It’s our last night at the beach house. We leave in the morning to head back to Connecticut. Graham has a meeting he has to be back for tomorrow afternoon. I have laundry to do before I go back to work on Tuesday. Neither of us is ready to leave yet. It’s been peaceful and perfect and I’m already looking forward to coming back here with him. I don’t even care if I have to kiss my mother’s ass for the next month in order to plan our next getaway. It’s a price I’ll gladly pay for another weekend of perfection.
It’s a little bit colder tonight than the last two nights we’ve been here, but I kind of like it. I have the heater turned up high in the house. We freeze our asses off for hours near the fire pit and then cuddle up in bed to thaw out. It’s a routine I would never get bored of.
I just finished making us both cups of hot chocolate. I take them outside and hand Graham his, then sit down next to him.
“Okay,” he says. “Next question.”
Graham found out this morning that, even though I love looking at it, I’ve never actually stepped foot in the ocean. He spent the majority of the day trying to figure out other things about me that he didn’t know. It’s become a game to us now and we’re alternating questions so we can find out everything there is to know about each other.
He mentioned the first night we were together that he doesn’t talk about religion or politics. But it’s been six months now and I’m curious to know his opinions. “We’ve still never discussed religion,” I say. “Or politics. Are those still topics that are off the table?”
Graham edges the cup with his lips and sucks a marshmallow into his mouth. “What do you want to know?”
“Are you a Republican or a Democrat?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “Neither. I can’t stand the extremists on either side, so I sort of hover in the middle.”
“So you’re one of those people.”
He tilts his head. “What people?”
“The kind who pretend to agree with every opinion just to keep the peace.”
Graham arches an eyebrow. “Oh, I have opinions, Quinn. Strong ones.”
I pull my legs up and tuck them under me, facing him. “I want to hear them.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” I challenge. “Your stance on gun control. Immigration. Abortion. All of it.”
I love the look of excitement on his face, as if he’s preparing for a presentation. It’s adorable that a presentation would even excite him.
He sets his mug of hot chocolate on the table beside him. “Okay . . . let’s see. I don’t think we should take away a citizen’s right to own a gun. But I do think it should be one hell of a difficult process to get your hands on one. I think women should decide what to do with their own bodies, as long as it’s within the first trimester or it’s a medical emergency. I think government programs are absolutely necessary but I also think a more systematic process needs to be put in place that would encourage people to get off of welfare, rather than to stay on it. I think we should open up our borders to immigrants, as long as they register and pay taxes. I’m certain that life-saving medical care should be a basic human right, not a luxury only the wealthy can afford. I think college tuition should automatically be deferred and then repaid over a twenty-year period on a sliding scale. I think athletes are paid way too much, teachers are paid way too little, NASA is underfunded, weed should be legal, people should love who they want to love, and Wi-Fi should be universally accessible and free.” When he’s finished, he calmly reaches for his mug of hot chocolate and brings it back to his mouth. “Do you still love me?”
“More than I did two minutes ago.” I press a kiss to his shoulder and he wraps his arm around me, tucking me against him.
“Well, that went better than I thought it would.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” I warn. “We still haven’t discussed religion. Do you believe in God?”
Graham breaks eye contact and looks out at the ocean. He caresses my shoulder and thinks about my question for a moment. “I didn’t used to.”
“But you do now?”
“Yeah. I do now.”
“What changed your mind?”
“A few things,” he says. He nudges his head toward the ocean. “That being one of them. How can something exist that is that magnificent and powerful without something even more magnificent and powerful creating it?”