Olivia (14 page)

“
Jon, this is silly,” I laugh,
turning my head to the side just as he snaps the picture. “Wait! I
wasn’t ready!”

“
One shot,” he says, looking at the
small screen on the back of the digital camera. “Oh, and does this
one count.” After securing my lingerie, I run over to look at what
he captured. Grabbing the camera from him, I’m quite impressed with
the picture. My long, brown hair partially covers my face, but
doesn’t hide the smile in my eyes or across my lips.

“
That’s cool! How’d you do that?” I
ask him, always in awe with his various talents that seem to crop
up when I least expect them.

His hands snaking around my waist from behind, he
answers with a whisper and a kiss on my ear. “I felt it,” he says
casually.

“
Felt what?” I ask him. He takes
the camera from me and sets it on a countertop, keeping one arm
around me.

“
You,” he answers as he moves both
of his hands down my body.

“
Oh,” I whisper, leading him to the
bed.

The sun is unwelcome, my eyes shutting tighter as I
realize it’s already morning. Jon’s arms are wrapped snugly around
me, so I know any movement will awaken him. I can’t sleep with the
bright light in my face, though, and decide to turn my back to the
window.

Jon wakes up to roll over on his back and helps me
to lay my head on his chest. He doesn’t open his eyes, and for a
second I question if he truly is awake.

“
We did it,” he announces quietly,
his voice raspy.

I yawn and put my leg over his body. “Twice,” I add.
“Kind of...”

His chest moves with his laughter. “That’s not what
I meant. We made it to morning without anything bad happening.”

“
Oh,” I say. “Yeah, we did
that
.”

“
Yes,
that
.” I look up at him to see him smiling back at me.
“I need some water. You want anything?”

“
I’ll get it.”

“
No, you stay, it’s fine.” He moves
out from beneath me and slips out of the bed.

“
I just want more sleep.” I watch
him move slowly across the loft in his boxers, suddenly realizing I
have no clothes on. “And a shirt.”

“
Sleep, I’ll give you,” he says as
he carries two bottles back over to the bed. He sets one down after
I decline his offer, and opens the other one to take a drink. He
puts the lid back on it and stretches in front of me. “You’re on
your own with clothes. You don’t need them.”

“
Why do you get to wear
boxers?”

“
Because my naked body is nothing
to look at, compared to yours.”

“
I beg to differ,” I tell him with
a shrug. “I kind of like it.”

“
Then we both go without,” he says,
starting to push down his boxers. I blush and look away, only
turning back in his direction when someone knocks on the
door.

“
Nooo...” I whisper. Jon puts his
underwear back on and stands up straight. “If we don’t answer, no
one will even know we’re here.”

“
Olivia, we have to see who it
is.”

“
No, we don’t,” I plead with him
softly.

“
Do your parents still have a
key?”

My silence is all the answer he needs. He walks
quietly across the room to the door and looks through the peephole.
He motions for me to join him, looking confused as he shrugs. I
pull the comforter off the bed and wrap it around my body, slowly
tiptoeing to the door. Just as I’m starting to look, she knocks
again. I don’t recognize the woman.

Jon’s hand slowly wraps around the doorknob, and the
door across the hall opens. The man who steps out welcomes the girl
cheerily, and laughter echoes off the thin walls.

“
Crisis averted,” I
whisper.

“
While we’re up,” Jon begins as he
takes my hand in his, “let’s go see what’s in the guest bedroom,
shall we?”

I stop walking abruptly, pulling away from him and
arranging the blanket around me. “Jon, no.”

“
I’m going in.”

“
Please, don’t.”

“
Why not?” He continues until he
reaches the next room.

“
I don’t want you to see what I’ve
done. It’s not finished.”

“
I know it’s not, but maybe if you
just confront it–”

“
I don’t want to.” I wander back
over to the bed and drop the comforter on the floor before I crawl
back in. I turn around to see his reaction to my nakedness, but
he’s already inside the next room. I get up quickly and rummage
through my bag for a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, dressing myself
before he returns.

“
Olivia, come in here,
please?”

“
No.”

He returns to me, and pleads with me. “We’re just
going to look at it.”

“
I don’t want to see
her.”

“
You know what you’ve painted,” he
says. “You’ve hardly started. I mean, I still see your sketched
lines. No details. It doesn’t look like Donna.”

“
But the picture–”

“
I’ve put it away. Let’s just talk
it out.”

Resigned, I follow him to the doorway of the next
room. “I thought we didn’t want to associate any bad feelings with
this time.”

He turns around abruptly, looking apologetic. “I
didn’t even think about it that way.” I look at the floor. “How
does this make you feel, Olivia?”

“
Guilty,” I say quickly.

“
You’d feel guilty for lying to
your parents regardless.”

“
It’s not the lying,” I correct
him.

“
For having sex with
me?”

“
No.”

“
For what?”

“
I didn’t answer Granna’s call that
night, Jon. What if we could have helped her?”

He looks at me, surprised. “Baby, I didn’t know you
felt that way.” He rushes to me and encircles me with his arms, and
I feel his lips against the top of my head. “You know that’s not
logical, though, right?” he whispers.

“
Why not?”

“
You told me about the message she
left. She didn’t mention she needed help. I thought you said she
just hoped we were behaving ourselves. You said she told you she
loved you.”

“
I didn’t have the chance to tell
her–”

“
You told her all the time, Liv.
She had no doubt of your affections for her.” He laughs a little.
“Everyone knows how much you loved her.”

“
She had something to tell me,” I
explain. After my call with James, I’d never told anyone else. “She
asked me to call her as soon as I could... that it was
important.”

“
Maybe she knew something was
happening. Maybe she just wanted to tell you goodbye.”

“
I don’t think that was it. She’d
called three times that night, but we turned the ringer off. If it
was that, she would have left another message, don’t you
think?”

“
Well, I’m certain she wasn’t
calling you to tell you she needed help. James was with her all
day.”

“
I just hate to think there was
something important for me to know that I’ll never know. And why?
Because we were having sex.”

He pulls away from me, leaving his hands on my
shoulders. “Don’t make light of it, Liv. That night was more than
two kids finding pleasure in one another.”

I shrug away from him and walk toward the artwork.
I’d sketched guidelines. I’d prepared the canvas with base paint.
I’d painted general forms. That was it. I remember the casual
conversation I’d had with Granna.
“Granna, I’ve
been really busy with some other projects,”
I’d told her.
“I promise it will be my first priority when I
get home.”
I don’t remember her reply, but I remember the
tone of her voice. She was disappointed. I was disappointed in
myself. The only other project I’d devoted
any
time to was Jon.

“
You don’t regret it, do you?” he
asks, still standing across the room.

“
I can barely even think back to
that night without getting really sad.”

“
Well, you weren’t sad when you
went to sleep that night. I told you how grateful I was–for you,
for what you allowed–and then you grinned. You rolled over, and
with your eyes closed, and your head tucked into a pillow, you
mumbled,
‘I love loving you.’
It took you
no time to fall asleep. Your smile stayed for at least a half-hour
before I kissed you lightly... and I stole your smile while you
slept, and I wore it the rest of the night.”

I feel a pang in my chest and my stomach flutters.
“That’s so sweet.”

“
I still have it... if you want it
back. I can share.”

“
You always make me smile,” I tell
him assuredly, looking back at the painting and stroking the patch
of peach.

“
Not
this
smile,” he says. “This is your smile from that night, from Mykonos.
You thought the bad news took it, but you’re wrong. I did. I’ve
been keeping it safe for you.”

Still staring at the painting, the words are stuck
in my throat when I respond. “I want it back.” When he starts
toward me, I know he heard me. Before he kisses me, he puts his
thumbs beneath my eyes, and rubs away two tears.

He smiles through our kiss–even laughs quietly as he
nips gently–and it makes me smile in return. I guess that was his
intention.

“
That’s so close,” he says,
admiring me.

“
What do you mean?”

“
It’s close to the smile you wore
that night, but something else is missing.”

I shrug my shoulders, grinning more, trying to make
it right.

“
Painting makes you happy,” he says
softly.

“
Not anymore.”

“
Not
today
,” he says. “Don’t say anymore, because that
implies that it never will again, and Olivia, I know you. I know
you’ll return to painting, and I know that light in your eyes will
come back. I believe in you.”

“
Thank you.”

“
Don’t give up, baby. Don’t be
defeated. This is a momentary set-back, and that’s it. It could end
tomorrow.”

“
I don’t think it will.”

“
I don’t think it will, either, if
you aren’t willing to believe it yourself. I can’t change your
thinking. You’ve got to do that.”

“
I can’t–”

“
Not today,” he reiterates. “But
you’ll know when you’re ready.”

“
You’re not gonna make me
paint?”

“
I can’t
make
you do anything, Liv,” he says with a laugh. He
takes my hand and guides me out of the secondary room, shutting the
door behind us. “I can do my best to influence your decisions, but
everything you do is ultimately your choice.”

“
I want to go back to bed,” I tell
him. “I’m tired.”

“
You want to sleep?” he asks, his
eyes pleading with me.

“
Eventually,” I tell him, going
toward the bed. “You can try to influence me to do other
things.”

He plants his feet in the hardwood floor. “I don’t
want to have to convince you–”

I roll my eyes and turn around, grabbing his hand
and pulling him with me. “I want to,” I tell him clearly.

“
What do you want?” he asks with a
cocky smile. He’d asked this a few times last night, trying to get
me to give him specific instruction, but he abandoned his
inquisition after I’d undressed. Executing the same strategy, he
quickly forgets we were talking about anything at all.

In the early afternoon, after he’s gathered up our
things, I start to put freshly-washed sheets back on the bed.
“When?” he says, exasperated, stopping my progress by taking the
end of the fitted sheet from my hand. “When can we do this
again?”

“
I don’t know,” I answer honestly,
dropping the linens entirely and sitting down. I’d been wondering
the same thing. Jon lies across the bed, propping his head up on
his forearms. I look down at him, running my fingers through his
still-damp hair.

“
Last night was the best night of
my life, Olivia,” he says plainly. “And the worst,” he tacks on to
his original statement, “because it only reminds me what I can’t
have.”

“
Don’t say that.” I kneel down on
the floor next to the bed so I can see him eye-to-eye. “There will
be other opportunities.”

“
When?” he laughs, his expression
hopeless.

“
I don’t know.”

His smile is weak, and he takes a deep breath before
continuing. “Maybe if you start painting again,” he suggests
quickly, “we can come here.” I can tell he doesn’t believe that
will happen. I’m not sure I do, either. “Is it incentive to try
again? I mean, when that happens, I guess we could fit in some
quickies–”

“
No,” I stop his thought process,
not liking the sound of that. “I’ll figure something out, with
Camille or Clara or something. I mean, it won’t be often, but maybe
it shouldn’t be.”

“
I want ‘often,’” he
admits.

“
I want ‘often’ if it can always be
like last night. If it meant that we could take our time and be
thoughtful and generous with one another. I mean, it didn’t feel
like we were sneaking around–”