Mai Tai'd Up(73)

“Midnight-snack pancakes are my new favorite meal,” he murmured from somewhere just above my bum.

“Quarter-to-three pancakes, if you want to get technical,” I giggled, stretching my arms over my head and lengthening my spine.

“Isn’t that a song?”

“There’s a song called quarter-to-three pancakes?”

“Quarter to three,” he sang under this breath, “There’s no one in the place, except, you and me . . .” He placed a kiss in exactly the small of my back. “. . . and pancakes . . .”

“Oh, man.” I laughed, harder still when he bit me on the bottom. Quarter to three, what a long day this had been. Wait, it was tomorrow already. Which meant that he was leaving . . . Fudge. He was leaving for Belize the next day. For three months.

And that’s why we’d decided not to start anything. Well, there goes that bright idea. I moved a bit, just enough that he got the hint and stood up, pulling me with him. I hastened to pull my shirt down, my skin still flushed with the excitement he’d coaxed forth.

He sensed the change, and caught my hand. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I answered, resisting the pull for a second. But one look at that messy hair and I fell against his chest. There was no frenzy, no frantic now. I rested my head on him as he leaned against the counter, running his hands up and down my spine. I listened to him breathing, and even though it seemed blasphemous in the face of what had just happened, all I could think about was how I used to fall asleep to Charles’ sounds. First deep sighs as he settled in. Then tiny quick breaths as he found the best spot on the pillow. Then finally the slow, lingering exhales as he’d begin to nod off. And when I knew he was asleep, that’s when I’d nod off.

It’s funny that when something is over, it’s not just the big occasions, like anniversaries and birthdays, that bring up emotions. It’s also the little things. The shows recorded on the DVR that he loved to binge watch. It’s the sandwiches cut in triangles, never in half. It’s the breathing patterns you know so well you can tell the instant they begin to dream.

When I’d started this new life in Monterey, one of the things I’d looked forward to most of all was being patternless. For the first time in my life, I could be patternless. Untethered. No one would know when I came and went, no one would know or critique what I ate for breakfast. No one would know if I peed with the bathroom door open or closed. The answer is closed, by the way.

The thing is, Lucas did know. He knew when I came and went, he knew what time I usually woke up because of the dogs. He knew what I liked for breakfast, he knew where the backup chocolate pudding hoard was stashed, he knew what it meant when Dino was on the hi-fi instead of Sinatra (that I was extra tired), and he knew that I always peed with the door closed. Because my God . . . who would pee with the door open?

I might have come here patternless, but I had set down roots almost immediately. I could see myself living here forever. Without knowing I was doing it, I’d tethered myself to the one man in town who knew what it was like to have his heart broken by the woman he loved. Though we’d joked about rebounding, that’s not what had happened.

I might love this particular tether. And he was leaving in less then twenty-four hours. And he’d be gone for twelve weeks. Which in the grand scheme of things? Was nothing. One grain of sand in the huge hourglass in the sky. But as the woman currently wrapped around this big piece of wonderful, I wanted these new patterns. I wanted to learn whether he wanted his love every night before sleep, or if he was the kind of guy who’d wake up needing me. Did he shower in the morning, or after work? But . . . maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to talk about this right before his trip.

After all, we’d just gotten out of long-term relationships. And everyone says that your rebound is the guy you mess around with, have a great time with, before meeting the next real relationship. Could two rebounds cancel each other out? Or would they be double disaster?

I cuddled up to Lucas, his warm arms wrapped solidly around me, and we breathed together. And before I knew it, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest lulled me out of my head and into a slow, drowsy peace.

“Should I go?” he asked, his voice low and molasses thick.

“You better not,” I warned, burrowing deeper into his arms. And those arms picked me up, and carried me to bed.

He tugged the sheets back with me still clinging to him, pressing my nose into his shoulder, inhaling deeply. “You smell amazing, you know that?”

“I’m surprised, considering I didn’t get to finish my shower.” He chuckled, trying to set me down, but I didn’t want to let him go. He gave in, slipping under the covers with me and turning the light off. I craved him, craved his scent and his touch, and I continued to run my hands along his skin, dancing kiss after kiss along his shoulder as I wrapped myself around him once more. Had it really been so long that I’d been without contact like this? Was I just skin drunk?