We’re lying on my bed that night. Breathing hard, limp as rags. Her hand is splayed out across my belly and mine is still tangled in a hank of her hair.
We’re still playing the no-condom game, and I should be frustrated as hell, but Lucy was right: This waiting is forcing us to be more inventive than I knew was possible, and I’ve used just about curvy surface of Lucy’s body to find release, and each time I come harder than the last.
I’m probably going to turn myself inside out the first time I get inside her, which needs to be soon.
“How was the time with your mom?” I ask her.
“It was good,” she says. But she’s frowning.
“What?”
“I—she asked me if I’d ever move here.”
She said move here.
No. She said her mother asked if she’d ever move here. Which is completely different.
“And you said?”
“I said no.”
“Well, duh,” I say.
Of course she did. Girls from New York, girls like Lucy, who have New York etched into the pleats of their dress pants and stacked in the heels of their shoes, don’t move to Rush Creek.
When a woman tells you she is leaving, believe her.
That is the most important lesson I have ever learned, and I will not forget it, no matter how adorable Lucy’s freckles are, no matter how sweet the curves of cheek and breast and belly, no matter how much I love the feel of her hand in mine.
“You can’t get your laundry picked up and dropped off here,” I say.
“No.” She shakes her head.
“You can’t see any movie you want, any time.”
“No.”
“Although you can see the new Marvel movie in three different theaters. So that’s something.”
“That is something,” she says.
“And you can’t get Nan’s bread in New York.”
“I hate to break it to you, Gabe, but you can get bread from ten different bakeries in a ten-block radius of where I live in New York.”
“So there is nothing Rush Creek has to recommend itself over New York.”
“Mmm.” She rolls toward me. “I wouldn’t say nothing.” But then she stops. “Do you know why I couldn’t ever live here? Ever?”
I know she’s joking, but the ferocity of her voice still stabs me.
She grabs her phone from the nightstand. “I was researching marketing firms in Portland. Look at them, Gabe! I could never fit in here!”
I study the screen. “They’re very… Portland. Portland has a totally different vibe from New York.”
“I’m starting to get that.” She examines the photo. “How do they get away with it? No makeup? Gray hair? They’re in marketing, which is all about appearances.”
“That’s the vibe here. If they were all decked out, they’d stand out. But who the fuck cares about that? I’m all for whatever women want to do. You’re hot no matter what you wear.”
She gives me a quizzical look, like she can’t believe that could be true. Then she sets her phone aside, curls her body against mine, and rests her head on my chest. I put my arms around her. I want to block out the rest of the world and be in a cocoon with her.
“It’s true, City Girl. You’re hot naked and naked-faced, and you’re hot in all the business clothes, all dolled up. There is no way you can look or dress that I won’t want you.”
“Did you want me even when I was flailing in the woods?”
“Did I not make that clear?” I demand.
“Okay, yeah. You, um, made that clear.” She starts kissing her way across my chest, and damn if I’m not ready to go again.
Except that I’m still fixated on what she said. I could never fit in here! Did she mean that?
Is it true?
Looking at that website, I could see why she said it. One of these things is not like the other. Lucy doesn’t look like a small town Oregon girl.
She doesn’t belong here. In the Pacific northwest, in my small town.
In my bed.
Except she does. Having her here feels so exactly right.
She asked me if I’d ever move here.
I said no.
I feel a twinge of longing. Or maybe that’s the sensation in my groin caused by Lucy slowly sliding down my body. Of all the bonus effects of “waiting,” I’m loving frequent blow jobs the most.
I stroke her hair, then wind my hand in it.
She starts at the very tip, working her way lower and lower.
I can’t tell if the falling sensation in my stomach is because of how very, very good she is at what she’s doing.
Or because of how much I still desperately want to ask her if she’s thinking about staying.
I know what happens when I start to hope a woman will stay, and it doesn’t end well for me.