‘Happy Birthday,’ I say, as the track comes to an end.
‘I love being thirty,’ she says.
I touch my fingers to my head in salute. ‘Then my job here is done, pretty lady.’
She leans back to study me, her face serious, and then she pulls me in and winds her arms around my neck.
‘Oh no it isn’t.’
Her legs wrap around my waist when I lift her up, and I can only agree that maybe the night isn’t over just yet.
We’re lying face to face, the sheet draped over her hip, her hair all around her on the white pillows. She looks like a painting, shadows and light, hollows and curves, too intimate for any lens to do her justice. Her white dress is flung somewhere over by the sofa, the flowers from her hair jaunty over the brass bedpost.
‘One,’ she says, ‘that was the best sex I’ve had in my entire thirties.’
I wind her hair around my fingers. ‘Funny girl.’
‘Three – I love you a little bit,’ she says, propping herself up on one elbow. ‘Not so much that you’re going to break my heart. Just enough for you to take a sliver of it home with you, and every now and then, if you press your fingers in just the right place –’ she touches her fingertips against my heart to show me where – ‘I think I’ll feel it and think of you too.’ I look into her eyes and I swear I feel that sliver slide under my skin.
‘You didn’t do two,’ I say, curling my fingers around hers on my chest.
‘I didn’t need to. Three was kind of big.’
‘It really was,’ I say, and I smile because she’s lionheart brave to be so honest when she knows there’s no future for us. ‘One – I promise to take extra special care of this sliver of your heart,’ I say. ‘Mine was kind of bashed so your donation is very welcome.’ I tap my chest. ‘Consider me patched up.’
‘I’m practically a doctor,’ she says with a low laugh.
I run the back of my fingers down her jaw, her collarbone, the curve of her breast.
‘Two –’
‘You’re doing two?’ She frowns. ‘Now I feel like a lazy cow.’
‘Two – I was proud to know you today.’
‘Mack …’ She leans in and touches her mouth to mine. ‘Thank you for tonight. You made me feel special.’
‘Well, I hope so,’ I say because I really do.
She flops back on her pillows, her arm flung over her head.
‘Three,’ I say, when she turns her face to look at me again, ‘it was the best sex I can remember of my thirties too.’ It’s a difficult confession to face. In the early days of me and Susie, I’d never have been able to imagine us running out of steam, in bed or out of it. This time with Cleo has shown me different; I’ve remembered how it feels to be wanted and it’s heady.
‘And four,’ I say, breaking our rule because it’s her wedding day, ‘you’re the most spectacular person I’ve ever met.’ I raise her hand to my lips. ‘And this, right here, is the best damn holiday romance ever.’
Cleo smiles, her eyes already closing. I lie awake and watch her sleep, thinking about the sliver of her heart now patched on to mine. I’m going to need it.
Cleo
27 October
Salvation Island
I’VE STOLEN JENNIFER GREY’S BEST LINE
I wake before Mack does. There are no storms gathering on the horizon; the forecast for the next couple of days is clear and calm, as if the weather gods agree that it’s time for Mack to leave. I look at him now, passed out and peaceful, and I can’t imagine being here without him. He fills my days and my nights, my thoughts and my arms. I came here on a self-love mission, and the other night I told Mack that I love him a little bit. I didn’t plan on saying it, but I don’t regret it either because it’s true. I had no expectation of him saying it back, and that’s okay too.
‘It’s a little stalkerish to watch me sleeping,’ Mack says, his eyes still closed.
‘I’m not watching you,’ I say. ‘You just happen to be in front of my eyes.’
‘You were totally watching me.’ He grins, opening his eyes, and I look from one to the other, enjoying their irregularity.
‘Your eyes are just so you,’ I say. ‘Unexpected. Startling.’
He turns my hand to his face and kisses my palm. ‘Startling?’
I nod. ‘You’ve startled me.’
He pulls me close and settles the blankets over my shoulders.