“Do you want money?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” she snapped.
He raised his hands. “Hey, hey, I’m not trying to fight with you. I’m just asking.”
She sniffled, wiping savagely at her eyes. “I don’t know,” she began, and then stopped talking.
“Don’t know what?”
“I don’t know what’s fair. These guys… what they took… I mean, how do I ever get that back?” She made herself breathe, made herself loosen her grip on the railing. “I feel like they stole my life. Like they took the person I was supposed to be, the person I was on my way to being, and they killed her, and now I’ll never get her back.”
“But you’re still here,” he said gently. “You’re not dead. Whatever they did do, they didn’t do that.”
“You don’t understand.” That old, familiar despair was back, welling up inside of her, pushing out every good feeling, every happy memory that she’d made. “I’ve got two sisters. They both went to college. One of them’s a lawyer; the other one’s a nurse. They’re both married. Julia’s got kids.”
“Okay,” he said. “So you’ve made other choices.”
Other choices. She gave an ugly laugh, remembering one of her father’s more pungent sayings: You can’t polish a turd. “I’m a waitress,” she said. “I dropped out of UMass after three semesters. I live in a one-room cottage, rent-free, because someone felt sorry for me. I’m basically a squatter. And when I’m not squatting here, I’m living with my parents and working as a janitor.”
His voice was mild, but she could hear the rebuke in his tone. “There’s nothing wrong with honest work.”
Diana felt her face get hot. “I know,” she said. “I know that. I do. It’s just… I was good at school. I got good grades; I won a scholarship. My parents, my teachers… everyone expected more from me.” She sighed. “I expected more from me. For me. But the girl who wanted that big life—I’m not her. Not anymore.” And I’m afraid, she thought, but couldn’t say. I’m still so afraid.
He settled his hand against her neck and rubbed gently. She pressed her face into his neck and leaned back into his touch, the warmth of his hand, the softness of his skin underneath the prickle of his beard. “I just want to stay here, in my house, with my dog, and work my job, and come home at night, and go to sleep to the sound of the ocean,” she said into his chest. “And not hurt anyone.”
“That doesn’t sound bad to me at all.” He was holding her close, and before she could lose her nerve she turned, stood on her tiptoes, took his face in her hands, and kissed him on the lips. He tasted like beer and lemons, and his mustache tickled her lips.
“Fuzzy,” she murmured. She wanted to do something, to replace the darkness inside of her with something light, and she knew what that thing might be. It was time. She took his hand and led him inside, onto the couch, and when he sat down, instead of sitting beside him, she arranged herself on top of him, her legs straddling his thighs.
“Mmm,” he said, and touched her hair, then her face. He let his hands fall open on the couch as he leaned forward, nuzzling her neck. She shivered as the hairs brushed her skin, then leaned forward and pressed nibbling kisses on his cheek, then his beard, before finally shifting her lips to the soft, yielding warmth of his mouth.
His breath hitched as she leaned against him, pressing her breasts against his soft flannel shirt. He returned her kisses enthusiastically, his tongue a startling, delicious softness in the bristly tangle of his beard. But he didn’t move his hands any lower than her waist, always letting her be the one to push herself against him, to deepen a kiss, to take the lead in whatever they were doing.
Michael’s voice was a low rumble against her chest. “Are you okay?”
“Um, I think so.”
He lifted one hand to stroke her cheek, then her hair. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want. So you’re going to have to tell me.” He leaned close, whispering in her ear, making her shiver all over. “Tell me everything you want to happen. Everything you want me to do.”
She kissed him again, feeling shame surge through her; panic trying to grip her. With an effort, she was able to put herself back in the present, in her body, in that moment. She concentrated on the sensations: the warm weight of his hand on her head, the slow brush of his thumb against her cheek, the persistent ache between her legs. Reaching up, she touched his hair, which was surprisingly soft. She combed through it with her fingers, scraping her nails gently against his scalp.