I kiss her for a long time, her soft, wet skin feeding me food and water and air and I don’t need anything else.
I caress her face, my muscles burning and my skin overheating.
When her phone rings again, she pulls it out of her skirt and hurls it at the wall. I smile as she lays her head on my chest, and even though my arm is spaghetti and barely holding us up, I would never ask her to move. Not in a million years.
She breathes into my neck. “I don’t want to ever stop this,” she says.
I hold her to me and kiss her head again, my damp skin sticking to hers.
Whether it ends badly or it ends at all, I’m not sure I would do anything differently if I could. This feels too good to not have had it at all.
• • •
I wake with a start, blinking my eyes open in the dark.
It only takes a few seconds, but I register the sheer white canopy overhead, the frigid air conditioning, and the scent of Clay everywhere.
Her bedroom. Clay lays plastered to my body, more on top of me than off, our naked skin pressing together and her head resting on my shoulder. Our legs are entwined, and I look down at her face, feeling her breath on my chin.
I kind of have to go to the bathroom, but I don’t want to move her. My arms tighten around her, and I lightly brush my fingers down her smooth back.
God, her bed feels like a cloud. I could get used to this.
“You’re drunk!” a man yells somewhere down the hall.
I freeze, training my ears. Did Clay lock her door?
“Keep your voice down,” a woman snaps.
I glance over at the clock, reading one-oh-eight a.m., and try to be as still as possible. I should get out of here before her parents find me.
“Is she even home?” the man—Clay’s dad, I assume—asks. “Are you sure? I don’t think you know anything that’s going on with anyone but yourself!”
“How dare you!” Gigi yells. “How dare you! I’m the one here. You’re gone! You’re always gone!”
I hold Clay, wondering how often they don’t guard their volume to save her from hearing them.
“Grow up, Regina!” Mr. Collins growls. “I support you. I pay for that closet full of handbags and shoes. Now I gotta dry your tears because you need attention like a five-year-old?”
“I hate you!” she sobs.
I stop breathing for a second, hearing the tears and agony in her voice. Like she wishes he was dead.
“You don’t hate me,” he replies. “You hate that I finally decided not to let you drag me down with you.”
I swallow, but my mouth is dry. Clay’s breathing has changed, and I look down at her, just making out her eyes staring up at me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, hearing everything I just heard.
“Don’t apologize, baby.” I hold her face and tuck her in close. “We all got our shit.”
“I finally gave up on you, because you know why?” her dad fires back. “We lost a son. We lost a son, and I needed you, and you know what you did? You went to a spa! You got a prescription! You spent Henry’s college fund redecorating this house and buying Clay a car! You wouldn’t come to me. You wouldn’t talk to me. You wouldn’t go to therapy with me. You’ve barely let me touch you in four years, Gigi, and when I did, you aborted the only chance we had to be a family again! I needed you! I needed that baby! I lost Henry, same as you!”
I hear her sob, and I try to picture it, but Clay’s mom has always seemed like an icicle, and I can’t.
“I run to her bed,” Mr. Collins continues, “because if I didn’t have that to look forward to, I wouldn’t be able to stick this out with you until Clay graduates.”
A slap reverberates through the door, and Clay buries her face in my neck, breathing hard.
A door slams and then moments later, another farther away, and a beam of headlights flashes out the window before disappearing.
“Clay.” I nudge her chin. “Look at me.”
But she shakes her head, her face still pressed into my skin as she shivers with tears.
“Clay,” I urge her, trying to tip her chin up. “Don’t hide from me. Not in here.”
I hold her for a moment and then look down at her, touching her face. “This could be it.”
She sniffles and lifts her eyes. “What?”
“The last time we see each other.”
She looks at me, and I don’t know if she understands, but I know she’s like glass right now. One crack will splinter off into a dozen, and I can’t lose her yet.
“Stay with me now,” I whisper. “Tonight is mine.”
She touches her lips to mine and in a way that’s so soft, it tingles over my entire body, she says, “Okay.”