So We Can Glow - Stories - Leesa Cross-Smith Page 0,19

dress, boldly brave enough to eat and drink everything without fear of ruining it because I know he loves that about me. My defiance—heady and arousing. To me. To him.

“Who says flight of wines?” he asks.

“The wine-tasting people,” I say. I flip through a glossy, heavenly-smelling magazine I’ve found in the bedside table drawer.

“It’s lovely. Them saying that,” he says.

“Did someone die in this room? Someone famous?” I say.

“John Belushi died in Bungalow 3.”

“And Jim Morrison used to live here,” I whisper, as if Jim is one room over and I don’t want him to hear me.

“It’s earthquake-proof.”

“And haunted.”

The condensation of sadness that presses against us—leaving us damp and cool—fills the room at the word haunted.

“Let’s not die here.”

“No, let’s not die here,” I repeat. We have plenty of time to die, I don’t say.

“We don’t talk about death in California,” he warns himself gently. Contrite. His attempt at fanning away the grief-smoke that chokes us, stains the glass of our shattered hearts.

We make quiet love and go to the pool.

We go to the pool and come back. The bed, again.

M bosses me around.

Kiss me. Fuck me. Harder. Pull your hair back. Touch yourself. Beg me. Call me Daddy. Suck it. Spread your legs. Wider.

M is shirtless, in white pajama bottoms. We’ve gone out to the hills, watched the sunset. The jacaranda as God-purple as the sky, the sky as God-purple as the jacaranda. Our California is outrageously dry and lousy with flowers.

Our room again: I’ve brushed my teeth, but am drinking more champagne anyway. M is sitting by the wide-open balcony doors, smoking a cigarette with his legs stretched out. The wind and the curtains, ghosting. He is the only man I’ve loved like this. Have you ever loved anyone else? He has asked me plenty of times when he is inside me, his mouth pressed against mine. My forever-answer: No, M; not like this.

I watch him smoke with his no-wedding-ring left hand. M is quiet. M was quiet before, but he’s even quieter now. M is contemplative, cerebral. M is terrible at arguing. Early in our relationship, M used to think we were breaking up any and every time we argued. Some things we argued about back then: Me, feeling emotionally abandoned. Him, feeling emotionally abandoned. Me, jealous of the time he was spending with other people. Him, jealous of the time I was spending with other people. Me, worried he was opening up to someone else who wasn’t me. Him, worried I was opening up to someone else who wasn’t him. Me, annoyed when he was too quiet. Him, annoyed when I talked too much.

M used to think our fights meant no more hotels. No more room service. No more champagne on the starlit balcony. No more sharing a cigarette after sex. No more sharing an apple after a nap (specifically, no more of him holding the cold, sweet crisp to my mouth and letting me bite and him making sure to put his mouth in the exact spot where mine was). No more matching white robes after baths. No more of him rubbing coconut oil on my feet after our showers. No more of his bearded face disappearing between my legs (also, no more of me getting on my knees in front of him). No more sharing minty space in front of the mirror. No more Sinatra Sunday mornings, Nina Simone nights. It took him years to understand how I could fight with him and get over it. That our fights never meant I loved him less. I watch him smoke and think of this: M, I love you and nothing and no one can ever stop me.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks without turning around. His voice—a warm, gray wool net casting out into the California night, catching those California stars that would zoom-power-up and shoot out from his eyes if only he would turn to me. His arm, thrown over the back of the chair like a slack rope.

“We are far from home,” I say.

“Does that bother you?” he asks. He smokes.

A trumpet somewhere below us. Barely, but I can hear it! And do you know what else I can hear? The nightswimmers—tender splishes echoing off the white-weathered concrete and blackness. I am wet-haired in my robe on the bed and more in love with M now than I’ve ever been. Like kudzu, devouring me. Like a gremlin I fed after midnight.

“No. I like how we got here,” I say.

I am waiting for