Something Blue 3

She smiles then, arches her neck slightly, and the line of freckles that dust her throat make me wince as blood makes my wet jeans even tighter. She laughs a bit as I tent up. My face is hot and I duck my head, avert my eyes.

“Hungry?”

I walk over and sit down next to her.Beth is older and sometimes infinitely wiser. She takes my hand in hers and feels the ice underneath my skin. A hurt look spills onto her face, her brown eyes, lightly dotted skin. I can hear the sound of the day’s first thunder again.

“Very hungry. In both ways. I don’t suppose…”

“Split pea soup in the Thermos. Your father would have shit himself when you didn’t show up for dinner. I imagined having to fight with him for ten minutes. You should talk to him tomorrow.”

“Why?” I let her peel my wet jacket and shirt off of me, and then I shudder as the night air brushes against e and my nipples tighten into angry pebbles. I have goosebumps all over me, some from cold, some from the pinpricks where her fingers brushed skin. My hands twist the top off and I drink soup, still warm and thick the way she makes it, with chunks of ham that give a honey sweet edge to the heat rolling down my throat. After about half is gone, I offer it back to her.

“I’m not hungry.” She smiles as I fail to keep disappointment off my face. “Let me know when you’re done.”

 

I slide the top back on with fingers that won’t quite work, taking more time than it should, shaking and hating myself for being weak. Then I turn and look directly in her eyes, at the loam color of her gaze. My hand cradles the side of her face, and she no longer seems hot to me.

“I’m done.”

“And warmer, a churaidh gun ghiamh.” We bridge the distance to each other as she peels her jacket off and I unbutton my Levis. Thank the Strauss family for the Button-Fly. As I slide out of my clothes she reaches down and unbuckles the straps on my boots, and I kick them off. Then the buttons on her plaid shirt as she undoes her own pants.

Blessed skin on skin, as our legs dance around each other and I fumble with her bra until she begins to giggle and I can’t think anymore so she reaches up between her breasts and pops it off.

I rest all of my weight on my right arm, feeling a slight damp through it, and brush us together, so that I can get to her lips. Hot, knowing how to tease along the edges of my mouth, her tongue licking along my upper lip until I groan and open to her, wanting more, wanting to be anywhere but here, wanting to stay here forever.

As she reaches down and takes me in her hand, guides me, I have to bury my face in her neck and breathe her in to keep from moaning.

“I love you.”

“Oh, God, Dafyd no, don’t say it…” She doesn’t stop me from entering her, pitches her hips slightly so the tightness is easier to bear.

It’s what she wanted, and what we aren’t supposed to have.

I can’t bear to say it again. As we did in the beginning, we talk around the words, confuse them with others, hope to keep it hidden from sight. Her eyes are close to mine, their brown into my blue. She can’t see my heart. I try and show it to her.

“A nighean mo ghaoil. ” She moves, and I feel that  burn, and everything becomes this. I can’t think at all.

 

 

My eyes open and I see that the headlight has dulled to an orange, as the filament goes darker and my battery dies. I’m not worried. We’re on a hill. If I can’t pop it into second from up here, I might as well give up riding.

Her hair tickles my chest as she nestles up against me, both of us trying not to deal with it. The sky is beginning to lighten into that indigo skin in the east, from the direction of Bristol, and the sun has seared the tips of the Mount Hope Bridge a ruddy gold.

“How much time do we have?”

“We have to feed the horses, and the cattle, and then I have to take him his medicine. No hurry to get back.” My skin is warm from where she leans against me. “Did you mean it, or was it just a sex thing?” My stomach feels like it’s being stretched. I open my mouth to say something that will get us out of this.

“I meant it. Did you?” That was not it.

“Yes.”

“Oh, Jesus.” I’m trembling slightly, cold, hot, not knowing what to do, feeling myself stiffening from my flaccid state. So does she.

“Dafyd…” She arches slightly, pushes the globe of her right cheek against it, making me growl. “We need to think. ”

“I know.” I manage to get control of myself. What it must feel like, walking along healthy and strong and then being pitched into the pig wallow by your legs, which will no longer listen to you, and your arms won’t lift you out. There’s a series of explosions going off in your head. “I didn’t mean to. I just wanted for so long.”

“But we…” She exhales, inhales again. I can hear a reedy sound, between a wheeze and a hitch. “I mean, he’s right there. And you’re leaving.”

“I could stay a while. I don’t actually have to be back at William Blackstone until September 7th.” She stiffens, rolls around in my grasp to look at me. I could let go to make it easier. I don’t.

“Could you stay without fighting with him?”

“I could try. ”

She closes her eyes, runs her hand along the scar running the length of my ribcage, the one I got when I was twelve and I dumped the bike. Trying to jump the old Ford Falcon we had resting on blocks near the barn, after he told me not to. Always trying to do what he told me not to.

“Then stay.” She snuggles in, rests her head against my shoulder, and even though my jacket is the only thing pillowing my head from the rock, I don’t mind at all. “I need… I need help. With him, and Owen, and the farm, I mean.” I can’t see her face at all, can just feel the muscles of her neck. They’re like a freshly tuned piano. Tight, straining to give. “And maybe we can figure out what to do.”

I don’t say anything. My father’s outcast son,  nothing like him. Now he’s nothing and I’m taking everything from him.

The sky is now deep, pearl-dappled blue, and in the west the last stars are running away.

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