With the exception of Tim’s baseball games, my interactions with Colin are limited to the Dorchester community pool. His days are busy, with work and classes and family obligations. We live from Saturday to Saturday, until one day, the routine changes.
I’m on the porch, listening to the drone of the late-summer cicadas, when Colin arrives just after dawn. He opens the car door, stealing a glance at my shoulders as I climb in. He’s looking for swimsuit straps, which he does every time he picks me up. As usual, he sees only my bare, freckled skin.
After fiddling with the vents—“Are you warm enough?”—and being chastised—“It’s eighty degrees outside!”—he focuses on the road. He taps the steering wheel as he drives, a rare display of nervous energy. Every minute or so, his phone beeps with a message.
“Someone really wants you,” I say, angling for a view of the display.
“My sisters,” he says. “They’re wondering where I am.”
“At six thirty on a Saturday?”
“I’m on breakfast duty every Friday, but I missed yesterday. Had to go to work early because one of the guys had chest pain.”
“Oh.”
“He’s okay, don’t worry—back to work in the afternoon,” he says, like this kind of thing happens all the time. “But it really devastated the Shea breakfast routine.”
“You must be a good cook if they’re texting you at the crack of dawn.”
“Terrible, actually.” He glances over at me again to see if I’m shivering. “You cold?”
“I’m fine, Colin.”
He will never accept this, but at least now it’s a bit of an inside joke.
“We can skip the pool today, if you want.” I roll down the window, suddenly desperate for air.
Colin’s response comes before the words are even out of my mouth. “We’d love to have you,” he says. Then, a little embarrassed: “I just hope you’re not hungry.”
“Why? Is there not enough food? I could run to the store—”
“Because I’ve yet to cook an edible meal.”
I give him a look that says, Yeah right.
“I’m serious.”
“You used to make a delicious chip soup.”
He smiles, and the tension in my belly—wherever it came from, whatever it means—blossoms into something almost like warmth.
•
Breakfast at the Shea household is a spirited affair. There is no real order to it, despite Colin’s role as chef, cook, waiter, etc. His sisters spend most of the prep time sprinting from bedroom to bathroom to bedroom again, getting ready for their various activities. A household of teenage girls—whoa. My mom could barely handle one.
Colin explains their various obligations: The youngest, Corinne, has summer camp. Elizabeth failed gym (“a total scam,” she explains), so she’s on her way to Saturday classes. And the eldest, Lauren, volunteers at a nursing home down the street. They offer sporadic details at a rapid clip, their Boston accents so thick it sometimes requires clarification. Colin tells me they’re just hamming it up; they like to mess with folks from “Snobsville.”
Corinne, though, is shy and deferential, like her big brother. Once we’re sitting down, she asks me thoughtful questions about my interests and listens with rapt attention. She looks about thirteen, a startling image of her mother.
“You’re so pretty,” she says. “Just like Colin said you were.”
The other girls glare at her, as if she’s just spilled some terrible secret. Colin’s short hair does nothing to hide the blush creeping up his neck as he flips the pancakes.
“Thank you,” I say. “You know, you look just like your mom.”
She beams. “Really? She was so beautiful. Even when she lost her hair.” She stares at her empty plate for a long moment. “Did you know Colin shaved his head to make her feel better about it? I know the team only does it for big meets and stuff, but he kept it that way for a really long time—”
“Done!” Colin announces, clicking off the burners with an air of finality. Sweat trickles down his brow, which he wipes with the back of his arm. His collar is damp, his skin glistening. He smells good, though. Somehow, he always smells good.
If he heard Corinne, he doesn’t show it—nor does he comment on my silence. He says nothing as he serves a heaping stack of pancakes, a pile of eggs, crisp bacon and toast, and an impressive assortment of accoutrements. The eggs are a little runny, and the bacon is on the charred end of the spectrum, but no one seems to notice.
Colin and the girls mutter a lightning-fast prayer, barely a mumbling of the lips. “My mom’s tradition,” Corinne explains via whisper. Then we dig in.
The food is gone in minutes, attacked by a crowd of hungry teenagers. Colin returns to the stove twice to replenish the plates, and by the time he finally sits down for good, the girls are already out the door, yelling good-byes and telling him to pick them up at such and such time.
A draft of cooler air sweeps inside, melting into the heat. Even the walls look like they’re perspiring.
“You do this every Friday?” I ask, as the door slams behind them.
“Used to do it every day.” He samples a helping of cold eggs. “After my mom died, I tried really hard to keep some of her traditions going. But doing this on a daily basis wore me out. Now it’s just Fridays and whatever other day I can manage—like today.”
I wait for him to say more about his mom—about those last few days, the sacrifices he made to make things easier for her. But Colin never was much of a sharer. He sips his orange juice in a contemplative silence.
“Do you miss her?” I finally ask.
He nods, the smile on his face wistful but not sad. “All the time.”
For just a moment, he closes his eyes and breathes it in: the hum of the ancient, wheezy air conditioner, the absence of chatty girls and all their obligations, the quiet of a weekend morning. Then he sees the aftermath of a family meal, and it’s back to reality again. He gets to his feet.
“I’ll clean,” I tell him. “You rest.”
He gestures to the huge stack of dishes. “I didn’t bring you over here to clean up after five people.”
“The cook never cleans.”
“This cook does,” he says.
I glare at him before heading over to the sink. The truce lasts for about a minute before Colin joins me, dish towels in hand. It’s even hotter over by the stove—or maybe it’s just him. His body heat has a languid, seductive effect. I just want to lean into him.
Hot water from the faucet fogs the glass, obscuring the view of the neighbors’ small but tidy yards. I turn it to cold—ice cold, as far as it will go. I try to focus on the dishes. The homey, flowery china. The old jelly jars substituting as glasses. The pots and pans and . . .
He reaches over me, his hand grazing mine as he turns off the faucet. The sudden contact makes me dizzy. The way he lingers—a shade of a second, just enough for me to notice—makes me feel something else entirely.
Something like wanting.
I put the plates down and turn, slowly, to face him. My hands are dripping wet, my skin slick with sweat. It’s a strange, luxurious feeling—a kind of reckless abandon. There is no hope for propriety in hundred-degree heat. I back up against the sink and run my wet hands through my hair. It doesn’t help much, not like I expected or even wanted it to.
Colin clears his throat. “Hot?” he asks.
“Hot as hell,” I murmur.
He smiles, but there is nothing soft or shy about it. His mind is elsewhere—on my hands, my hair, my soaked shirt. His voice sounds deep and husky. “Good thing my sisters aren’t here to chastise you.”
“Good thing.”
His eyes turn a shade darker as the teasing smile fades. He takes a step closer, and my shoulder blades hit the cabinets above the sink, arched and waiting. I wait for him to touch me again, to say everything I’m feeling, but he doesn’t. He seems suspended in a lonely in-between—the place we’ve occupied for months.
So I just say it. “I fell in love with you.”
I take a step forward, indulging in the heat and charge and mystery of him. He holds my gaze with a feverish intensity, but he otherwise stands very still. I look up into those glorious blue eyes, wondering how I ever doubted the conviction there. How I ever doubted him.
“I love you, Colin.” My voice breaks, but I don’t care. I want him to see me cry. I want him to know I was wrong, I was weak, I was terrified. “Colin, say something—”
Then he kisses me.
•
It isn’t like our last kiss. This one is all heat and fire, bare skin and sultry sweat. An exploration that takes place in ways that are new yet familiar, this coming together of need and desire that never had a chance in a frigid nowhere. He tastes like mint and oranges, like a summer morning. I give in to it, breathing him in, dizzy with the scent and feel and taste of him. The kiss deepens. Frantic, fast, everywhere. I love the roughness of his hands, the ease with which he pulls me close. He’s so strong. I can feel his muscles working against me, his hips driving into mine. He lifts me up like I weigh nothing at all.
He carries me toward the living room and up the stairs, careful to dodge the haphazard array of backpacks and textbooks littering the hallway. He knows this house. Knows its secrets, its quirks. There is no uncertainty in our hasty trek from kitchen to bedroom.
We’re barely over the threshold when he stops. “Fuck, it’s hot,” he breathes, and continues down the hall. He’s kissing my neck when we bump into the bathroom door, stumble over the raised tiles, and end up in the bathtub. He turns on the shower and a sheet of deliciously cold water rains down on us. The change in temperature surges through me like an electric charge. My back hits the tiles, my legs still hiked around his waist. I open my eyes to see him breathing hard, his eyes swimming with desire. Water snakes down his face, his neck, his shoulders, until finally finding its way to his soaked T-shirt. He never even bothered to take it off.
So I do it for him. Slower now, fingers grasping fabric. I love the way he feels; I remember the way he feels. Strong. Warm. Vulnerable in ways that go so much deeper than physical scars. The water from the showerhead roams his shoulders and pools in my hands. I let my fingers wander up to his chest, a flutter of movement against his skin. He tenses. His heart thrums to the beat of rushing water.
“Don’t stop,” he whispers.
I kiss his hands, his wrists, his bare, beautiful chest. He says my name and it reaches, somehow, across months of memory and pain and regret, and it finds me in a place that feels safe, and whole, and right.
I’m glad it was you.
He lets me linger, then kisses me again. The newness of it makes my blood hum, but Colin isn’t like anyone I’ve ever kissed. He seems to know me. My wants, needs, desires. Our tempo has a duality to it, a naturalness that goes beyond mutual understanding. I’m not trying to breathe right, or turn my head the right way, or kiss him the way he wants me to. I don’t think about those things at all.
When I’m with him, I never have to.
“Stay,” he breathes against my hair. There is nothing polite about the way he says this, no tentative gentility in his hard, needful gaze. Stay. As if the word itself has physical power.
He leans back, hands sliding from my jaw. When he sees the gooseflesh on my skin, he turns the water off, but instead of losing its magic, the moment gains a surreal, tangible sadness. I feel as though my very soul is separating.
“Stay,” he says again.
Stay.
Swim.
Breathe.
I never doubted him when he willed me to survive. His conviction carried five people from the wilds of Colorado to the comforts of Boston; in so many ways, he brought us home.
And now, here, at my hand, it ends. I can’t stand to look at him as I shake my head, stumble out of the tub, and leave him behind.
This time, there won’t be any going back.