LIZZIE was learning all sorts of interesting things about her baby daddy. For starters, he took exceptionally long showers.
The pizza had been delivered over twenty minutes ago, and she waited impatiently for him to emerge. Lizzie sniffed at the closed box, salivating like a dog. She glanced at the firmly shut bathroom door then lifted the lid. It wasn’t like he’d know if she ate some of the toppings. Maybe she could even convince him the pizza was delivered with a missing slice. She didn’t want to be rude and eat without him, but the water had stopped some time ago, and at this point she assumed he was either jerking off or had diarrhea.
Either way, she didn’t want to knock and interrupt him, but she was also close to perishing from starvation.
She walked over to the door, about to press her ear to it so she could gauge how much more time he’d need to take care of business, when it was pulled open.
She jumped back, looking as busted as she felt. But her guilt of being caught was quickly replaced by one single thought.
Body. Body. Body.
Rake stood in nothing but a towel, his skin still damp from the shower. Little droplets of water kissed and hugged the muscles of his torso and traveled down to his navel and below the towel’s edge. Ah, to be a drop of water resting between that V at his hip bones to then slip down below and caress that lovely dong.
“What are you doing?” Rake asked, retreating a step into the bathroom like she was going to pounce on him.
Lizzie cleared her throat, trying to drag her eyes from the planes of muscles up to his face, but her vision got tangled in the wet mess of his hair, looking boyish and beautifully mussed from the towel he must have run through it.
“Are you sick?” she asked, her voice sounding too sultry, even to her own ears.
His eyebrows pinched together. “No? Why?”
“You just took a while. I thought maybe you had…” She trailed off, trying to lift her horny eyes from the slight bulge they’d noticed in the front of the towel.
“Had what?”
“Diarrhea,” she whispered, making eye contact with his nipples.
“What? No!” Rake said, horrified. A blush touched his cheeks.
“Oh, don’t look so scandalized. Everyone poops.” She gave him a teasing poke in the abs. He flinched, the spot ticklish, but Lizzie was the one to giggle. She catalogued the reaction, her brain wanting to soak up every detail.
“Oh my God, please stop,” he said, lightly smacking her hand away and gripping the towel tighter around his waist. “I realized five minutes in that I didn’t have any clothes, and we’re out of clean towels, and it took me a second to find one that wasn’t damp and make sure it was mine and…” He trailed off, running his hands through his hair. “Did you order the pizza?” he said, maneuvering past her toward his dresser. Lizzie watched the muscles of his back tighten and release with every step.
Get a grip, you horny monster.
“Yep,” she said, trying to sound casual as she flopped onto the couch. She bit into one of the throw pillows and kicked her feet for a second while he wasn’t looking, needing to get out some of the naughty energy building inside her. She could hear him searching through his drawers, the whisper of fabric as he pulled a T-shirt down his body. She threw open the pizza box and shoved a slice into her mouth. Fuck it, she needed stimulation from something.
“What toppings did you get?” he asked, moving around the TV stand toward the couch. He sat down, his thighs slightly spread and inviting, the loose fabric of his workout shorts riding up to show the definition of muscle and dusting of leg hair. She wanted to perch like a horny little bird on his lap. Even his kneecaps were sexy. It was ridiculous.
“Pineapple,” she said through a mouthful.
“Bold choice.”
“Oh shit, do you not like pineapple? I forgot how controversial of a topping it is. It’s what Indira and I always get.”
“No, I love it. Great pick.”
“Ugh, coparenting will be such a breeze at this rate,” she said, holding up her hand for a high five. He slapped her palm, and they shared an indulgent smile. Buddies. Partners in crime.
Clueless idiots.
He leaned forward and grabbed a piece. A long strand of cheese dangled from the end, and he lifted the slice high, catching the string between his teeth.
Lizzie watched, completely enraptured by the swipe of his tongue to grab the inch of cheese that stuck to his chin. She shoved the remaining half of her slice into her mouth so she wouldn’t say anything stupid or obscene or embarrassing or make this already bizarre situation of a sexually charged platonic living arrangement any worse.
Rake gave a grunt of approval as he bit into it, and Lizzie almost spit hers out.
Pizza was supposed to be safe, not sexy.
But Rake made it look very, very, very sexy.
She was about four seconds away from a heaving bosom.
“Wanna watch TV?” she asked, reaching with grabby hands for another slice. She needed to keep her mouth full and eyes distracted if she was to avoid mauling him.
“Sure.”
She turned on the TV and flipped to the Travel Channel, her favorite. It was one of the fifty identical shows where a host roamed around an exotic city, and Lizzie was hooked instantly. She nestled more firmly into the couch, tucking her feet up under her.
“God, could you imagine seeing a place like that in real life?” Rake asked, nodding his head at the gorgeous landscape on the screen. A waterfall tumbled from the edge of thick jungle brush, white foam cascading into tiered pools of soft turquoise water—a delicious color that reminded Lizzie of Rake’s eyes. She could almost feel herself floating in the warm water, little triangles of sunlight falling through the canopy above and creating a kaleidoscope of aquamarine.
“I’ve been there,” she said, shooting him a sly smile from across the couch.
He snorted. “Bullshit.”
“I have! It’s called Kuang Si Falls. It’s in Laos.” The show’s host relayed similar facts on a few-second delay, and Lizzie pointed at the screen. Rake still looked skeptical as he leaned over and squeezed the fleshy spot above her knee, making her yelp at the tickle.
“I have pictures! I went the spring I turned twenty.”
“That was your spring break? Laos?”
“What can I say, I’m very cultured and worldly.” Lizzie sniffed, tossing her hair back over one shoulder and pushing her glasses up her nose. Rake arched an eyebrow. “Okay, maybe not cultured. But well traveled.”
“How’d you afford it?”
“Growing up, I hoarded away every dollar I was ever given. My family isn’t big into sentimental things, so nearly every holiday and birthday, I received money from one family member or another. And then the second I was old enough to get a job, I did. I spent any time I wasn’t in school working. I always said I was saving up for college, but I feel like part of me always knew I wouldn’t end up going. And then I’d find any other way to make some side cash. Did you know you can make, like, $180 a month selling your blood plasma?”
“I did not,” Rake said, looking at her like she was a bizarre creature.
“Yup, easy money. So, I saved up every penny, and then once I graduated high school, I took off. Too much world out there for me to see, and I couldn’t wait another minute.” The truth was, she would have lived in a cave in the woods to avoid staying in her mother’s home for one more day, if it had come down to that.
“Where all did you go?”
“All over. I’d usually pick a country to start, get a one-way ticket, and go as far as I could.”
“You didn’t run out of money?”
“I always ran out of money,” she said, laughing at the memories. “But I’d make do. I’d find a gig here and there, friendly strangers willing to feed me. This one time, I was staying in a hostel in Beijing, and I ran out of money to pay for the night. I met these German girls in a similar bind, and we started busking outside the hostel. One of them sang, and the other girl and I tap-danced. We earned enough money to get our bunks back and split a hot pot.”
“You tap-dance?”
“No, not at all—I’m a terrible dancer. But I’m great at faking my way through things. Give ’em the old razzle-dazzle,” she said, throwing in jazz hands for emphasis.
“That’s amazing. What happened to the German girls?”
“I’m not sure,” Lizzie said with a shrug, her brows pinching together as she tried to remember. They’d parted ways soon after, just another two faces in a constant ebb and flow. Lizzie was always great at meeting people, but never as good at keeping them. “I think they headed home after or something. Hard to remember.”
“Who would you travel with?”
“Oh, no one. I always went alone.”
“Alone?” Rake asked, sounding like a mother hen. “Wasn’t that lonely?”
“Lonely?” Lizzie repeated, the word tasting funny. “No, never. Being alone is half the fun. I did exactly what I wanted exactly when I wanted to. Never had to ask someone else what they wanted to see or eat or if they were okay staying in shitty hostels. Total freedom.” Her favorite feeling in the world. Lizzie valued freedom more than oxygen.
“But having no one to share the memories with? Isn’t that…” Rake trailed off, studying her closely.
Sad. The word he was searching for was sad.
But it wasn’t sad. Lizzie had been able to find people whenever she’d needed to. If sadness crept in at the edges, she’d approach a friendly smile, fall into bed with a beautiful stranger. It had been exactly what she wanted. What she needed. Faces and names passing by in a gentle stream around her.
Lizzie shrugged. “I didn’t need anyone to share them with. The experience was for me. Not anyone else.”
Rake nodded, but she could tell he didn’t really understand. “Where else have you been?” he asked, still watching her carefully.
Lizzie chewed on her pizza, thinking. “All over, really. I set up somewhat of a home base in Prague, and then would travel from there. On that trip,” she said, nodding back at the TV, “I went on to South Korea and Japan. I really wanted to see Vietnam, but I ended up spending too much time in Japan and had to get back to Prague for a monthlong nannying job I’d snagged.”
“Too much time doing what?”
Lizzie wiped her hands on one of the flimsy napkins that came with the pizza. “I met a guy,” she said with a laugh. “I try not to live with regrets, but one I’ll always have to bear is that I was so preoccupied hooking up with a Turkish guy staying at the same hostel that I missed out on an entire country.”
Lizzie thought she saw Rake’s jaw tick, but he smoothed his features, smiling. “Sounds like quite the life,” he said. “Ever make it to my hemisphere?”
“South America, yes. But never Australia.”
Rake made a disapproving noise.
“I’d love to go, though,” she added. “I have to see the reef before humans destroy it.”
“Ahh, you definitely have to go. I’ll take you someday.”
Lizzie’s eyes went wide, and she blinked at him. Rake snapped his mouth shut, the words dropping heavily onto the couch between them, snuggling up like little monsters for an awkward cuddle.
“Want some water?” she asked, bolting up and clambering over the back of the couch toward the kitchen.
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Rake said, clearing his throat.
Lizzie pulled out the water pitcher from the fridge, filling two cups. She chugged down a cold glass, then another. She also made sure to draw a penis in the condensation of Rake’s glass for good measure.
She went back to the couch, handing him one of the drinks and settling herself on the far end of the love seat. She needed a bit of space from Rake and his kind words and lovely eyes. He was making domestic bliss all too comfortable.
“That’s cool,” Rake said, pointing at the TV. The show’s host was touring an open-air market and had stopped at one of the stands, watching a woman weave a rainbow of threads into a textile. Her fingers worked quickly, and she gave a broad smile at the camera, pride radiating out of her. “Every inch of that place is covered in fabric.”
“You like stuff like that?” Lizzie asked, perking up.
“How could you not? The time and focus that goes into it, the colors, it’s incredible.”
“Wait here.” Lizzie tossed down her plate and bolted toward the bedroom, hurdling over her air mattress like a track star. She pushed aside some of her garbage bags and pulled out her securely taped boxes—boxes she hadn’t opened in years. She ran her hands over the cardboard, the memories buzzing and humming, ready to be remembered.
She tore into them, riffling through one, then another, until she found what she was looking for.
She looked at the textile, then hugged it to her chest, rubbing her cheek against the rough wool and tangling her fingers in the fringe at its edge. She pressed her nose to it and inhaled like she could breathe in the happy moments the fabric held, allow them to soak into her soul. Smiling, she moved back toward the couch.
Lizzie stood in front of Rake, allowing the fabric to unfold with a flourish. It was a magnificent explosion of colors—geometric shapes in fuchsia and bright blue, blocky birds lined up in green and purple, linear zigzags of orange and red, all of it glowing against the dark green background.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Lizzie cooed, looking down at the weaving. “I got it in Guatemala. The woman even taught me how to embroider one of the flowers.” She ran her finger over the raised yellow threads of a wonky flower, the single imperfection in the glorious masterpiece.
“It’s amazing,” Rake said, pushing off the couch to get a closer look. He pinched the edge between his thumb and forefinger, touching it gently as though it might dissolve in his grasp. “The colors are unreal.”
“I know. That’s what drew me to it. I saw the woman working on it, and I couldn’t stop staring. I sat there and watched her weave for hours.” Lizzie remembered the feeling, like each strum on the loom was harmonizing with something in her brain, plucking at her neurons until they were all focused on the creation of the vibrant piece.
“You should hang it up,” Rake said, carefully studying the stiches.
Her eyes flew to his face. “Really? That’d be okay?” The idea of gazing at the textile every day, seeing it hanging proudly on a wall, hummed through her bones and set a large grin on her face.
“Sure. It’s too cool not to show off. What else have you been hiding in those boxes?”
And so it began. Lizzie plundered into her stored-away memories, reliving all the joy she had put to rest so long ago in that drab, brown cardboard. She’d always meant to show off her travel mementos, but Indira had liked a more minimalistic decor. And something had always held Lizzie back from even asking.
Once she’d sealed up those boxes, she’d been afraid to reopen them, like all the happiness the objects held would rush out. Leave her. Or worse, they’d act as a taunting reminder of the freedom she’d felt in those different places, and what a cruel trick it was to actually grow up.
But as she unpacked them, surrounding herself with treasures—smooth pebbles from a volcanic beach in Iceland, carved cedar trinkets from Lebanon, an evil eye from Turkey—she wasn’t homesick for those places. Instead, the memories zipped through her veins in pleasure.
She made a mess of Rake’s recently cleaned floors—their floors—but he didn’t seem to care. He watched the unveiling of every item from the boxes, his eyes lighting up as though they held special meaning for him too, asking questions and laughing at her stories.
“You look so happy,” Rake said. And she was. Little starbursts of happiness sparkled through her as she looked at her memories. Nothing had ever fulfilled her quite like traveling, not even sex. She felt most whole and present and complete somewhere, anywhere, that wasn’t her parents’ house.
And that’s how they spent their night, Lizzie rediscovering small pieces of herself she’d long stored away, and Rake welcoming every single one to their new home, the picture of their little blob baby the center of it all.