by Frankie Love
I’m not, but right now, that doesn’t seem to matter.
All that matters is that I’m here, with her. She looks at me with so much want that I crave to give her everything,
“I moved back to dad’s place. Well, it’s my place now. A few months ago,” she tells me as we stand at my mother’s grave.
She’d have liked this. Holly and me, here. My mom was sweet like Holly, but broken. She was a drunk and she died with a bottle in her hand. I was only eleven years old when I found her like that, and even though I should be angry — what I really am is sad.
At least now.
For a long time I took out my pain on everyone and everything. That’s the boy Holly knew.
I’ve changed. And God, how I want to show her that’s not the man I am anymore.
“Anyways,” Holly says, grounding me in the present. “I was clearing out some stuff, and came across your things. They were in your old room. Would you want to come over and look through them?”
The idea of going through my past, old photographs and letters — it seems like going backwards.
But it also means going home with her.
“It’s not even a question.”
She bites her bottom lip, and I know she has more to say but she doesn’t speak. We just turn from the graveyard and walk, our feet crunching in the deep snow, toward her house that holds so many memories. I itch to hold her hand or wrap an arm around her. Soon enough I will.
“It’s weird being back here,” she says as we stand in front of the old Victorian. “Remember how we used to go up to the roof, after my dad fell asleep?”
I run a hand over my beard. Of course I remember.
I wasn’t allowed in her bedroom. Now, there is no father figure keeping us from one another.
“I should call Truman, let him know I might be running late for the dance.”
Truman. Her father may be out of the picture, but apparently this boyfriend of hers is very much present.
I’ll have to change that. Hell, she’ll want to change that. I know she’s missed me, she’s told me as much. Now I need to discover if she’s been dreaming of me the way I’ve always dreamt of her.
She pulls out her phone and sends a text before we walk in the front door. When she finally pushes open the old oak door, my heart pounds in remembrance. What was. What could be.
“I decorated,” she says, flicking on the lights of the living room.
“I see that,” I chuckle, remembering how it was her favorite time of year, how she’d make her father and I traipse to the basement the day after Thanksgiving to grab the bins of decorations. I only lived here two years, but it feels like it was so much longer than that.
Now, here again, I wish I hadn’t let her father’s dying words penetrate my heart so deeply. I wish I could go back in time. Take back what I was too scared to take.
I’m not scared anymore.
I look around the room, taking in the Christmas tree that comes to life, glittering and gold, the evergreen branches laden with baubles and beads. A wreath hangs over the mantel, stockings are hung, thick wool throw blankets drape over the arms of leather chairs and poinsettias flank the fireplace. “It looks like home.”
She blinks slowly, her thick eyelashes taunting me with want. “Remember when it was our home?”
“I do.” I pause, still not knowing how to tell her that it was because of her father, the one she idolized, that I left in the first place. Why I didn’t feel like I could ever come back. I look back at the mantle. “Is that my stocking?”
She smiles stepping toward it. “Yeah. I found it when I was going through the house. I hung it up just the other day. And now … you’re here.” She bites her bottom lip. “It feels meant to be, doesn’t it?”
I want to pull her to me now, drag my hands over her curves, run my fingers through her hair. I want to kiss her, hard. Then I want to fuck her slow. So damn slow we both forget to breathe. So damn slow so it never ends.
I can’t help myself. I pull her to me, needing this. Her. Me. Us. I know she wants it -- she wouldn’t look at me like this if she didn’t.
My mouth crashes against hers. It’s been so long. So fucking long. And yet I’ve waited for her since the day I left.
It has always been her.
She whimpers, her body sinking against me. Her lips part, my tongue finds her and I hold her at the base of her neck, the small of her back, dragging her closer still.
I want the kiss to last forever. But it doesn’t -- she pulls away. Shock and desire swim in her eyes.
She’s scared.
Scared of this need clawing inside her; a need I know she’s never given into. But fuck, how I see her need. For me. A need only I can satisfy.
“I can’t,” she says, a whisper a heart beat, a lie. “Truman.”
“You love him?”
She gasps, covering her mouth, as if shocked by her own carnal need. “I think … I …” Then she blinks, fast, straightening her shoulders -- remembering herself -- her old self. The Holly that wasn’t just kissed.
“Did you want to see the things I found?” she finally says.
I look at her, knowing I’ll take my time if that’s what she wants, but praying to the God I know she still believes in that it won’t take long. I need Holly. I need her by my side. Through thick and thin. Forever.
I love her.
“Of course,” I say, stepping back. “Show me.”
We climb the stairs to the second floor, my eyes on her ass the entire time, and when she pushes open my old bedroom a flood of memories flash before my eyes. “Fuck, it’s been a long time.”
She turns to me, smiling -- hesitant, but hopeful. She remembers too. “I would lie in bed at night, imagining you in here,” she says pulling a cardboard box from the floor. “I would try to picture what you were doing. You were such a mystery.”
I smirk. “I was probably getting off thinking about you.”
Her eyes go wide. “Really?”
I laugh. “Holly, I lived here as a seventeen and eighteen-year-old teenager. I thought about sex every ten seconds. You were the only thing ever on my mind.”
Her cheeks go red, and to distract herself from what I’ve just said, she unpins her hair, unfurling the red braids. The strands catch the light in the room. She looks so damn beautiful.
“And now?” she asks, stepping toward me -- just when I thought she was bound to step away. “What do you think about at night?”
“You, Holly. It’s only ever been you.”
She looks up at me, her lips part and I can practically taste her wet pussy. I’ve been dreaming of it for so fucking long.
“The box,” she says, looking over her shoulder. “We should go through it.”
“Of course,” I say, stepping back, knowing she has always been timid, a little shy. Needing room to think things through.
We sit on the bed, the box between us, looking at a few old photographs, my yearbook, a pair of socks she knitted me, the crappy journal of mine where I wrote bad poetry. “Not much here.”
“I know, but … it’s something.” She reaches into the box. “Look, a mix-tape. Remember how you scoured thrift stores for old cassettes? You’d painstakingly record them.”
“And your father hated it. Said it was the devil’s music.”
“Well it was the 80s.” She laughs softly, resting her hand on my arm. “You were so nostalgic for a time you never even lived in.”
“I think I just always craved something more simple. My own life felt so complicated,” I tell her.
“Does it still?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No. Now it feels like all the puzzle pieces fit. All but one.”
She swallows hard, looks away. I know she’s thinking about Truman. Probably wondering how in the hell I fit in with her life. The silence kills me and finally I clear my throat, too many things unsaid.
“I don’t have much else. Thank you, for these,” I tell her. “It would have been e
asy to throw them away.”
“Where have you been?” she asks, getting to the heart of what we’ve been tiptoeing around.
“I went to school. College.”
“Really?”
I nod. “Yeah. And I didn’t want to come back until I knew I could--” The front door opens, stopping my words.
“Holly?” Fucking Truman. “You here, sweetheart?”
She swallows, looking torn. “I’m here,” she says.
Truman enters the room, looking me up and down. “I wasn’t expecting you to still be here,” he says.
I stand, taking the box from the bed. “Just about to leave.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Holly says.
Truman raises his eyes. “I thought this was going to be our night?”
“I didn’t know an old friend would be back home.”
I stiffen. Friend? Hell no, our kiss was not at all friendly.
“Am I interrupting something?” Truman asks. “Because if I am, tell me now, Holly. I’ve been waiting on you for ages. You say you don’t want to get married … but I have to question all of that now.”
“Can we talk privately?” she asks. “I’ve realized a few things. Important things.”
Truman’s eyes narrow. “You can say whatever you have to say right here.”
“Truman, we were never going to work,” she says. “And since seeing Hunter again, I know why I never committed to you.”
Truman glances between Holly and me. “Is that why your lipstick on this man’s mouth?” Truman asks, his voice firm.
Holly looks over at me, need and want and hope in her eyes.
“Yes. I kissed her,” I say. “And I plan on doing it again.”
Holly
Truman is ready for the dance, dressed in a suit and tie like he always is. Steady. Stable. Reliable. A preacher.
He would make my father proud.
I wish I knew why Hunter really left, all those years ago.
But I know it doesn’t matter.
He is here now. Claiming me the way I’ve needed him to do.
“Is that true, Holly?” Truman asks, shock in his voice. “You betrayed me?”
I know whatever I say never will change my life. And I’m glad. I’ve been waiting for a change ever since Hunter left.
“I love him.”
It’s simple. It’s true. It’s destiny.
It is what I’ve always been waiting for.
“You love me?” Hunter asks, stepping toward me, disregarding Truman altogether.
“I always have,” I admit. “I just never know why you left.”
Truman throws his hands in the air. “Are you kidding me with this crap?”
In the past I would have wanted to placate him -- but in the span of one afternoon my entire world has shifted. The pieces of my life are finally beginning to fall into place.
The words send dark shadows across Hunter’s eyes. “Your father … he told me things that made me … doubt my worth, that made me think that I wasn’t enough for you; for anyone …”
“What did he say?” I ask, covering my mouth as tears fill my eyes.
“I don’t want to discredit the man you idolize--”
I cut him off. “I know my father wasn’t perfect. He was …”
“What?” Hunter and Truman ask at the same time.
“He saw the world in black and white,” I say. “He didn’t understand that there could be gray. That being flawed didn’t mean you were broken. It meant you had lived.”
“This is ridiculous. Your father was a pillar of--” I cut Truman off.
“My father did many good things, but he judged harshly. His gospel was picked over, he took the pieces that worked for him. But that isn’t me.”
“And what are you, Holly?” Hunter asks.
I let my shoulders fall, the truth plain and simple and mine for the taking.
“I’m yours.”
Truman shouts, angry at me, at the way I’ve dragged him along. He wanted to get married, to start a family -- I wouldn’t even give him more than a kiss. And none of our kisses were like the kiss I just shared with Hunter.
My body longs for the man I’ve always wanted. If he chose me, I would give him the world.
Still, things need to end with Truman before I can fling myself into the arms of another man. I look at Truman, wanting him to know I’m sorry. Because I am. If this could work, it would have.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I tell him, knowing my words must sound hollow.
“But you did,” he shouts. “We were supposed to get married, to be the perfect--“
“I’m not perfect. I’m scared to ask for what I want. I’m scared of being alone. And I’m scared that people will realize that I’m a mess.”
“A mess?” Truman scoffs. “But you are the perfect little Christmas present. You were supposed to be the perfect wife--”
“You see what you want to see, Truman.” I step toward him, feeling genuinely sad for him. “But you only see the pieces of me that make you happy. Deep down, we both know I’m not the one for you.”
“And he is?” Truman’s eyes flash with hurt. He might have really believed I could play the part as the preacher’s wife.
“Yes,” I say, not knowing what Hunter does for a living, where he lives, or what his life is like. Not needing those details. Because having him in my life is more than enough.
It’s everything.
“This is ridiculous,” Truman says. “Good luck with your life, Holly. I’ll pray for you.”
He leaves the room then, down the stairs, out the door. And then it’s just Hunter and I. Alone.
“I didn’t expect …” I start.
Hunter steps toward me. “You love me?” Tears fill his brown eyes and they aren’t tears of sorrow. They are tears of hope.
I take a deep breath, knowing there is no going back. Which is fine because I don’t want to.
“I always have,” I tell him.
His smile then, lights up the room. Brighter than the Christmas tree downstairs and capable of setting my heart on fire. It’s the smile that made me fall in love with him all those years ago.
Instead of fading, it only grew brighter. One day I prayed he’d return.
Now here he is, two days before Christmas.
“What happens now?” I ask, my heart hoping for the ending I always dreamed about. Us, here, in this house. Happily ever after.
Hunter’s hand is on my waist and cupping my face. “We could dance.”
I shake my head. “We can’t go there, what if Truman--“
He cuts me off. “I was thinking we could stay here. Put this on,” he says, lifting the mix-tape. “You have a cassette player somewhere?”
Twisting my lips I think about the old stereo system still hooked up in the living room. “Actually, I might.”
I take the tape and we head downstairs. In the living room I close the curtains and then look for the tape deck as Hunter starts a fire. The sky outside the single pane windows is dark, and when the music begins I take him in, silently. His stature so solid and sure. A man in his own right -- a man who loves me.
My body burns for him. The lyrics of In Your Eyes send a smile across my face as Hunter turns to me, the fire burning behind him.
In your eyes, the light the heat.
The lyrics may have been immortalized by Peter Gabriel, but right now they aren’t his. They’re ours..
Hunter takes me in his arms again and this time love has been declared and there is no one stopping us from having what we want. This. Tonight. Finally.
“I’ve waited for you,” I tell him as I press myself against him. “I’m still as pure as I was when you left.”
“You and Truman, you never…”
I shake my head. “I’m a virgin.”
“God, Holly, I knew you were too good for me. You’re so--”
“I’m just a girl, who has always been in love with a boy. And so I waited.”
; “Why did you always believe in me? Believe in us?” he asks.
“When we would lie on my roof and look at the stars, you could always point out constellations.”
“And?”
“And I knew a boy who could point out Cassiopeia, who could hold my hand and kiss my lips and make me feel so seen, in the midst of such a great, vast galaxy, was one in a million. I knew finding you was a shot in the dark, yet there we were.”
“Until I left you, all alone.”
“We all have our reasons for the things we do. I went to that bible college because my father asked me to on his deathbed. It sounds like you left for the same reason.” I pause, looking into his eyes. “What matters is that you came back.”
Hunter nods and then pulls me into his arms. This time there is no hesitation, no fear, no doubt. We’ve both confessed how we feel, and now it is time for action, not words.
“I love you,” he growls in my ear, his thick beard scratching my neck and sending a trail of desire through my veins.
I whimper against him, my flesh aching for the carnal display of our emotions. He kisses me, hard, hard enough for me to gasp, to part my lips, to find his tongue. He feels so strong as he holds me, his muscles stretching the seams of his flannel, but other things growing too.
Against me is his cock, pressed against my belly, and I need to touch it, taste it, suck it. Him. His thick length needs to fill me up and I arch my back as his fingers lift the hem of my candy-striped sweater.
“God your skin is so soft,” he whispers in my ear.
I smile, my hair loose around my shoulders, my eyes closing as he tosses my sweater aside, as he massages my breasts in the palm of his hand. My white lacy bra cups are in the way -- I want his calloused hands to touch bare skin, my hard nipples, I want his mouth to suck my tits. I want him to take me, claim me, own me. Now and forever.
“I love you,” I moan as he unclasps my bra and begins to fondle my breasts with his fingers. I drop my head and his big hands shimmy down my pants, my panties. I am a present, already unwrapped. His.
“You’re the cutest elf in the fucking world, Holly Saint Claire.”
I smile, shaking my head. Not in the least insecure. I want Hunter to see me. Naked and wanting. His.