, entwined, when his fingertips brush the scar on my right arm. His voice is hushed but tender when he asks, “This was from the sign-stealing night, right? What was it, Come See Our Dick’s?”

  “Dick’s Coming Soon.” I match my tone to his, enjoying our quiet sanctuary, far removed from the world and the reality that’s closing in.

  Adam trails his fingers along my arm until he reaches a scar on the back of my hand. “And this?”

  I glance to where his fingers are rested then meet his eyes.

  “Lizzie Mark’s pool party. Scraped it on the concrete edge during a fierce game of Marco Polo.”

  “See, I told you there were safety issues where you and pools are concerned.” His smile is in his eyes. It’s in his voice. It’s seeping into me.

  I trace a scar on his right hand, a wide gash over the second knuckle. “Your turn.”

  He looks at me for an instant, hesitating. There’s surprise in his eyes, like he hadn’t expected me to ask, but he murmurs, “Tooth.” He quickly returns his gaze to my body, the look of hesitation dissipating into one of fondness. It’s just one more fragmented piece to the puzzle that is Adam Westbrook. I add it to my collection of little mysteries, having no idea why he’d have an inch-long slice on his hand from someone’s tooth. Who would want to bite him? Then again, who wouldn’t?

  His touch slides over my skin until he reaches the next scar, in the crease of my elbow. “How about this?”

  “That’s from breaking my arm flipping off that damned coffee table.” I smile recalling the memory. “I was so terrified to get the cast off because my brother told me if it didn’t heal right the doctor would cut my whole arm off with the cast. And then she nicked that fold with the scissors and I thought it was done for.”

  He grins at me, his smile brightening his entire face, warming me all over. “She let you keep it?” he asks softly.

  I nod, beaming back at him. His gaze slides over my face and rests on my lips. He is positively radiant. “I can tell this is a real smile,” he murmurs.

  “You can?”

  “Yep. Nine teeth. That’s your tell.”

  “What’re you talking about?” I ask, still grinning emphatically.

  “When you’re really happy, really laughing, you show nine teeth in your smile.”

  I can tell by his own smile that he’s pleased with himself. He’s happy he can tell me something about myself even I don’t know.

  I’m astonished by his astute attention, how he notices the little things I had no idea were even there, the tiny quirks and details that make me me. I feel so treasured, so important, so astounded that he would take time to notice and appreciate the little things no one else has ever found or bothered to seek out.

  There’s not a doubt in my mind that he has irrevocably changed me. He is inside me now, nestled up in dark corners, wrapped around sharp edges. He has forever enveloped my heart and mind, drawn out the best parts, shown me the light. I can’t go back to the middle now. I don’t want to go back to the middle now. I want to stay forever in his glow, soaking in his essence, letting him bring out the best in me, hoping that somehow I bring out the best in him.

  That is what Adam Westbrook means to me.

  If only I could find a way to tell him.

  By late afternoon we’re unbearably hungry. Adam orders a pizza, saying that answering the door doesn’t actually count as leaving the bed as long as I stay in it while he retrieves the pizza from the delivery guy. He brings the entire box and a tub of Ben and Jerry’s into the bed with us and we have a picnic in my room. It’s well after dark when his phone beeps with a text. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a rapid transformation; his entire face goes dark, something like sorrow or anger or remorse washes over him when he sees the screen.

  “I gotta go, bear.”

  I make a sad face, and he leans over and kisses the corner of my frown, which instantly elicits a smile.

  “I don’t want to, but that was my mom.”

  “Is everything all right?” He’s never explicitly mentioned her before.

  His lips tighten and he nods. “Yeah, just one night. Then I’ll be back.”

  I want so badly to keep this conversation going, to get any tiny little piece of him I can. I keep my voice light when I say, “I guess I should be surprised you got away with it this long.”

  His voice is bitter when he responds. “Yeah, well they’re both pretty much always at the hospital or traveling and I don’t like being in that house alone.” Dejected eyes come to a rest on my own and I wonder if this reaction is more than him not wanting to leave my side. If maybe there’s something else to it. “I’d rather be here with you any day.”

  After I kiss him goodbye I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair is tangled in the back from rolling around with him in bed all day. My lips are red and swollen from kissing. My face is flushed and there are bright pink blotches along my collarbone, no doubt from him. I look completely disheveled, completely ravished, and all I can think is I how badly I wish he’d come back for more.

  Chapter 13

  “I feel like I have to do something. Only I have no idea what,” I tell Annabelle, feeling exasperated. We’re sitting in my living room flipping through magazines. Well she is flipping through magazines, her feet casually slung off the end of my couch. I’m laying slack on the floor obsessing about Adam leaving.

  I keep talking, trying to sort through my thoughts. “I’ve been trying to force the words out, to te
ll him how I feel, but I just can’t. And knowing him, he’s not going to bring it up.”

  Adam and I don’t talk future. We talk hours, maybe days, but never weeks or months. Never what’s to come. And I wonder if it’s a sign. I wonder if that’s my answer. Silence. Nothing. The end.

  “Well it makes perfect sense. You’re probably the two worst people to have that conversation.”

  I stare at her dumbly. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not like either one of you is an open book.”

  I sigh in resignation. “For all I know he’s going back to school and that’ll be it. We’ll have never talked about it. I need him to know I didn’t think this was nothing.”

  “I’m pretty sure he already knows that.”

  I groan in frustration. She doesn’t get it.

  “What’re you going to do, make him a CD or something?” she asks flippantly, rubbing a perfume sample from a magazine flap on her outstretched wrist and inhaling sharply.

  “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “But it could work. The boy loves his music. I clearly don’t have the guts to tell him, but maybe he’d listen. Maybe he’d understand.”

  I’m suddenly energized. With Annabelle still on my couch I start pouring through the music on my laptop. I spend hours deciding which songs to include, long after she’s gone. I ponder the perfect mix during every spare moment I’m not with Adam. I play with the order, substituting songs in and out of the playlist a hundred times, trying to get it right. The track list ends up telling a story, our story. There are songs of attraction, songs of sex and passion, songs of falling in love (yes they use those words even if I can’t), and songs of letting go. I try to hint through the song selection how I really feel: how crazy about him I am, that I’ll still be here if he wants to continue whatever this thing between us is, but also that I understand this might be the end and I’ll find a way to handle goodbye. Summer is over. He is leaving, pure and simple. The finality stings, but I know expecting anything beyond what we currently have is probably nothing more than wishful thinking.