weighed my options. Did I call him? Did I casually run into him at the club tomorrow? Because there was no denying that I hadn’t stopped thinking about him for a moment since he’d left my house. But I knew I wouldn’t, because I had too much pride. Or maybe I was too afraid. What if he hadn’t called because the divorced thing had finally sunk in? Or because I hadn’t been pretty enough, or because I had cellulite on my thighs and he saw? Maybe he didn’t think I was a good kisser.
Stop, I finally thought. Enough. I had always known that getting back on the horse would be hard. Maybe he hadn’t called because he didn’t want to, but maybe that had nothing to do with some shortfall of mine. The water was so dark and eerily still, only the moon’s reflection giving away that it was water at all. The stars twinkled, and I sighed.
Before I could decide what to do, I heard the unmistakable putter of a small engine and saw the skiff it was propelling a few seconds later. As it pulled up to the dock, my heart leapt into my throat.
I wanted to run to him, but that would look too eager. So I held myself back, strolling down to the dock. “Hi,” I said casually.
“Hi yourself,” Andrew said, his back still to me as he leaned over to tie up the skiff. I watched his fingers as they wound the rope around the cleat. His hands were strong and practiced.
He stood up, wiping them on his wrinkled khaki shorts with a small grease stain on them.
Then he gave me that look… like he was the dying fire, and I was the kindling. I thought about being cool, but cool had gotten me these last few days of regret. I didn’t want to regret anymore. Andrew took my face in his hands and kissed me with so much intention that I thought I might have melted into him, that my lips might not even be my own anymore. He smelled intoxicatingly of boat fuel and seawater, the back of his shirt damp from the humid night and sea spray.
“Hi, pretty girl,” he said, putting my fingers, which were wrapped in his, to his lips.
“Hi,” I whispered back, acutely aware of those dimples and of how completely like a teenager he made me feel. “You could come hang out on the porch if you want to.”
“Really?” he said, feigning shock. “Mom and Dad won’t mind?”
I smacked his arm with the back of my hand, feeling butterflies at the mere act of touching him. He must have felt them too because he kissed me again for what seemed like a very long time.
As we walked up to the house, the warm night air, still humid and sticky but with a refreshing hint of crispness, crept onto my skin. I grabbed a few pillows and a blanket from the basket on the porch and arranged them in the yard, then collected the bottle of wine I’d opened a few minutes earlier and two of the Lucite cups from the outdoor bar.
“So does this mean I’m welcome here?” Andrew asked.
I nodded and whispered, “I think it does.” I almost added: But only if you want to be. But I stopped myself. If he didn’t want to, he wouldn’t be here.
“I know you’re trying to keep this whole thing on the DL,” Andrew said. “I just wanted you to know that I don’t kiss and tell.”
Then he leaned in and kissed me, and it occurred to me that I kind of wanted to tell everyone. I wrapped my arms around his tight torso, and for a minute I felt so safe in his embrace that I forgot to worry about everything in my life that had gone wrong.
“Julian knows,” I said.
“Oh no,” he groaned. “So the DL lasted twenty minutes.”
“Less.”
Andrew sat down, reclining into the pile of pillows, and put his arms out for me to lie on his chest.
“I just wanted you to know,” he said, “that when I said that thing about you being the perfect sugar mama, I was only joking.”
I placed my head in that sweet spot and said, “I know you were. I wasn’t offended or anything.”
“I’m really impressed,” he said. “I mean, you’re so young.”
I sat up, smiling. “One, thank you for saying I’m young. Two, are you fishing for advice?”
He laughed, putting his hands under his head, his elbows open wide. “No.