The Weight of Life

by Whitney Barbetti

  I swore I could track the emotions flitting in and out of her irises. It was mesmerizing, the way she could switch gears so quickly. I was beginning to understand why she could stand to be so happy when I felt so filled with dread all the time.

  She changed the subject. “We haven’t really talked since you kissed me. Not sober at least.”

  “That’s true. So, talk. What’s on your mind?” It was all I could manage to say under the circumstances. Her skin was so soft, so warm. I worried, irrationally, that she’d melt in my hold.

  “What are we doing, Ames?” She let out a sigh.

  “Standing on a street.” I looked at our hands and ran a thumb over her knuckles. “Touching.”

  She stepped closer to me, and I wanted her to keep stepping forward until there was no space between us. “Ames,” she whispered. “What are we doing?”

  “What a question.” This wasn’t easily definable. “I’m not sure.”

  “I’m only here for three weeks.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?” she asked. “What’s okay?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Truth be told, I lose what little bit of rational thought I have around you.”

  The worry came back into her face and I let go of her just so I could touch her shoulders again.

  “Hey,” I whispered, my hands gliding to her neck. I stroked the line of her throat with my thumbs. “I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t have any answers. I’m not looking for a relationship, especially not one with an expiration date.”

  Her bottom lip jutted out and I glided my thumbs along her jaw. “But there’s one thing I do know, without a shred of doubt, and that’s when I touch you, I go a little stupid.” I felt her throat jump under my caressing. “You have an effect on me that I don’t want—but now that I know it exists, I don’t want to let go of it.”

  “Promise?”

  I held her eyes as long as I could. “I promise.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and it took me seconds longer than it should’ve to reciprocate. But I did, pulling my hands from her face and wrapping my arms around her, holding her securely to me. My fingers played with the ends of her hair as I just breathed her in, all the uniquely Mila pieces that had found their way into my life. She was like a museum of priceless qualities, and I found myself understanding just how easily anyone could be taken with her.

  She felt good in my arms, I realized. A welcome weight. Her light breaths warmed the center of my chest and it felt as if we’d hugged for an eternity, but then she pulled away and it felt like it had lasted only a second.

  “So, what’s the deal with you and Mila?” Sam asked as he tossed popcorn up in the air. It missed his mouth completely on its descent and fell to the floor.

  I picked up the piece and tossed it back in the bowl. “There is no deal.”

  “No, see, you can pull that shit with Lotte or Asher or Jennie, but you can’t with me.” He picked up our bottles of beer on the coffee table and pushed mine into my hands. “I know you better, mate. And, besides, I thought you were going to murder me over her, so I ought to know the why.”

  “I’m not sure why I invited you over,” I told him when he dropped another kernel on the floor.

  “Yeah, me either. So, what’s the deal with her?”

  “What’s the deal with you and what’s-her-name?”

  Sam smiled lasciviously. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “That black-haired girl you danced with before I all but pulled you off of Mila.”

  Sam stretched out. “Oh, her. Well she was a fun five minutes.”

  I tossed the kernels he kept losing back at him. “That’s all it took you? Five minutes? Maybe it’s time to retire your dick.”

  “Oh, piss off.” Sam threw a whole handful of popcorn at me before settling back into his seat. “And quit changing the subject.”

  I took a long pull from my beer. “Do you really want to do this? Talk about our feelings and shit? Because I could start us off with some talk about Della.”

  At the mere sound of his ex-girlfriend, Sam gave me a glare to end all glares. “I’m afraid if we merely talk about her, she’ll figure out my location and kick down my door.”

  Della was Sam’s ex, a woman who had lured him in with silky promises and then, once his gravity had centered around her, she’d hollowed him of the man he’d been before, sending him hurtling through a path paved with random women who didn’t want commitment. Just like him. He wasn’t afraid of commitment, and he didn’t feel the need to dissuade anyone else from taking it up, but he was done with it.

  “Didn’t she do that once before?”

  Sam took a long pull from his beer, long enough that I reached over the back of the sofa for another bottle from the case and handed it to him. He popped the top off of it, sending it spinning on the hardwoods. “Yep. Well, she tried. Got her heel stuck in the wood of the door, actually.” It would be amusing if it’d been anyone but Della we were talking about. Della was of a different variety than the average girl.

  When Sam had first brought her around us, I’d had a feeling things wouldn’t end easily for him. But that was how I knew she hadn’t been right—because I’d already been seeing their end as an inevitable fact, and not just a possibility. It hadn’t been her bubblegum-colored lips or her waist-length shampoo-commercial hair. It’d been the look in her eyes, that wild, but barely tamed, look that had me averting my gaze and resisting any chance of eye contact. She looked at everyone like they were something to devour—leaving only their bones in her wake. It was a miracle that Sam had escaped from her clutches by the skin of his teeth, and kept them too.

  “Mate, you gotta get this fixed.” Sam stood and tapped on top of the television with his beer.

  “I’m sure hitting the TV with a glass bottle will do the trick,” I replied sarcastically. There wasn’t anything on anyway, but I’d invited Sam over because apart from the dinner at his family’s house, I hadn’t spent time with him in weeks. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I also wanted a little insight into Mila. Not that you’d know it by the way I changed the subject every time he brought her up.

  “Sorry for being rough with you.” Sam looked over at me in answer.

  “Why were you?”

  Here it was, the moment where I had to fumble through my thoughts, through my feelings for this alien creature named Mila. “Mila, she’s just … she’s not just another girl for you to plow through.”

  Sam scoffed. “Really, Ames. It’s like you hardly know me. You really think I’d be going after the girl my best friend is pursuing?”

  Shrugging, I grabbed a new beer for myself. “You lure girls in without even trying. I just didn’t want you to think Mila was another one you could, you know.” I needed more beer for this kind of talk.

  “Well, I don’t believe it. You’re not just interested in her. You’re really interested in her.”

  I sat back against the couch cushions. “Great distinction between those two.”

  “I’m not a wordsmith. That’s your job.” Sam tapped his fingers over the stack of books by the window and looked back at me. “She’s special, isn’t she?”

  “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “No need for hostility.” He held his palms up. “I just haven’t seen you like this over a girl in, well, a long time.”

  Two years. It hung in the air between us without either of us needing to say it. “Yes, well, she’s only here for three weeks, so we’re not exactly running off together.”

  “But it’s a start. When are you seeing her again?”

  I looked back at the clock that hung on the wall. “In about three hours.”

  “Please don’t tell me she’s coming to the pub again. That poor girl is going to think this is your lair and you only venture out at night, when it’s safe.”

  “I took her to Postman’s in broad daylight.”

  “An anomaly.”

  “I’m ta
king her to the restaurant. I’m just going to show her around. Before…”

  A voice interrupted me. “Hey, Sam.”

  We both turned to Lotte, who stood in the doorway, her hands held in front of her.

  “Lots. How are you?”

  Lotte moved a bit further into the room, but not closer to Sam, who stood by the windows. “Fine.”

  “Studio keeping you busy?”

  She smiled, and I silently sipped my beer. Though I’d never addressed it with Lotte—because I didn’t feel the need—her unrequited crush on my best friend hung obviously around her neck, like a bloody neon sign. She lived for the attention Sam gave her, but I knew he only saw her in a strictly little-sister fashion.

  “A little. Not too much. Been thinking of selling.” Her eyes darted to mine, and I sat up straighter, preparing myself.

  “Oh?”

  I sighed. “Lotte wants to sell the studio and give the proceeds of the sale to Free Refills and the restaurant, to go to America on an adventure.”

  Even though I didn’t hear her intake of breath, the way her chest stretched as she looked expectantly at Sam made me immediately aware that she was waiting for some kind of reaction from him.

  “Is that so?” He sipped his beer, and looked out the window. “You should go. Who knows, maybe you could find yourself an American boy to keep you occupied, as Ames has with Mila.”

  It was if he’d been aiming for the most vulnerable spot of her heart, based on her reaction. Her breath hitched, and she pressed a hand flat to her stomach. I felt a little bad for her, not because I wanted Sam to return her affections, but to see her hurt from his rejection was just another pain she shouldn’t have had to bear. “Maybe I will.”

  I watched as she swallowed hard and turned to me. “Dinner will be ready at half-past.”

  When she’d left the room, Sam turned from the window to face me. “Let me guess. You’re against it.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “You’re a bloody idiot.” He pointed two fingers directly at me, while keeping the rest of them wrapped around his bottle. “What are you going to do, six months from now, without that money?”

  “Close the restaurant, of course.”

  “It hasn’t even opened.”

  “I’ll sell it, then.”

  “See? Idiot.”

  Anger licked through me, hot and fast. “She’s not selling her studio to fund my silly solo project, Sam. And she’s not going to the States by herself.”

  “Are you her father?”

  I glared at him. “Don’t be an arse. We’re talking about Lotte, right? You really think she can traipse off to the States and not get taken advantage of in some horrific way?”

  “Mila managed to cross over the pond to the UK by herself and live to tell the tale. Why can’t Lotte?”

  “Mila is years older, and her eyes are wide open.” I pointed back at the kitchen, where Lotte had gone. “Lotte is still so young. This grand plan of her going to the States is just in response to all the things she’s had to deal with for the last couple of years. I’m not willing to let her run away and get hurt even more.”

  “Get off your high-horse, Ames. You’ve no right to tell her she can’t. I get that you’ve been her protector since Mal died, but have you ever considered that maybe she needs to have some space to herself, to spread her wings? She’s not Mal. She’s not you.”

  “Fuck off,” I said, my voice flat. “If she sells her studio, what will she have to come home to?”

  “Besides Asher? Besides you?” Sam set his beer down. “Who says she will come home? Maybe she’ll like it so much, she’ll stay over there.”

  “If you’re trying to convince me to encourage her, you’re doing a piss poor job.”

  “I’m not trying to convince you to do anything, because ultimately, it’s not your decision. It’s hers. And you need to give her the space to make it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  When I showed up at Ames’ flat that night, I followed him into the kitchen where he finished filling a small tote with a few things. Mood-wise, he seemed a little darker tonight than he had been when I’d last left him, just outside of the pub. When he zipped the top of the tote closed, I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around him, hoping to banish the cloud that seemed to have settled over him.

  He stilled for a moment before his hands covered mine. “Mila.” I loved the way he said my name. I loved it more that I could feel it, with my face pressed against his back, as it vibrated through his body.

  “Ames.”

  He turned and smiled, that dimple dipping into his cheek. “Can I take you somewhere?”

  He had the innocence of someone younger, with less heartache, and in the smallest way, I felt a shift between us. Nothing deep and profound, but still noteworthy. Like a chapter break in a novel.

  It was as if we were toeing the line of something significant, but something I didn’t know about just yet. He held his hand to me and I took it as he led me down the narrow stairwell and toward the door. I noticed a slight pep to his step as he slid my coat off the hook beside his and held it out for me. I smiled to myself as I slipped my arms through the coat, grateful that his mood seemed lifted. “We’re going outside?”

  “Not far.” He gave me a shy smile, something secretive. I couldn’t resist this secretive Ames, his eyes sparkling and his smile open and unguarded. So when he extended his hand for mine again, I took it without hesitation and laced my fingers with his.

  The September weather was beginning to cool, and with the sun long set, the breeze outside was just enough that if you kept a brisk pace, you could stay just warm enough. But I wasn’t in a rush, wanting to savor this affectionate Ames, so we took our time walking down the street.

  “It’s not far to walk,” he repeated. “But we can get a taxi, if you want.”

  I shook my head and took a step closer to him. His arm came around my shoulders, pulling me in and I looked up at him under the light that just barely illuminated his face. “I like walking. With you.”

  He pulled me tighter still and my hand went around his back, digging into the warmth of his side.

  I felt impossibly warm then. Either that, or merely being in his presence was giving me that effect anyway. That was even more obvious when he tilted his head down, shadowing our faces from any passersby. His lips hovered above mine for three full heartbeats before he pulled back. But I wanted this, to kiss this man on a darkened sidewalk, feeling as warm as I’d felt in a long time. So, I wrapped my hand around his neck and pulled his head down until his mouth touched mine.

  It was different this time. He didn’t move to deepen the kiss, nor to pull away. But his lips moved over mine, tugging my bottom lip in between his and heat pierced right through my bones with each soft, savoring kiss.

  When he finally, regrettably, pulled back, his eyes were heavy-lidded, and massively hot. “That’s two,” he said.

  Apparently when he’d kissed me, he’d also taken away all coherent thought. “What?”

  He smiled, and my hands tightened on his. “I’ve kissed you twice now and still have yet to give you a proper date.”

  I closed my eyes as I smiled, feeling a little bit drunk on him, on this. “Is that what this is?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a date, but I don’t think what I’m about to show you counts. At least not in the way it ought to.” With that small smile, he tilted his head. “Come on.”

  Just a few blocks down, tucked into an alley, we stopped outside of a shadowed building. The door was black, with a stained-glass window in a kaleidoscope of color. The beading on the door looked old, and I found myself tracing its lines as Ames dipped into his pocket for a handful of keys.

  “What’s this?” I asked, my hand on the glass as I turned to look at him.

  “A-ha,” he said, producing the correct key and slipping it into the lock. I heard the click of the turn in the lock and th
en he paused. “This is my baby.” His eyes were alight in the dark shadowy alleyway, and there was something so entirely charming about him then, that I knew I’d be stunned by whatever he was about to show me—because I was stunned by him.

  He pushed the door, which creaked as it slid across the floor, opening up into complete darkness. He looked in for a moment, but I couldn’t discern what exactly he was looking at because the inside was even darker than outside. Holding an arm out in invitation, he said, “Come in.”

  I stepped past him and bumped into something immediately. “Oops,” I said, and Ames laughed.

  “Sorry about that. Hold there, please, for just a moment. I’ll get the lights working.”

  Clasping my hands together, I did as he asked and stood still until a few moments later, when the lights flipped on from the back of the room, gradually, to the front, illuminating parts of the room slowly, like unwrapping a present. In the back of the room was a wall of wooden slats, all lightly painted enough that you could still see the wood’s texture through their colors.

  The next strip of light lit up a section of tables and chairs, some set up as if waiting for guests and others scrambled, with chairs on tops of tables and tables with missing legs, leaning against other tables.

  The third strip of light illuminated a fish tank that separated the front, where I stood, from the rest of the restaurant. There must have been three dozen tables, red-washed wood with bright white chairs. The wood floors I stood on had been refinished to a gleaming dark wood.

  “Wow.” I touched a table top, and pulled away a layer of dust.

  He took my hand, and blew the dust off the tip of my finger. “Sorry. I haven’t been here in a while.”

  “Is this your restaurant?”

  He nodded and backed away from me just a few steps. I stood by the table I’d touched and watched him take me in as I stood under one particularly bright can light. I wondered what he could be thinking, seeing me here, in the space that had belonged to him and his late wife.

  But none of that seemed to plague him, because he just leaned against a table and watched me. I took the opportunity to touch everything I could, from the smooth surface across the finished white chairs, to the tables that still needed to be sanded and refinished.