Last Light (33 page)

He rolled me over and pinned me to the grass, grinning.

“Gotcha.”

“Matt, not here. Not right—”

As swiftly as he’d overturned me, he stood and pulled me to my feet.

“Then out here.” He tugged me deeper into the yard. Deeper into the dark.

An unexpected wave of giddiness made me giggle.

He glanced over his shoulder and smiled, his handsome face veiled in shadow. A perfect half-moon hung in the sky, casting coin-sized spots of light through the leaves. That light moved over his body and he was beautiful, and he was mine.

He released my hand and started to undo his fly, the humor fading from his face.

My blood turned to magma. Thick, slow, scalding.

I mirrored Matt, unbuttoning my jeans. Our zippers sounded loud in the silence.

We moved together clumsily, hands fumbling in the dark. I touched his cock and he sighed, thrusting into my grip.
Nothing like Seth,
I realized. I remembered the nihilism of Seth’s suite at the Four Seasons—people drinking and drugging and coming without feeling—and my heart quickened. That meant nothing. This meant everything.

We kissed. Matt guided me down onto the grass.

“Hannah,” he whispered. “You know I need this…”

Without ceremony, he settled over me—and slid inside me, the flared head of his cock stretching me wide.
Ah
—that moment—I arched under him.

“God, baby,” I gasped.

“Fuck, yeah,” Matt answered, driving his length home. Such rich satisfaction in his voice. He touched me deep inside. I raked my nails down his back.

“Heaven,” he said, and he moved over me. Filling me, emptying me. I flexed my body to meet his thrusts. “Not yet, no,” Matt panted whenever he felt me nearing the edge. Then he slowed and I slowed, and we started that exquisite rising spiral all over again.

“I want to be with you,” he whispered in my ear. “You’re soaked for me…”

I caressed his silky hair and rubbed his back when he began to move more urgently. This wasn’t our usual sex—rough and dirty and torturous. This was about love and mutual need, and my heart burned as hot as my pleasure.

I wrapped my legs around Matt’s waist. His jeans rubbed along my inner thighs, his abdomen grinding over my clit. This time, we didn’t slow down.

We gazed at one another in a state of wonder.

“Need this.” He mouthed the words again.

I fisted my hands in his hair.

My climax came as a slow shock, mounting in intensity until I was shaking, and I felt Matt coming inside me. Is anything more intimate?

I watched ecstasy unfold on his face against a backdrop of leaves and nighttime sky. It was, inadvertently, the most romantic sex of my life, and afterward we clung to one another.

Only then did the full weight of relief settle on me.
Matt is going to live like a normal person. He’s in Denver, not hiding, and he wants a life with me. A life we can actually share.

We could really make a go of it now.

And if we failed? At least we tried.

I felt, too, the darkness of the last four and a half months—Matt at the cabin, me in Denver, lies and secrets. Worries. Quick calls. Lonely nights.

No more.

No more waiting and wondering about the future. No more living with one foot in the real world and one foot in Matt’s world. No more choosing between the two.

But I had been willing to give up a normal romance to be with Matt, because I loved him. Now he was willing to give up his sanctuary to be with me, because he loved me.

He loved me.

My happiness eased into soft, uncontrollable sobs. Matt held me close.

“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right now, little bird.”

His quiet voice went on and on in the dark.

Chapter 44

MATT

After the night Hannah cried, I assumed she would come home. She didn’t. She “still needed to think,” she said, and she “might have more stipulations.”

On Friday afternoon, I met with Pam and Gail Wieder of
Denver Buzz.
Gail showed me around the set, thanked me for agreeing to appear, and briefly reviewed the program. Afterward, Pam and the staff talked me through a pile of paperwork.

“I need you here at seven on Wednesday,” Pam said. “Here. I’m not going to hold your hand, Matthew. Call me when you arrive. We’ll go over everything, they might want to do a little makeup, then we’ll rehearse some more and—”

“Makeup?” I sneered.

“This is TV, Matthew. Don’t be naïve. Also”—she glanced at my gray shirt—“no gray. And no crazy prints. Wear something solid, bold, a rich color that won’t wash out under the light. No red and no white. Do you have blue? Well, of course you do. Wear blue.”

Pam went on talking as we left the building. She gestured officiously as she spoke, tapping my shoulder for emphasis.

I stared at the pavement. The gray day suited my mood. Where was Hannah?

“Your job this weekend is to memorize the talking points. Hit your points. Less is more. You’re conveying a message. And do
not
ramble.”

“Hannah … you think she’ll watch the show?”

Pam sniffed. “Not sure, Matthew. Not relevant.”

“Mm. Sorry.” I leaned against my Lexus.

“Any
relevant
questions? I need to get to the office.”

“Will Knopf publish
Night Owl
?”

Pam laughed and began looking for her keys. “Knopf will publish anything you write, but you can’t be serious. Haven’t you already—” She cut herself short.

I knew where she was going.

Hadn’t I already damaged my relationship enough?

“Hannah’s a good deal more open-minded than you know, Pam. And she’s a bit of a writer herself. You better watch out; you might find yourself in a book.”

I opened my car door and lingered, waiting for Pam’s riposte.

Pam rattled her car keys.

“Duly noted, Matthew, though you forget that I already am in a book. A certain W. Pierce refers to me as ‘the shark.’ My, my.”

I grinned and climbed into my car.

Back at the condo, I lay on the couch and struggled to memorize my stupid talking points. I found myself concentrating on Hannah’s handwriting—cute, bubbly cursive.

Hunger scraped at my stomach. I felt light-headed, depressed. I called Hannah and the call went to voice mail. “Leave a message!” she chirped.

I cleared my throat.

“Hey there, birdy bird. I’m just … hanging out at the condo. Not doing anything really. I wanted to say…”
To say what? Come home, I’m getting badly depressed?
“Uh, the cards. Thank you again … for the index cards. I’ve been memorizing them. Yeah, that … thing is on Wednesday. The
Buzz.
Talk show thing. So, wish me luck. Anyway … call me sometime.”

Hannah didn’t call.

I slept away the weekend, which is what I do when I feel bad, and I marked off days on the calendar. Four weeks since she moved out.

What did this mean? When was she coming back?

On Wednesday morning, I woke with the idea to e-mail Hannah a piece of our collaborative story. I hadn’t thought about the story—
really
thought about it—for months. We simply left our characters on the road to Seagate, an imaginary port city in an imaginary world.

I smiled as I remembered. Hannah and I began with Lana and Cal. Their attraction was our attraction. Their adventure was our adventure. How could we let it go?

I showered fast and pulled on boxers and a blue cashmere sweater. Blue for Pam. I sat at my desk and sifted through e-mails until I found the last story installment.

Oh, right …
Lana and Cal were camping by a river … bathing together.

I reread my last paragraphs, then Hannah’s last paragraphs. Cal was washing Lana’s skin. I described the water—cold and silver like mercury—and sidestepped much description of Cal’s body. I noted a tattoo along the tops of his shoulders. I wrote that his hair was
long and corn yellow, his eyes shining and orange. Cal: a strange creature from the borderlands of reality.

Hannah, too, shied away from the details of Lana’s body.
Cal captivated Lana,
she wrote.
She barely breathed as he rinsed the soap from her skin.

The scene was suspended before intimacy.

And I, who wrote
Night Owl
and sex scene after sex scene, felt suddenly anxious about writing sex with Hannah. What the hell?

I typed a few sentences. I deleted them. I couldn’t access Cal’s mind.

Defeated, I moved Cal out of the river. He dried himself and lay naked on his bedroll. Summer wind washed through the field. I felt that night as if I were lying in it—I saw the starry darkness Cal saw—and then the words came.

He called to Lana with his hundred voices.

I e-mailed the paragraph to Hannah. My phone began to ring. It was Pam.

“Where are you?” she said.

I checked the time.
Fuck.
It was 7:45 and I was sitting at my desk in a sweater and boxers, my hair dripping wet.

“Traffic!” I said. “Be there in five.”

I ended the call. I used one of Hannah’s old hair dryers on high. My black hair stood in every direction.
Shit shit shit.
I yanked on dress slacks and grabbed my index cards.

“C-commodity. My privacy is not a consumable commodity.” I rehearsed lines as I sprinted to my car. “The woods … to live deliberately. Fuck.”

I gunned it to the studio.

A team of staff met me at the door. A man with a headset said, “He’s here, on in ten.”

They ushered me into a wardrobe room and began combing my hair and powdering my face. I blinked and twitched. How weird, all these hands picking at me.

My cell rang again. It was Pam—again.

The wardrobe people kept fussing as I took the call.

“Matthew, did you miss the rundown with staff? What the hell?”

“Traffic, remember?” Someone turned on a bright lamp and I winced.

Last Friday, the studio was quiet and still. This morning, it was chaos. People everywhere, screens and cameras, wires, endless chatter.

“Okay, it doesn’t matter.” Pam sighed in my ear. “Remember, Gail is going to go off script; that’s how talk shows work. Breezy, casual—then
bam,
a really probing question. Keep it light. Laugh. You aren’t stressed. You have nothing to apologize for. Are you stressed?”

“Nothing to apologize for,” I mumbled. I dropped my index cards. They went in every direction. Hannah’s cute handwriting all over the floor. I dove after them. One of the wardrobe people continued messing with my hair. I flailed. “Enough! Get the fuck off me!”

When I got back up, I saw Hannah.

She wore a short spring green dress and heels … and the silver owl bracelet I gave her at the cabin. My mouth dropped open. She laughed.

God, she looked so cool, so calm and lovely.

Pam was in my ear. “Matthew! What happened? Matthew!”

I covered the receiver and walked to Hannah.

“It’s Pam,” I said. “She’s going DEFCON one.”

Hannah slipped the phone from my hand. “I’m here,” she said to Pam. “Yes. I know. Yes. We have to go. Thanks, Pam. We will. I will.” She ended the call.

I raised a brow. “Please teach me that skill.”

“We have to go. We have two minutes.”

“We?”

Hannah took my shoulder and guided me through the studio. People hurried past us. The air seemed to vibrate with energy.

“Yes, I’m going on with you,” Hannah said.

“Does Gail know? Does Pam know?”

Hannah smoothed back my hair. Her face was tranquil and kind.

“They know,” she said. “It was very last-minute. Don’t worry, I’ll stick to our story about everything. Trust me.” She smiled. “I got index cards, too.”

I held Hannah’s face and focused on her eyes. The manic vibe of the studio was getting under my skin, and I couldn’t lose it here, now. I drank in Hannah’s calm.

“You forgive me?” I said. “Come home. Please come back.”

“I will, Matt.”

“Today. Say today.”

“All right, today.” She touched my cheek. “Do we have room for all my animal friends?”

I laughed and kissed her warm brow. I wanted to pick her up and spin her around.

“I have another stipulation,” she said.

“Anything.”

“Keep writing with me…”

“Of course.” I brushed my thumb over her bottom lip. “Always.”

“On in two,” a man called.

I peered around the corner at the set. White light illuminated everything: the dark wood floor, the colored panels along the back wall, and a cream-colored couch and armchair. Because of the light, I think, and because of the darkness and chaos backstage, the set looked like heaven. Gail sat forward in the armchair. Her red-brown curls shone.

The light flooded over the audience—mostly women.

“And we’re live in three—” A voice sounded through the studio. “Two—”

The canned intro for
Denver Buzz
played from speakers I couldn’t see. Cameras panned over the audience. The people clapped and smiled, and Gail stood and strolled across the set. She gave the crowd a confident nod.

Then the crowd quieted and she began to speak.

“Today’s guest is a very talented young man who’s created a sensation here in Denver and around the nation with his shocking disappearance and, now, his reappearance.”

My heart boomed in my ears. Hannah rose to her tiptoes and whispered in my ear. “And one more stipulation, Matt.”

“This is his first-ever television appearance,” Gail said. “He’s agreed to talk openly with me about his life, work, and recent decisions that have stunned many fans.”

I mouthed a word at Hannah.
What?

“Marry me,” she said.

Her cool voice, her hot breath, transported me right out of the studio.

I stood there staring at her, holding on to her, breathless and motionless.
Marry me.

Gail’s voice grew louder. She circled back toward her chair. “Please welcome Matthew Sky and Hannah Catalano.”

The crowd clapped.

Cameras swiveled on the set.