Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  “He meant the world to me back then, but—but you mean the world to me now. You make me feel so…whole. Pieces of me fall into place a little bit more every time you’re around me, and it’s the most incredible feeling, Beckett. I don’t know how to ignore it and not want it. Even though I hate the idea of insulting his memory, I don’t know how to make myself act normal around you.”

  My eyes drift back open just in time to watch his hand give mine a long squeeze.

  “That’s how I feel too,” he says.

  The breath he draws makes me think he has more to add.

  I wait for it.

  His voice is a hesitant murmur.

  “But the way we feel when we’re together is normal for us these days. I’ve realized that too. Even though we didn’t mean at all for it to go this way, being just friends isn’t what feels right for us anymore. We went a long time without noticing it, but losing Cliff changed what it meant for us to know each other. And the way we know each other now…it’s pretty clear we can’t undo it.”

  In his pause, his thumb stutters up from my neck to lay on my bottom lip.

  “I can’t undo it. You ending up with him was always fine with me—I lost the coin toss fair and square and you were so great together and I loved that for both of you—but it’s just us now. We’re on our own, and I know you so differently from how I always thought I would, and it’s the most brilliant thing even though it seemed like such a betrayal at first. I can’t shake it.”

  Breath-weakening words.

  So sincere, so beautiful, so true.

  The coin toss.

  Here it is again, being brought into my mind.

  Here again are the butterflies in my stomach, set astir by the knowledge that if one small detail had been different all those years ago, Beckett wouldn’t have excused himself when Cliff walked up to bring me that towel for my spilled water. He would’ve kept up the fun conversation we had started.

  I can’t wrap my mind around it.

  I still can’t even halfway imagine not having Cliff and Theo, yet at the same time, there’s no way to keep from wondering what might have happened with me and Beckett…who had been interested in me at least enough to gamble for me.

  My heart is confident it knows the answer to the curiosity swirling through that tangle, but I still want to hear it.

  I whisper, “Were you upset you didn’t win? At first, I mean?”

  His quiet rumble of a laugh is both a surprise and not surprising at all.

  “No, of course not,” he says. “I mean, disappointed, yes, but that went away. Coin tosses were our thing because they were fair, and it wasn’t the first one I’d lost. You were beautiful—I was thinking it even before Cliff got to the restaurant and mentioned a toss—but by the time we realized how great you really were, I was nothing but happy for him. Plus, I….”

  The drift of his thumb down and along my jaw makes the butterflies worse.

  Once more, I’m left waiting for him to keep talking.

  This time, I have to ask, “What?” even though my voice is nearly nothing.

  “I don’t, uh….” His voice isn’t much stronger than mine now. “I might not have known…how to love you right. I was still working on loving myself. Cliff was way ahead of me on that.”

  Even this fragile admission is a slam against me.

  The honesty and awareness.

  The fact that he’s grown since then, so now he…he can love….

  “I was really happy for you and him. It was enough for me that he found you ‘cause I wanted him to have the best things in the world, and you turned out to be one of them. I didn’t resent him for winning. All I wanted was to still be in your lives, and both of you allowed me that, so everything was great.”

  His sincerity is so plain, I feel like it’s slicing me open.

  Just a few minutes ago, he said we’re good people; how right he was about himself. The coin toss was fair, yes, but he went on to spend years alongside me and Cliff—went on to watch us fall in love and fight and live and have a kid and get engaged and intend to spend forever together—and he truly wasn’t jealous or sad. He didn’t hang on to any what-ifs. He just cheered us on because nothing mattered more to him than Cliff’s happiness. Not even his own.

  “Hey.” He finally stops holding my hand to his chest and gently takes my face in both of his. His thumbs wipe at my wet cheeks. “Hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry.”

  I shake my head. “You’re just so beautiful to me. Inside and out. And it makes me feel like…like I could….”

  I drag in a jagged breath and try to think past everything in me to summon a word that could describe—

  “Explode,” I huff out. “In a good way. The best way. And it’s so scary because it’s you, but at the same time, it’s not scary at all because it’s you.”

  His breathing isn’t so steady either.

  I feel it in a whole new way when one hand goes down my back and frees my cheek up for a kiss that has my eyes closing again. It’s slow and warm where a streak of teardrop had been, and so is the kiss he moves closer to my ear. Then there’s one on the line of my jaw and it’s the loveliest shock down through my body—were my lungs in better shape, my moan would be entirely too loud.

  His voice is softer than soft on my skin. “I know exactly what you mean. It’s been terrifying to think we’re not doing right by him. It was terrifying to sit outside this house after we first kissed and worry I had destroyed my friendships with him and with you.”

  His kiss on my cheek again, still slow, still warm.

  “But every minute I spend not thinking and worrying…”

  His breaths still shaking.

  “…when you’re undoing me and making me whole at the same time and I don’t bother trying to stop you…”

  His lips almost, almost on mine.

  “…those are the minutes that make me glad to be alive.”

  A fresh tear hotly escapes down my cheek.

  Feeling like my chest is going to burst open, I tremble out to him, “Me too.”

  He sniffs quietly, making me wonder if he has grown emotional like I have, though I can’t bring myself to check.

  He says, “It’s so fucking overwhelming,” and his tone doesn’t give him away either.

  I nod a little.

  So does he. “I don’t want everything to explode. Just us.”

  No, now I feel like my chest is going to burst.

  I have no idea how it doesn’t happen.

  I have no idea how I stay in one piece here in his hands when I have this much love and longing tearing through me—talk about being overwhelmed, my God.

  I’m tired of resisting this.

  The thought echoes in my head for quite some time, uninterrupted because I don’t know what to say out loud and Beckett hasn’t gone on speaking.

  At length, he whispers, “Do you want me to go home now?”

  I don’t blame him for wondering if he’s said too much; were our places switched, I would wonder the same about myself.

  He hasn’t made my fear worse, though. He’s made my defenses that much weaker.

  I am still scared, still unsure of whether it’s really okay for him to make me feel like this…because of all the guys I could’ve…. But it’s not enough to cause me to shut down. Having him near is one of my favorite things in this life.

  I whisper back thickly, “No, not yet. Unless it’s what you want.”

  His lips graze mine just a bit. “No. Not yet.”

  So he doesn’t get up and leave me, this conversation, these feelings.

  I kiss him, and he’s with me on it—then biting my bottom lip again, then dissolving into chuckles because my breath has hitched. I just know he’s thinking about earlier.

  Surprising though it is, I give in to giggling about it too. And I don’t smack his arm this time, just relish the blush he has put in my cheeks and let my hands start pulling him onto me like they want to.

 
; We don’t shift around much once I’m lying back, so he still doesn’t end up completely on top of me; his legs have staggered lazily with mine, which are still mostly in their sitting position. But he’s pressed to me so much better than in the blanket fort, and I love—I love—how well I can feel him breathing like this. Love the way it feels for his weight to be so close around me while he figures out how to brace himself and embrace me at the same time.

  With one arm cradling my head, he sighs his way onto my mouth again.

  I also love the way he kisses me: like I’m his.

  I’ve loved it since that stormy night in my kitchen, because he does it this way every single time, no matter how sweet or intense our exchanges are.

  Still, I pause this one to finally say, “I want it too. The explode thing.”

  The nudge of my nose with his is gentle. “I know you do.”

  He doesn’t sound cocky. Only simply sure.

  We’ll always be sure of each other, because the way we know each other can’t be undone.

  Something he mentioned a couple minutes ago chooses now to come back to me.

  I have to ask about it.

  “You saw me first?” I whisper close to his lips. “That day at Wings by Del?”

  I feel the effort with which he swallows.

  “Yeah, I did,” he whispers back. “It didn’t matter. Things like that never mattered with him and me—only the coin tosses did.” After another pause, he gives the slightest nod. “But….”

  What a thing to know.

  I hadn’t noticed him—or Cliff, for that matter. Hadn’t noticed much of anything while I waited for Ceceli. I was hot and hungry, and that was all I knew.

  But Beckett noticed me and thought I was beautiful.

  Then he let go of the possibility of me because he lost the coin toss.

  I don’t know what to say about how sweet and soft and shaky that makes me feel.

  No, it didn’t matter in the end, and it doesn’t change anything. Knowing it at all, though, makes me feel.

  And it makes me want to kiss him again.

  I shift just enough to catch his gaze before I do it, because I also want to see his eyes.

  They’re sweet and soft, too, I find.

  I hold on to them for as long as I can before that new kiss comes and has me closing my own eyes.

  It becomes another so easily, like breathing. And again.

  I could stay like this with him forever.

  My wandering hands find that the bottom of his sweater and shirt have come just slightly untucked from the back of his pants. The temptation of it perceptibly startles me, and my pulse threatens to go wild.

  Have I ever wanted to feel a man’s skin under my hands this badly?

  No, I don’t think I have.

  “You can touch me, Ellie,” hits my lips in a low whisper.

  I continue to be rattled by the beautiful and painful fact that I haven’t felt anything like him anywhere else in my life.

  But for the time being, it’s getting pushed away. I can’t focus on it because our mouths are wrapping up in more earnest kisses and all my fingers have pulled those layers of fabric free enough for me to slide beneath them, over his lower back. I’ve never touched him this way, never had the uncovered warmth of him shared with me, never gotten so breathless a sound from him, and I can’t ignore how much it matters to me.

  There’s no escaping his magnetism—not yet.

  He doesn’t want to escape me either. Not yet.

  This is the first bit of alone time we’ve had that hasn’t been strained or had a quick end in sight. We’re still working on finding our way out of this knot of heartstrings, but it’s palpable that we’re closer to it than ever before.

  So we let ourselves be who we are for now.

  An ocean and an earthquake.

  Two things that don’t seem like they should go together.

  Two things that sometimes go together anyway.

  —

  Beckett didn’t end up leaving last night. We fell asleep on the couch after making out turned into our full bellies catching back up to us. I awoke this morning to him being the big spoon, snuggled up halfway under a throw blanket with me.

  It was the perfect start to my day, even with my blouse being twisted and the sun shining brightly and him feeling like a heater of a human being in that outfit I liked so much.

  Having to get up shortly afterward wasn’t what filled me with disappointment. I was ready for that—I knew Theo either was already awake or would be very soon, and we had fun things to do, including getting prepared for her first sleepover.

  What greatly disappointed me was not knowing when I might start a day in so perfect a way again.

  I’ve fallen asleep with or close to Beckett before, but waking up those times didn’t feel the same as today did. Didn’t make me wish I had some assurance that I’d find him beside me the next morning, too, and the next, and….

  I didn’t have it in me to beat myself up about wanting that with him.

  Still don’t.

  Nor have I been able to beat myself up about loving last night so much. Over the hours Theo and I spent doing random stuff with him today before he left just a bit ago, I kept catching myself reminiscing here and there.

  Thinking on the many significant things we talked about and trusted each other with.

  Remembering his spine under my fingertips, his mouth on where the seatbelt burn used to be on my neck, his palm sliding tentatively over my belly button beneath my shirt because even though I told him he could touch me, too, he didn’t let his hands run wild.

  And I didn’t blame him; I was nervous to do the same.

  Still, it felt so damn good to be wrapped up in those stretching minutes with him.

  Touching and kissing each other like that was strange in a way, but it was also so strangely right, like it made sense even though it was something new. I think that’s because on some level, it wasn’t terribly new—it was just the breathtaking physical side of feelings we already have.

  I could get used to it.

  I want to get used to it. Want to get used to everything with—

  “Ow,” I blurt out. Something sharp has hurt my finger.

  Looking down at it makes me go still.

  It’s plain what happened: I was absently thumbing at the underside of my engagement ring so anxiously that my thumbnail scraped hard over the skin of my finger.

  Closer inspection assures me I haven’t drawn blood, which is good.

  But I was only fidgeting because I was thinking forever-type things about Beckett, whose ring is not on my finger.

  “Okay, I’m done!” Theo calls from her room.

  A grateful sigh blows out of me.

  Moving forward with my afternoon is the perfect distraction.

  I get up from the couch and head down the hall. She’s supposed to have been cleaning her room a little bit because her friend (who, funnily, is named Cleo) will be here soon. While she did that, I finished up some laundry and then sat down, which is when I fell into thought.

  At least thoughts are all I’ll have to deal with tonight—for the most part, that is. It’s going to be just us girls here except for when Beckett brings us a pizza on his way to my parents’ house. He and I decided a small shelf would be an easy woodworking project, so he finally has plans to check that out with my dad.

  We’ll talk on the phone later, but we didn’t want to potentially worry Cleo’s mom by having him here the rest of the time when our relationship is so complicated. Although he’s not threatening to anyone, he’s also not an official part of our household. And although it’s possible Cleo’s mom wouldn’t even mind, we agreed on the matter nonetheless, because it’s what we would be comfortable with if the sleepover situation were reversed.

  As it is, I’m going to have two preschool-age girls in my house very soon, and Theo’s room is….

  “Wow!” I exclaim as I look around. “Baby, this looks great!”
>
  She squeaks excitedly and does a little dance on her tiptoes. “I didn’t even hide my toys under the bed! You told me not to, and I didn’t!”

  Snorting into laughter, I follow the wave of her hands and see that, indeed, nothing has been crammed under her bed. Next, she shows off where her toys have been tossed into their big box by the closet. As far as I can tell, she took the few dirty clothes I saw earlier and put them in her laundry basket. Her bookshelf doesn’t seem to have been straightened up much, but I’m pretty sure she propped up one certain book in front of the others: the one I loved when I was a kid, which Beckett read to her the night he and I first kissed.

  “Theodora, my love,” I say, “you did good work. I believe you are officially ready for your first sleepover!”

  “Yay, my love!” After a happy jump in the air, she points excitedly at me. “Ooh, ooh! Take my picture so Uncle Beck will be proud of me too!”

  “Good idea! He’ll be so proud of you!”

  She insists on more than just a single picture, actually, so he can see different angles of how well she did. And my heart soars when one involves her posing next to Max’s Chocolate Chicken, because I was right about her putting it on display. It’s allegedly her favorite and she wants her guest to see it—and she wants to remember to tell Cleo how Beckett kept her from being scared during the storm that night.

  It’s so freaking sweet.

  She really does think he hung the stars in the sky.

  So do I, honestly.

  I smile and stroke at her hair as she flips back and forth through the photos on my phone.

  Here’s hoping she’ll love her sleepover too. We have ideas for everything from baking cupcakes to painting fingernails to playing with toys in the blanket fort.

  In a way, I’m nervous because this is one mom thing I’ve never had to do before, and it’s just going to be me and them, and I don’t want to be boring or get overwhelmed or….

  No, I think suddenly confidently, it’s okay that it’s just me. I can do this. There’s no need to worry, and there’s no need to wanna call for Mom or Ceceli—definitely no need to bother Beckett and Daddy. This will be new for me, but it’ll be fun.