This Summer Will Be Different(88)

Felix grips my backside as he sits upright, pulling me onto his lap.

“Do your best, Lucy.” He moves his lips to the moles under my collarbone, then lower. “And I’ll do mine.”

We have sex once, twice, three times. We break for food and water and for Felix to start a fire in the living room. My mouth can’t form any shape but a smile. I press my face into the pillow, laughing as Felix sinks his teeth into the flesh of my backside.

Once we’ve fully exhausted ourselves, he tucks me against his chest, hugging me close. It’s where I feel safe. It’s where I feel cherished. It’s my whole world, right here, wrapped up with Felix.



* * *



? ? ?

The sun has long since risen by the time I wake up. Felix is fast asleep, a boyish grin on his lips. I slip on one of his shirts and sneak out to the kitchen. I make myself toast and Earl Grey tea because Felix doesn’t own a coffee maker. There are two photos on his fridge now. The one I saw the last time I was here—Felix and Zach at Salt Cottages—and one of me. It’s from Bridget’s wedding. I’m on the dance floor, the only person in focus, watching Miles sing. I have my fingers pressed over my smile.

While I wait for the toast to pop and the tea to steep, I inspect Felix’s books. The ones I’ve sent him are displayed on a shelf along with the seeds. I pick up Great Expectations.

“Good morning,” I hear Felix say.

I turn around to look at him across the room. He’s wearing underwear and a white T-shirt. He looks rumpled and gorgeous and mine. I think of all the things I love about Felix, and this time I don’t run. I cross the floor, throw my arms around him, and say, “Good morning, my love.”





40





Now

Spring and Summer





I know where I want to end up, but I’m not ready yet. So Felix and I go back and forth. April in Toronto. May on Prince Edward Island.

Felix discovers my world. We have sex in my pink bedroom, on my white sheets, and when we’re cuddled together afterward, he asks to see my notebook of flower farm ideas.

“Do you think I’m too ambitious?” I ask as he flips through the garden diagrams, the sketches of arrangements, the lists of imaginary supplies.

He kisses my temple. “I think you’re brilliant. A dreamer with beautiful dreams.”

I keep the Earl Grey he likes in the cupboard next to the fridge, and he masters my coffee maker. I let him inspect my medicine cabinet and my magazine collection. He makes bouillabaisse in my kitchen, familiarizes himself with where I keep the corkscrew and the good knife his mom gave me. He insists on meeting my parents, so we drive to St. Catharines, and I introduce him to my mom and dad, my brother and his husband.

“He’s very handsome, I’ll give you that,” my mother says when it’s just the two of us in the kitchen. “But are you sure it’s a good idea to be involved with Bridget’s brother, Goose?”

“Mom,” I say. “Please don’t call me that. And yes, I’m sure. I’ve never been surer of anything.”

“Then I suppose you have my blessing.”

I take a deep breath. “I’m thirty years old, Mom. I’m an adult. I didn’t ask for your blessing.”

She flinches, surprised. She studies me like she’s seeing me for the first time. “You have my best wishes, then.” She sets a piece of orange cake on a plate. “You seem happy together.”

“We are.” I hesitate for a moment. “Are you happy?”

She pauses, assessing me.

“I heard you and Stacy talking once, at the hospital.”

“Ah.” She sighs. “I’m happy enough, Lucy. Your aunt thought life should be full of fireworks, but I’m content—that’s enough for me.”

My aunt wouldn’t be satisfied with content, but I know I won’t get anything else from my mother. “Stacy met Felix once,” I tell her. “It was only for a few minutes, but I think she liked him.”

My mom smiles, wistful. She slices another wedge of cake, and I think that’s the end of the conversation. But then she says, “Your aunt would call him edible.”

“That’s the exact word she used.”

She laughs, pressing a finger to the corner of her eye. “She would have liked him, Lucy. She would have liked him a lot.”

I wrap my arms around my mom’s waist, my eyes stinging. “Thanks,” I whisper.

There’s a day during Felix’s visit that I can’t swing taking off. He rides with me on the streetcar in the morning, kisses me goodbye, and returns after the store is closed and everyone has gone home. I hear his tap, tap, pause, tap on the door. I unlock it, and drag him into the office, and act out one of the fantasies that involve me and him in this small room.

It’s painful to say goodbye, just like I knew it would be. But it isn’t too long before I’m back in Felix’s world. I spend a week there in June. He picks me up at the airport and we drive east. He buys a coffee maker for me and shows me how to make a perfect cup of tea for him. We cook together. I choose a book of poetry from his collection, and he reads it to me in the evening. But he doesn’t read for long, because poetry from Felix’s lips uncoils me in a brand-new way, and I’m on my knees after only a few stanzas. I choose Austen the next night. It’s no better.