by K. J. Dahlen
He’s a sight, Gio. Tall and leanly muscled, his gray t-shirt a precise fit. My heart does a jerky flip-flop, looking at him, and then it squeezes, warm and aching. Because Gio rests his head on the pillow and closes his eyes. I trace the line of his jaw with a fingertip. This is the line of his face as a man. These are the years that separated us. But with his eyelashes resting on his cheeks, he looks so fucking vulnerable I want to rest my head on his chest and cry.
“Gio?”
No answer.
I let my hand fall to the blankets. I’d get under the covers with him, but there are dishes in the kitchen sink. Normally we split the dishes, the cleaning, but I’ll give him a pass. This once.
While I’m doing the dishes, I catch sight of the blue water across the street. It’s not the lake itself that draws my attention, but the little blonde girl, chasing through the grass, the man with a prosthetic foot going after her in huge loping strides. It looks like he’s been doing it all his life. I’m disgustingly curious, but no, I’m not going to stalk the guy next door just to ask him about his foot. That, out of everything that’s happened lately, would be crazy.
Gio’s still sleeping when the last plate is dried.
I dust.
I sweep.
The motion feels good, after all that worry about Gio. There’s a public path to the beach two doors down. Why not? I get my flip flops and go.
It’s as warm as a hug outside and I can’t help basking in it. I love the heat. Maybe Gio and I should go to other warm places. The country is full of them—Florida, Arizona, California. We could make a life of it, if we wanted. We might not have a choice.
That thought threatens to send me into a dark mood. I focus on the sunlight dancing on the lake’s surface and force it away.
We might be running now, but it won’t be like this forever. Nothing is forever. My mother taught me that.
I stand on the shore, my toes dipped into the water, and think about her.
As an adult, it’s clear to me that she was under an intense amount of stress. As a girl, I knew it but didn’t really know it. She was always laughing, always smiling. I didn’t recognize it as a front. It was only her personality, and I only knew that for certain toward the end of her life, when everything changed.
The fear in her eyes—God, it was always there, every waking moment. I thought it was about the cancer. I thought it was about death. But there was more for her to worry about than death. She was terrified for me.
And she was right.
I can picture her so clearly, lying in her bed, eyes wide, searching my face for a promise.
It’s like her eyes are on me now.
No...
It’s like someone’s eyes are on me now.
I jerk my head up and look down the beach, first one way, then the other. Far in the distance a family splashes in the water.
Maybe the trees behind me?
Nothing.
There’s no sign of movement, but I swear, I swear...
I rub a hand along the back of my neck.
I wait until it feels natural, then move quickly along the path back to the house. I check all the locks. I peer out into the yard. I’m becoming Gio.
My heart picks up. Gio.
I burst into the bedroom, expecting disaster.
There is none.
Gio is sprawled on the bed, arms thrown above his head, sleeping deeply.
Don’t think about it, I command myself, and through sheer force of will I read a novel straight into the evening, until my eyelids are heavy. One more check of the locks, and I crawl in bed next to my husband.
His even breathing calms me.
I’m going to stay awake, listening for any sign that something’s wrong, but the next thing I know, Gio shifts in the bed. I pat groggily at his arm. “It’s okay.”
“Okay,” he says, his voice sounding less tortured.
We sleep until morning, curled up with one another.
39
Gio
Where am I?
Consciousness comes back slowly, one sense at a time. The lake lapping against the shore, first, and soft breathing. A blanket pressing gently against my chest. Warmth, next to me in bed.
I swallow.
It doesn’t hurt.
The fact that it doesn’t hurt feels like a fucking miracle.
I sigh, the knot at the base of my gut unclenching. Who knew a sore throat could be that terrible?
I test it out again. This time, there’s a tiny flash of soreness. It feels like seasonal allergies. I can live with that.
I can definitely live with that.
It’s Sia, next to me in bed, in the still of the night, the waves on the beach the only soundtrack. The moonlight spills over her hair, which spills over the pillow. She sleeps on her side, one hand reaching toward me, as if to pat my arm or something equally as fucking cute.
God knows how bad things could have gotten without her.
The sore throat is one thing. But the rest of my life?
I stroke my fingers down her side, lightly, and she lets out a little breath and stirs.
I shouldn’t wake her.
I want to wake her.
I do it again.
Her eyes flutter open, colorless in the moonlight and still as deep as quiet water.
She smiles at me without a word.
I don’t speak, either.
She rises to her knees on the bed and wriggles out of her panties, strips her tank top over her head, and by the time I have my boxers off she’s already crawling up over me, kissing me all the way up to my collarbone. To my jawline. To my temples.
Sia presses her forehead into the hollow of my shoulder and straddles me.
I’m hard for her. How could I not be? I get even harder when she takes me into her hand and tugs me into position all by herself, my head dipping wetly into her soft folds.
She sinks her hips toward mine like a prayer and oh, god, oh fuck, she’s so tight. She’s so warm and tight and firm and even now, in the middle of the night, woken from a deep sleep, she’s loose and sensual and fucking perfect, swirling her hips around, grinding against me so there’s pressure against her clit.
Neither of us speak a word, but Sia can’t help herself. Her soft, low moans match up with the waves on the shore. I don’t know if she’s conscious of it, but we’re fucking along with that water, and it’s the holiest thing I’ve ever done, other than marry her.
Sia tosses her head back, fingertips braced against my chest, and I feel her tightening around me. I run my hands down the muscles of her abs as they work, dig my thumbs into her thighs, take her hips in my hands and move her, move her, until it’s time.
I hold her still.
Her hips rock back and forth in my hands, tiny movements, tiny gasps. How? How am I so lucky, so blessed, to have this woman in my hands, on my cock, as my wife? How did this ever happen?
I should be more thankful.
Sia rides the wave of her orgasm all the way up to its peak. When she releases, I see stars. I follow her into that dark sky.
“Gio,” she says, the one word she’s spoken since she woke up, and folds herself into my chest, skin flushed and hot.
It’s a long time before she returns to her own pillow.
40
Sia
All is well.
All is more than well, with the morning sun on my face. I stretch like a cat, realizing with an arch of my back that I’m naked. I didn’t go to bed naked.
No, I didn’t.
I roll toward Gio with a wicked smile, but he’s so deeply asleep that he doesn’t move a muscle.
I’ll let him sleep.
Desire blooms between my legs, but now that he is well—or at least on his way to being well—we have plenty of time.
Plenty of time.
I linger in the shower, washing my hair, shaving my legs, and he still doesn’t wake.
I could go to the store.
I’m out in the car before I
have a chance to think twice.
In the grocery store, I get a half-size cart and wander the aisles, taking my time. I’ve been to the grocery too many times, lately, but we never have fresh things. I want to make fresh things today. I pick up tomatoes in the produce section and test them for firmness. I choose three avocados and put them in a clear plastic bag. Soon the half-size cart overflowing, a rainbow of food, like one of those bullshit healthy eating ads that makes you feel bad for eating Fritos.
I have Fritos, too.
I have staples.
I have things that will keep.
Things that will last a long time. The rest of the summer, even—canned black beans, canned white beans, cans and cans. I have a vision of myself plucking them off the cupboard shelves, making them into something wonderful, something that will make Gio smile.
It reminds me of my uncle, cooking. His approach was no-nonsense, but he took a certain pride in it.
I stand in the soup aisle, a fancy version of chicken noodle in my hands, and let my mind into that place of questioning. Why the hell was he in Verona? I can’t figure it out, and I don’t try to force it. I only let the memories of his house float up into my consciousness while I try to figure out how to make this sort of soup from scratch for less.
So much of that time, I was more concerned with growing up. Middle school. High school. Boys. The house was only set dressing. A soundstage. I paid as much attention to it as I would to a hotel painting.
The door to the store’s back room swings shut with a click, and it jogs something in my memory. Something old. Something I heard lots and lots of times. Hundreds? Thousands?
Always at night, always in the dark. The sound of the front door, shutting. There must have been footsteps, too, but I don’t remember those.
Only that door.
Click.
Always late. When I’d been sleeping. I’d turn over in the night, surface from whatever dream I’d been dreaming, and click.
Was there a set schedule?
Did I only ever hear it on certain days?
The small print on the can of soup swims out of focus.
Too much time.
Too much time has passed, since those nights I slept in my uncle’s house, unaware of what was going on in the rest of the world. It wasn’t until this year, really, that I started going out late, that I started visiting clubs, that I would have been awake enough. Curse that younger version of me. I didn’t know there was information to gather.
Maybe there wasn’t.
I shake my head, trying to clear the haze of teenage hormones from all those memories.
It doesn’t work.
I toss the soup into the cart. I’ll figure out the recipe later.
The cart is overfull at the checkout, so much so that I transfer it into a bigger cart. It makes me walk slower, all this food meant to last, and that’s probably why I see the flyer.
This is a local grocery store, local as hell, and at the exit there’s a big bulletin board with all the local news you could ever hope to get in the form of fliers that people hand-draw and print on their home printers. CAR FOR SALE. LOOKING FOR HOME FOR CAT. TRAILER FOR SALE, NICE.
One of them has a bright picture on it. It says HELP WANTED! at the top. I stop to look at the clip-art ice cream cone and end up reading the entire thing.
Fun Freeze is looking for cashiers. Bright personality, responsible, please call 555-3793.
How fucking quaint is that? It fills my heart with a giddy joy, this flyer for a summer job. Something simple. Easy. I could apply for this. They don’t really need to know who I am in order to let me scoop ice cream. And who would I be if I passed up the chance to work at a place called Fun Freeze? It’s so innocent.
Tears come to my eyes.
It’s stupid, crying over this flyer, so I don’t. I flick the tears away with one knuckle. I roll my cart out into the sunshine, and I go home to tell Gio I’m driving down to apply at Fun Freeze.
Fun Freeze. Ha!
41
Gio
Sia takes a job at a roadside ice cream shop called, of all the fucking names in the world, Fun Freeze.
She loves it.
It’s a ramshackle place, tiny as hell, and they don’t serve hard-packed stuff. Nothing quality. It’s all soft-serve junk and nobody here can get enough of it. Or maybe they can’t get enough of Sia. God knows I can’t. She works a five-hour afternoon shift a few days a week while I recover.
It takes longer to recover than I think it should. It gives me too much time to think.
Sia’s happy. That’s what matters. She comes home laughing every night, telling me about all the crazy people who came to buy ice cream, and then she strips off her clothes and goes for a shower.
I can’t say I mind.
But ten days still feels like a year.
I’m finally feeling like I haven’t been run over with a truck. That’s a plus. But god, the vacation life is not for me. For Sia, Fun Freeze seems like a vacation—it must, because she’s never once complained about it.
Sitting around the cottage, on the other hand?
It’s putting all my doubts at the forefront.
What are we doing here? Really, what are we doing here? I sit on the front porch, my ass supported by nice wicker furniture, and look out at the cabins across the road. The couple with their daughter left on the weekend. I don’t know if they’ll be back.
This is supposed to be a honeymoon. And yet...
Sia has a job. I would have followed her into something similar, but I’m still getting over this bullshit sickness. I feel the itch, though. Who the hell wouldn’t? I don’t have classes anymore. I need something.
I shift uncomfortably on the wicker chair.
Screw the wicker chair. It’s not my ass that’s uncomfortable. It’s the rest of me. Because as happy as Sia might be, these places can’t last. Summer ends. Fall comes, and winter, and the town isn’t set up to handle it.
I’m not set up to handle it.
Ten days, and I’m already looking for a new place to live.
I’m looking for a new place I can live. I hate to admit this, hate the weakness that stabs at my chest, but I miss my family. I miss the weekly dinners. I can’t stop entertaining the thought that maybe they’ll forgive me for this. Maybe this was all a terrible misunderstanding.
How long? A year?
I could stay away for a year. I could build another network for a year, and then return. That might be enough.
I’ve moved to another chair in the back garden, where bees buzz around the flowers like we’re in a children’s book, when Sia gets home from Fun Freeze. She comes out into the backyard in a bikini, hair wet from the shower, skin glowing in the melting evening sun. She straddles me in greeting, and kisses me hard on the lips.
I kiss her back, tasting wintergreen on her tongue, and push her back so I can see her eyes. “Are you happy here?”
“Yes.” It’s sincere, but there’s a flicker in her expression that tells me otherwise. There’s something she’s not saying. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
Sia sighs. “Liar.”
“I miss my family,” I admit. It’s been burned into my mind by the sun. “Even though they’re…” I can’t find the words. Evil? No. I can’t bring myself to label them like that. What would that make me, if they’re evil to the core? “It’s too soon to go back, anyway. And we can’t stay here. Eventually, the season will end, and there won’t be work, or—” Or school. Anything.
Sia nods, a faraway look in her eyes. “Where should we go?”
The country is so vast. “Where have you always wanted to live?”
A smile wrinkles her nose. “Chicago. I loved it there.”
He kisses her. Jesus, what a sweetheart. The kiss gets hotter.
“Gio, we’re in public.” That doesn’t stop her from pressing her hips into his, little movements that drive him wild. Her bathing suit is thing, and that’s all there is between the
m. That, and my shorts. Damn the shorts. Damn them to hell. I take her by the hips and pull her closer. She can’t escape now.
“We’re on our private property.”
Sia giggles, her cheeks going red beneath the summer tan. “People could see—”
She’s right. Of course she’s right. The garden isn’t a fucking jungle. It’s a backyard garden, without hedges, so their backyard looks right into other backyards. People could see.
And do you know what? I don’t care at all. In fact...
I stroke my fingers between her legs, shoving them right beneath the bathing suit.
Sia groans. She’s already wet, wet and soft and willing, and she takes my bottom lip between her teeth while I bury two fingers into that wetness.
“Let them see.”
“God, Gio...”
“God has nothing to do with this.”
She’s open and waiting and hot for me, her kiss more desperate by the second, and I yank that pretty pink swimsuit to the side, exposing her slit. It takes half a second to undo my belt, and another half second to claim her, her swimsuit tight on the side of my cock. The pressure is a constant reminder that we’re outside. We’re in full view of anyone in this little town. I’m fucking my wife, right out here in the open, and I love it.
I push her up and pull her down slow, savoring every inch of her, and she arches back. This—this is what I could do forever and ever. Make her beg for me. And beg she does. I’m controlling the movement, and I can see how it’s agony and angels all at once.
One inch, then two. “Gio, please. Please. Please.” She fists my shirt, her grip tight, and her lashes flutter down to meet her cheeks.
“Anyone could see,” I tell her, as easily as I might comment on the weather.
She answers with a moan and comes, a quaking orgasm on my cock, right there in the garden, the bees humming lazily nearby.
Let them see. Let them all see.
42
Sia
Gio’s words are hooked into my brain at the next day’s shift at Fun Freeze.