The Light of Day

by Kristen Kehoe

  ~

  “Tell me this wasn’t a mistake.”

  We’re lying wrapped together, my head on his shoulder, both of his arms around me and mine draped over his waist. His fingers are sifting through my hair and I’m more content than I ever remember being. What we just did… I’ve had sex before. Sex with Jake is something else, something more. Something I’ll never forget. Which worries me, and prompted me to ask for his reassurance. I’ve never needed reassurance before. It appears that this rendezvous, whatever it is, is new for me all around.

  “Were you here with me twenty minutes ago? Because I can assure you, if you were you would not need me to tell you that this wasn’t a mistake.”

  He rolls and I’m under him, our eyes locked. “No?” He shakes his head. “Then what was it?”

  “Amazing,” he says and I smile, because he’s right. Scary? Yes. New? Yes. Amazing? Oh, God, yes.

  Then his face gets serious and I reach my finger up to trace the line of his brow. “I don’t want you to think I’m like everyone else, Cora, or that you’re like the other girls I’ve been with. This? Us? It’s nothing like that.”

  I nod, and though I don’t want to have this conversation, I know I started it because we need to have it. “I want to trust you, Jake, trust this, but I have to be careful, too. I told you once that I used to be a girl who believed everything because it was easier to convince myself it was true than it was to really look at why I was so needy for the words in the first place. I don’t ever want to be that girl again.”

  “I get that, just as I get how scary this is for you. But you need to know one thing.” He waits until I look at him, and his eyes are blazing and serious as they bore into me. “I’ve slept with other women — some more than once, some once, some I remember, some I don’t. I’ve had one serious relationship that I thought might be forever, and then I lost everything and I didn’t think forever mattered anymore.” Now he rests his weight on his right elbow and brings his left hand up to cup my cheek. “Blue, one glance at you all those months ago showed me that I might not be able to see forever, but I definitely want to see tomorrow if you’re there.”

  My heart rolls over, it doesn’t have a choice. Part of it’s from fear, but the other part is from something greater, something a lot like hope, which is pretty fucking scary. For a minute I try to decide if I can block the words and how they make me feel, and then I realize that even if I could I don’t want to. I won’t lie to myself that much, not anymore, and I don’t want to lie to him, either. Everything he’s said, I want, and so I tuck the words close, knowing I’ll take them out and remember them over and over again later.

  But now, I take that last step and bring my lips back to his, pushing closer until I’m rolling him and shifting so we’re chest to chest with my legs resting on either side of his hips and my hair curtaining around us. I hear him groan and I smile before taking my lips on a journey over his face, down his neck and onto his chest, lower, absorbing the scent that is Jake, something tangy mixed with the smell and salt of the sea that seeps into my body as I taste him everywhere I can. When I move lower and take him into my mouth, his hips buck and I hear a groan rip from his throat.

  His breathing is ragged, his chest heaving and he says my name, his hands fisting on the bed beside me, but I ignore him until we’re both breathless again, both ready to explode. Sliding up his body, I straddle him and take his lips again, reveling in the desire I can feel coming from him. One of his hands grips my hip while the other tangles in my hair, fisting there while he yanks me closer and fuses his mouth to mine. He’s not a gentle kisser right now, not the lover worried about finesse and smooth moves and I respond more because of it. I want him uncontrolled — I want everything that he feels to show in every way that he touches me.

  “Now,” he says and I just grin and continue to torture us both. “Cora, Jesus, now.” He reaches over to the nightstand beside the bed, knocking something to the floor before I hear him rip open a condom before he sheaths himself. And then both of his hands are at my hips and he’s shifting me, sitting up in one fluid move so my legs are around his waist and he’s pushing inside, claiming me, making me his until we’re moving together in a rhythm all our own.

  When I come apart, his lips are there and he swallows my cries, throwing himself over the edge with me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jake

  “Tell me about your family. You’ve already said you don’t have a mom, but you’ve mentioned your dad a few times. Tell me about him.”

  Cora’s question brings me out of my reverie of the street scene beneath me. It’s been forty-eight hours since we went to bed together, forty-eight hours since I felt what it’s truly like to be consumed by someone, and I’ve relished every minute of it. We’ve talked, laughed, loved, messed around, all of those things you do when you’re first with someone. Only this time it’s different, because we’re living together, and because for the first time I understand what it means to be powerless. She holds the power here, whether or not she knows it.

  Now, we’re both done with our work days (a work day she was late for thanks to yours truly and my skills in the shower), and we’re sitting on our small balcony enjoying the dying early spring sunshine and an after-workout drink. I don’t know how to answer the question she’s asked, so I shrug and settle down deeper into the glider, my feet kicked out in front of me and crossed at the ankles as I rock us back and forth. She’s sitting next to me, a water bottle in one hand while her other taps out a light rhythm on the seat. Her hair is pulled back from her face to spill in a long line down her back and her shoulders are bare in her running tank top. Her legs are crossed under her Indian style, and I take a minute to appreciate that her small running shorts are made even smaller when she sits like this.

  It’s crazy how beautiful she is, how much I can just look at her and get lost in everything she is and let it all go until the only thing I think about is her. I’ve known this girl just over four months and already she’s done what even baseball couldn’t, and she’s taught me to simply live where I am right now, without looking forward or backward.

  This thought shakes me a little, enough that I give her a grin I’m not really feeling and ease away from whatever emotion is creeping its way toward me. However deep my feelings, however much I want her to know that what we have is special, I’m not ready to acknowledge just how much I feel for her. Not yet. When she raises her brow, I shrug.

  “There’s not much to tell. He raised me, fed me, taught me about baseball. When I graduated, I went south and he stayed in Montana. We talk every month or so, I tell him where I am and how things are going, he tells me to call again soon, and we hang up.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Not a whole lot of anything.”

  She sighs and I know I’m making this difficult on her, but shit, I don’t want to have this conversation. Everything between us is great — better than great, and I don’t want to ruin any moment we have together with talk about something I can’t change. But she asked, and we’ve talked about her parents, which reminds me why this conversation we’re having now isn’t out of the blue. Feeling like an asshole because I can remember her breaking when she told me about her own parents a few days ago — something I pushed her to do, goddammit — I gulp down a little bit of my beer and think of how to begin.

  “Like I said, I never knew my mom. People told me she walked out on us before I was even a month old, so it’s always just been me and Dad. He was a good guy — is a good guy. He taught me everything I know about baseball since he was a pitcher, too. Signed straight out of high school, moved his way up to Triple A pretty quick, made a name for himself.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then, he did what the majority of ball players do while trying to make it to the big leagues and got stuck. Just couldn’t get out, couldn’t get his big break, became a spot filler. When my mom got pregnant, he decided that it was happening that year or he wa
s done. The money isn’t great in the minors, and the travel schedule is murder. When I was born and she took off, his decision was made for him.”

  I take another drink, knowing I need to finish and wishing there were a way to avoid it. Since there’s not, and I’ve grown accustomed to uncomfortable things in the past few months, I bite the bullet and lay it all out there. “Now, he’s a part time mechanic and a full time alcoholic. He’s been on the wagon three times,” I say, though she doesn’t ask. “And all three times he’s fallen off with a pretty heavy crash. He works during the day when he’s sober enough, or the demand for money is great enough, and he drinks his nights away, suffers for it in the morning, and is a mildly content person. I let him be because it’s easier to see him like that than to watch him be devastated each time he tries to quit and fails.”

  I wonder for a second if I should have admitted to her that he’s an alcoholic, one that doesn’t appear to have the ability to quit. I sit in the quiet and worry that she’s going to tell me I’m a bad son, that in excusing his drinking, I’m only taking the easy way out for myself. They’re all things I’ve said to myself, but now faced with Blue and the knowledge that she did pull herself out of the pit, I wonder how much more shame I can feel. She has the same weakness he does, yet in Cora I see nothing but determination to be something other than a label, and in my father… well, I don’t see anything, because I try not to look too hard.

  “Did he ever see you play in college?” she asks after a minute and I come back from my thoughts to shake my head.

  “Nope, but he taught me to play, so I figure that ought to be enough.”

  “Is it?”

  It’s the first time she’s asked what I would consider a truly personal question. Asking about my dad, my family, even baseball, that’s all basic inquiry for people who are doing the dance we are — getting to know someone because they’ve become someone to you. But that question is personal, one that requires a feeling rather than a story.

  I shake my head, my fingers tightening briefly on the bottle they hold before easing off. “No, it wasn’t. But then, his life never really gave him what he needed, either, so I can’t really blame him.”

  She nods like she understands, but doesn’t say anything for a minute. I’m awed at how quiet she can be, how still, when I know inside she’s processing, thinking, always adjusting her attitude, responses, feelings until she’s satisfied with them. It makes me want the quiet too, but there’s also a part of me that wants to find out what her response is like when she doesn’t process it, doesn’t filter it.

  Sitting here with her, I’m suddenly very aware of the fact that I want to find out who Cora is when she’s unfiltered. Like she was in the bedroom the other night, a dark haired siren above me, her own hands in her hair as she rocked us both to madness until I could see and feel nothing but her. When we’re together like that, when I’m touching her, inside of her, I know I have Cora, the one who can’t hold her responses back, who doesn’t have time to think and process her response. I touch her and she becomes mine. Now, I want that outside of the bedroom too.

  “What’s wrong with us that we don’t want to save everyone around us?” she asks and I raise my brow.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Me with my mother, you with your father. Countless kids have fucked up families and the majority of them work day and night to be the adult, the savior, the one who keeps everyone together. I thought it was just me, but listening to you say that you’re okay with your dad how he is, even if it’s destroying his life, I understand because that’s how I am with my mom. She’s losing her mind a little more each day and I go and paint her nails once a week, and I really only started doing that because it was part of my recovery program, a step I needed to complete. I’m not looking to become a nurse or her personal savior. I’m doing what I want, just like before she got sick. Even when she had her health, I let her do what she wanted, even when it was harmful, even when I hated her and wanted her to be someone else. I never tried to stop her, save her, understand her. I still don’t. Half the time I’m with her neither of us says anything.”

  She finally looks at me and I can see that though her voice isn’t sad, there’s sadness lurking just beneath the surface. I want to gather her close and tell her I’d save her if I could, but that’s a lie because I already know I need her more than she needs me, and in a way, she’s already saved me. Instead, I keep my voice casual with the hope it will lighten whatever fear she’s carrying around.

  “Not everyone’s made to be a hero, Blue, or we’d all be off fighting wars or diseases or fires, and then most of us would probably just end up dead.”

  “Jesus, that’s an awful outlook.”

  I shrug and tip my bottle back. “The trouble with being a hero is that there’s always someone who needs to be saved and, eventually, you just get sucked dry until you can’t fight anymore and you fail. You and me, we know this already, so we don’t try and jump in when it’s obvious that if someone wanted to, they could save themselves.”

  Or that it’s too late. I don’t say this, but I know from a glance that it went through her mind too.

  “I’m not sure if you believe that, but I think you want to.”

  I slant my eyes to her and see that she’s angled toward me now, her head cocked slightly as she studies me. For whatever reason, her stare has me opening my mouth again. “I tried to save my dad once, but he didn’t want my help and it made me realize that being disappointed sucks, so instead of being disappointed I accept who he is and we both live our lives in relative peace.”

  “And you battle his demons for him each and every time you get on the mound.”

  There’s a little clutch in the bottom of my belly when she says it, partly because I don’t want to acknowledge anything that has to do with what I used to be, and partly because for the first time I feel like someone gets it. I ignore it, focusing instead on the scent of her that’s wrapping around me and filling me, taking me to that place that makes me want to believe in anything as long as she’s there. “I used to. Now we both battle our own demons.”

  We’re locked on one another, our drinks forgotten and gazes unblinking as the air between us becomes palpable. “Blue,” I say and lean toward her. She doesn’t hesitate to meet me halfway, and soon I hear her water bottle thud to the ground, my beer bottle clanking after it. Neither of us pauses. Instead, she shifts until her knees are bent and on either side of my hips and her hands are in my hair. And her lips, Jesus, her lips are pressed to mine as our tongues tangle together and I can’t breathe without inhaling her.

  “How can it be like this?” she asks as we break apart and my lips go to her neck. “How can it be better each time?”

  “Because it matters,” I say and stand, keeping a firm grip on her as I walk toward the slider, shouldering the door open as her legs lock around my back and her lips find my ear. Christ. I stumble when Yogi darts in front of me, silently swearing to extract revenge from him later, but Blue only laughs as she tightens her legs and continues nibbling on my neck. In an impressive show of multitasking, she wiggles out of her tank top until there’s only a thin, electric pink athletic bra between me and that gorgeous rack of hers.

  I stop and stare at her, noting the flush of her cheeks and the challenge in her eyes. “We’re not making it to a bed,” I tell her.

  “Why do you think I got such a big couch?”

  “God, you’re perfect.” And then I’m sinking down over her, searching a condom out of the pocket of my jeans before we’re a tangle of limbs and mouths, each racing toward the peak again and again until we fall into an exhausted heap.

  Sometime later, I’m on my back with Blue sprawled across the top of me, her head nuzzled into the nook between my ear and shoulder, her arms tucked between our bodies. Her breathing is deep, but every now and then she arches slightly under the stroke of my hand over her back.

  “You were wrong earlier,” I say. I keep my hand moving over h
er back, and though she doesn’t respond, I know she’s listening so I continue. “You are a hero, Blue — every day you get up and battle your demons, every time you go and see your mother even though it would be easier to let her forget, or to let her blame you for not seeing her; those are the actions of someone strong, someone heroic, and your mom knows it. Just because she doesn’t know how to react to it doesn’t mean you should quit.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but I don’t expect her to. After a second, I feel her lips at my throat and her arms snake out and around my neck before she settles more securely so we’re now holding each other. Kissing the top of her head, I hold her close as the sun sets and the night falls around us.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Cora

  When I knock on the door to my parent’s house on Monday, my father shocks me when he opens the door during a time that he’s normally at work. We stand there, staring awkwardly at one another until he clears his throat and steps back.

  “I’m glad to see you, Cora. I didn’t, uh, know if you’d be returning after last week.”

  I step past him and stand inside of the entryway as he closes the door. I watch him for a second, floating back in time as I recognize he’s in what he considers his casual-wear of crisply pleated khakis and a polo shirt, this one a light blue. He’s wearing a belt and the matching loafers, and his hair is parted and combed in his original gentlemen’s cut. If my father wasn’t in a three piece suit when I was growing up, he was in this outfit right here. Even Christmas morning, he wore a rendition of this with a sweater thrown over the polo.

  I can see my reflection from the large foyer mirror behind him — my camouflaged half shirt paired with high waist black jeans and black stiletto sandals and a leather jacket — and I wonder how I’ve never noticed that I’m so much more my mother than my father. He’s the steady one, the tidy architect who keeps himself as professional at home as he does at the office, never losing his temper, never overreacting, just always there. He’s cleaned up so many messes over the years, some made by me, some by her, some by both of us, and I suddenly wonder if he’s tired of it. But then I remember the other day when he walked in and saw us together, the joy on his face before he realized exactly what was going on, and I know that he’d do anything to see her happy again. He loves her, almost blindly, and though I know he cares for me, I’ve never pushed for more because it’s always been obvious that she needs him more. I wonder if he knows just how much I need him too, or even if I knew just how much his affection mattered before this moment.