Random (Going the Distance) (22 page)

When I look up at him, his expression is haunted, and I wonder how much of the scarring is external and how much is inside.

I take a breath and ask, “Do you still want to paint me?”

“God, yes.”

“I’m worried about what you’ll paint. What you’ll see about me.”

With the fingers of his left hand, he brushes hair away from my face. “I don’t know exactly, either. I just know that I’ve never wanted to paint anyone so much. I feel like I could spend years painting you and never see all there is.”

My soul shivers, hearing that, and something in me opens wide, letting him in. As he bends to kiss me, I feel us merging even more, feel the tendrils of his hold on me wrap around my heart, rooting deep there. He bends into me, our bodies melding, and I’m lost in Tylerness, in the goodness and the darkness of him. Just kissing him is like getting on a spaceship to some faraway land.

But as we circle back to Earth I think in some distant place of myself,
What happens if he’s wrong, when he’s figured me out and painted all he wants of me? What then?

Will I be another set of paintings turned toward the wall?

I look at him, thinking. He meets my eyes, and what I see decides me. In his eyes is hope and vulnerability in equal portions. I ask,“Do you want me to sit for you now?”

He raises his head, light shining in his face. “Would you?”

I guess I’m committed to this for the duration. “Yes.”

* * *

This time it’s much less charged, maybe because we’ve already had sex and the edge is off. The light is great, all gold and pink from the rain and the sunset breaking through the clouds. I take off my shirt, but he wants my underwear on. My hair covers my breasts, though he arranges it so that some of my skin shows, but not my nipples.

He puts on some music, something sad and full of native flutes, not what I would have imagined him liking, but it adds to the mood. Every time I’m about to get restless, he comes over and rearranges me a little, moving my arms and legs this way and that, arranging my hair over me, off me, once twining it around my shoulders like a gauzy scarf. I giggle a little and pull it over my nose, kiss it.

“You love your hair,” he says, sketching.

“Am I allowed to talk?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just like my mom’s. When I was a little girl I used to brush and brush and brush her hair. She let me put barrettes in it, and I learned to braid on it.” I swirl my hands though my own, and it’s silky and soft and just like hers. “You seem to like it, too.”

“It’s beautiful, no question.” He spends a few minutes looking, sketching; looking, sketching. “In a way, it’s little girl hair. You kind of hide behind it.”

My feelings are stung. “I don’t think so. It’s one of the prettiest things about me. If I cut it I’d—”

“What?”

“I’d be invisible.”

He laughs. “No way.”

I shrug. “I don’t care what you think. I’m not cutting it.” I stroke the flow of it over my shoulder, as if it’s a living being. The idea of taking scissors to it makes my stomach hurt. “I love it.”

He smiles. Then, “Your phone was your mom’s. Your car was your mom’s. Your hair is like your mom’s.”

“And?”

“Tell me about her.”

I close my eyes, thinking of her laughing as she teased Henry about something. I think of the way she smelled, like Dove soap and cigarettes and Juicy Fruit gum. Tears well up behind my eyelids. “I wish,” I say, keeping my eyes closed, “that I could get over missing her so much.”

“Look at me, Jess.”

Tears are leaking out, streaming down my cheeks, but I’m not going to give him this part of me. I raise an arm and put it over my eyes, and take a long deep breath, calling up a picture of the ocean that sticks in my head from way, way, way back in my childhood. After a minute I lower my arm and look at Tyler. “I don’t want that in a painting.”

He nods and puts down his charcoals. “We can stop now.”

As I put on my shirt over my naked breasts, my bra forgotten in the other room, he says, “Do you want to send your dad a message about Skyping?”

“Yes!” I jump up. I glance out the windows at the gathering dark. “Maybe then I should get out of here, get home.”

“Or you could stay.” He takes the sketch pad off the easel before I can see any of the drawings. “It’s a mess in Manitou. You don’t want to drive through all that. You can shower here and then change at home before you go to work.”

Shyly, I shrug. “Okay.”

So I send my dad a Facebook message about Skyping, telling him that he can reach me at Tyler’s. “Like when should I tell him?”

“Let’s give him a few possibilities.” He pulls out his iPhone and taps an icon. “New Zealand time right now is….3 in the afternoon tomorrow. So we can offer him evenings, or try to do it on the weekend.”

I write all that into the message. Click send.

“Do you want to show me his picture?”

“Yes!” I go to my dad’s page. “He owns a winery.”

“That’s pretty cool. He looks friendly. And you look a little like him.”

I frown. “Really? Everyone says I look exactly like my mom.”

“You have his smile.”

“Maybe.” I tilt my head, but I can’t see it, really.

“Are you going to change your relationship status?”

I raise my eyebrows. “Ooh, pushy boy.”

“I will.”

“You can if you want to.”

He wraps his hand around mine. “Aren’t we?”

“Maybe.”

“Then why not?”

I slap his hand away. “Maybe next week, when we’ve been a couple for more than twelve minutes.”

He grins, and I feel something ease in my chest. “Ok. You don’t have to be completely insanely in love with me. Yet.”

I grin back. “As if that will inevitably happen, you egotist.”

“Isn’t that egoist?”

“Whatever. Conceited. Stuck-up.”

“Awesome.” He kisses me. “Let’s see if we can fill out the stuff for the community college. I told you’d I’d help you.”

“Is there time to get financial aid before school starts?”

“I don’t know. Let’s check it out.”

Turns out, everything is right there, and I open the forms with a weird sense of excitement. As I fill in the information, he asks, “Is that really all you make?”

My ears go hot. “It’s not really enough, I know that, but I get by.”

“That’s not what I mean, Jess.” He gives me a sideways grin, pokes me in the ribs. “No wonder you’re always trying to bum meals.”

“I am not!”

He laughs. “No?”

I slap his arm. “You
offered
to feed me.”

He captures my hand, plants a kiss on the palm, his lips hot and moist. “The better to seduce you.” His tongue wiggles across the sensitive flesh and a bolt shoots right through me. My nipples stand up straight, and I yank my hand away, embarrassed at my responsiveness. He’s going to think I’m a freak—we just had sex two hours ago! I focus back on the screen.

He bends in and kisses my neck, suckling the sensitive area beneath my ear, his fingers trailing lightly up my inner arm, lingering at the elbow, traveling higher and then making a little detour over the tip of my breast. He bites my ear at the same moment, and I not only shudder involuntarily, I make a little noise.

“You like that, don’t you?” he whispers, and sucks on my earlobe. Everything in my body is blistered with desire again. “I want to find out every single thing you like.” His hand slides under the t-shirt.

I bring my attention back to the computer. “Wait! Let’s finish this first.”

He lifts his head, eyes glazed, and pulls my hand over his cock. It’s hard and hot, even through his jeans. “Only if you keep your hand right here.”

I smile faintly. “Just keep it there? That’s it?”

He nods. “Finish that form.”

With one hand, I type the rest of the information. Under my other hand, his flesh leaps and wiggles a little, and I imagine how he will feel in me.

“Can I just lift up your shirt? Just look?” he says.

“You were just looking at me for an hour.” I slap his hand away.

“That wasn’t this.” He pulls at the hem. “This is me wanting you.”

I like it that he’s making a distinction between the artist side of him and the relationship side of him, so I raise my arms. He tugs, and the shirt comes off over my head. I’m sitting at the computer topless, and I don’t know if it’s the air or his eyes, but my nipples are sticking up like little soldiers, so aggressively it makes me blush. He presses my hand harder against his cock, and impossibly, it seems to grow even more, as if it will burst right through the fabric of his jeans.

It’s hard to concentrate, but I scroll down to the next form. He touches the tip of my left breast with one finger, circles the point. I feel dizzy but keep typing. He bends in and suckles that same aching tip into his hot mouth and I’m lost. I lean back, giving him full access, and he gathers me into his lap. I straddle that leaping cock against my too-hot crotch and he gets serious, licking my breasts, my nipples, his hands on my back, then my ass. I wiggle against him, rubbing.

“Jesus,” he whispers, and then we’re on the couch, making love again.

And again in the bed.

And one more time before we fall asleep, completely wiped out from lust, sex, love.

Whatever.

* * *

When I wake up it takes me a few minutes to figure out where I am. There’s old-timey paper on the walls, green stripes with roses vining up. I can see out a window to branches and leaves.

Tyler’s bedroom.

The previous day floods back through me, the tension at work, the long evening here making love and eating and seeing his paintings. I’m on my back, and his arm is flung over my waist. I turn my head to look at his face, free to study him. His hair is scattered over the pillows, butter and caramel and chocolate, glossy and gorgeous. His strong, straight jaw is bristling with the same colors, fine stubble that’s thick over his lip and his chin, thinner up the jaw. So close, I can see that his skin isn’t as smooth as you might think, with old scars and rough texture over his cheeks. I think of the time he’s spent, all those years and years, in the brutal weather conditions of the mountains. High altitude sunlight, harsh winds, snow, all of it. It shows in that perpetually chapped lower lip.

That mouth. Even just looking at it brings back a zillion memories of it—on my lips, on my body, whispering things in my ear. A wash of emotion goes through me, a lump in my throat, an ache in my chest. I’m already in love with him, with his lostness and his wounds, and he is so fierce about me. It’s flattering and exhilarating. Rick was like this, too, in a way, relentless in pursuing me, but he’s not like Tyler, not a prince and an artist fallen into my world as if from some fairy tale.

I sigh. In fairy tales there’s always a price the fair maiden has to pay. I’m just waiting for the crone to show up in the road and demand her gold.

Birds are whistling and singing outside in the trees, and I just lie there in Tyler’s bed, in his calm house, feeling things so big they almost overwhelm me. I know it’s a mistake to imagine we can be together, that someday we might get married and have kids, and he’ll be a famous artist and his parents will have to admit they’ve wronged him, and they’ll meet me and thank me for saving his life.

Somewhere in the house a phone starts to buzz. Not mine, I don’t think, but it shakes me out of my stupid daydream. Why do my thoughts go off like that? Why not just enjoy what’s happening, like guys do? It doesn’t have to be forever to be good.

Except that this feels fated. I look at him again. And this time it feels soft and perfect. He really likes me. I can tell. I really like him, too. This morning, I’m going to cook him breakfast instead of the other way around.

I start to slide out of bed, and he tightens his arm around me. “Don’t go.”

“I’m just going to have a quick shower and start the coffee.”

“No, not yet.” His voice is raspy as his hand closes over my ribs.

Even just lying here, I can tell I’m really, really sore. “No way.”

He opens one eye, and it’s the color of treasure, of jewels, of the sea. “Sore?”

“Mm.” It’s embarrassing.

He moves his hand down and gently cups me through the covers. “Sorry, baby.”

“I’ll make breakfast. You can sleep for a while longer.”

“That’s nice.”

I slide out of bed, feeling strangely exposed by the bright light. I’m looking around for my clothes, but everything is scattered from one end of the room to the other.

“Turn around, Jess.”

I spin around, hair flying.

He’s lying there, half asleep, barely moving. His shoulders are bare, his hair tousled, his eyes shining. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.”

“Thank you.”

I finally pull on his t-shirt, which is big enough to cover most of me. In the kitchen I make an educated guess on the location of the coffee, and it’s right where I’d expected. Once it’s going, I head to the bathroom for a shower. It’s only 7:30, but I have to be to work at 9:30, and between now and then I have to go home and get my uniform.

The bathroom is delicious. A high window is open to the same tree as the bedroom, and when I stand in the claw-footed tub and pull the curtain all around me, I can see directly down the valley into the town of Manitou. Everything is covered in a yellow glaze, cheerful and fresh. It’s the best shower spot I’ve ever encountered, and I spend a little extra time in there, washing my hair, smelling his soap, feeling like this is how I’d like my life to be.

That happy mood continues into the making of breakfast. Tyler, sleepy-headed, stumbles into the bathroom and takes a shower while I scramble eggs and get toast ready. I’m drinking coffee and humming under my breath, and it’s really easy to imagine I could do this more often, that I would fit here, in this house, with him.

When he comes out his hair is combed back from his face and he’s shiny with cleanliness, and he grabs me and kisses me. Then pulls back to grin at me. “Wow. Wow. Wow.” He plants another kiss on my mouth, his hands on my hips. “You’re like a comet in my life. I haven’t felt like this in years, Jess. I’m not kidding.”