He tore one packet off and put it on the very corner of the nightstand, with the other two pushed farther away. “I’ve actually been putting three fresh condoms in my wallet every day since you left, in the hopes that you would one day return to town and I would get to have sex with you again.”
“That’s commitment,” she said. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”
He pulled her close, kissed her with urgency, put the heel of his hand against her ear with his fingers dug into her hair. She could smell it, the smell of his clothes from high school, the smell of his neck, now mixed with sweat and gardenias. This was his hip now, his shoulder now, this was how he kissed now, this was where he put his hand when he wanted her to come closer now. Nostalgia is toxic, false, an impulse based in a desire to escape the present into the imagined past, she knew all that. But it was Nick, and after years of assuming she would never see him again, let alone all this, when her eyelashes brushed his temple, something inside of her went pleasantly slack, far from work and family and a canceled wedding.
It was slick skin and familiar hands, a little trial and error and a little return to form, some rushing and some lingering and some carefully aligned timing, and it was the logistics of adults who are grown and the daring of people who are passing by each other briefly and trying to hold on, secure in the knowledge that whatever is complicated will be over before it matters.
After, she shut off the lights and got back under the sheet, pulling up the light cover to her waist. She lay on her side, facing him, curling her arm under her head, and they stayed there, quiet, with their index fingers hooked, his hand pulled over close to her. “Is it okay if I fall asleep?” he said. “Are you going to wake up at two in the morning?”
It was almost completely dark, just a few bars of light coming in through the blinds. “Of course you should fall asleep,” she said. “And I think you’ve relaxed me as much as I can possibly be relaxed. So I’m optimistic. This mattress is good for my back.”
“Mine at home is too soft, I think,” he said. “Half the time I wake up in the morning and I feel like a pretzel.”
“Warm and salty?”
“I wish,” he said quietly, from inches away. “I keep meaning to buy a new one, but then I have to get rid of the old one, and getting it up those stairs in the first place was such a pain in my ass that I think I’m just going to keep it up there until I’m ready to tear down the house.”
“Oh, you should invest,” Laurie said. “You’ll love it. It’s great for back pain, and you spend hours and hours on it, so you should at least like it.” She let her eyes fall shut, and she said, “Do you need anything? Glass of water?”
“Nope. I think I’m just going to close my eyes.”
She leaned toward him one more time. “Where are you?” she said.
“Here,” came his voice out of the dark, and she found his mouth and kissed him with presumptuous familiarity, like she’d do it again tomorrow and every day after that.
“If you wake up before me, there’s iced coffee in the fridge.”
“Thank you.”
“Good night, Nick.”
“Night, Laur.”
* * *
—
Laurie opened her eyes, and it took a few seconds to reorient herself: She was on the wrong side of the bed because of Nick, whose body lay heavily next to her. She could hear him breathing. Her foot was tangled in the sheet, and she gingerly tried to extract it without waking him. She moved like she was underwater, freezing when she heard him inhale and relaxing when he sighed and then was out again. She had a little stiffness in her hip, and kept thinking about how good it would feel to turn over and sleep on her other side, facing away from him, but it would be hard to do without kicking him or bumping him.
She closed her eyes and tried to fall back to sleep. She had slept with Nick. She had slept with Nick, whom she had specifically decided it would be a bad idea to sleep with a couple of weeks ago. She had slept with Nick, who seemed convinced she should come back here and live in Dot’s house, or one like it. And what if she did? She could be near the Atlantic instead of the Pacific. There would still be water, boats, green places to go. The winters would be colder, but it would rain less. She’d be farther away from her friends out there, but she had friends here, too. She could watch June’s kids grow up, throw summer parties for neighbors where Daisy and Melody would come over and play music on the deck.