Page 55 of One Last Summer
His eyes stayed on me, wide, and he cleared his throat, giving me a sheepish look that was unbearably sweet. It triggered a recurring thought I’d had over the last few days: Maybe he wasn’t as full of it as I thought. Perhaps the always collected, perpetually unflappable man I knew was just very, very good at hiding his nerves. Because for someone who excelled at getting the last word in, he didn’t seem to know what to say next.
“Should we go up to the loft?” I asked, sliding off the counter until my feet hit the wooden floor. I reached down and fiddled with my clothes for a quick second, his gaze locked on me as he nodded.
I yanked my bra off over my head and tossed it at him. He caught it, of course, still graceful and athletic even when having a rare awkward moment.
“Yeah, as much as I’d love to do all sorts of things to you up there,” he said as he chucked my bra over his shoulder and nodded toward the counter, “I think it might go against the logic of physics.”
I laughed out a big, loud “Ha!” that filled up the nervous space between us. I could have sworn there was a slight blush under those tanned cheeks, and he looked like his teenage self again, for just a split second.
The moment my hands gripped the edges of the ladder I froze, suddenly panicked by the realization of this. What the fuck was I doing here, contemplating sex with Mack? I should pick my clothes up off the floor and run right back to Sunrise. Rewind time and press play on the Clara I was just a few days ago.
But that Clara hadn’t been working for me. I wasn’t just stale at work; my whole life had turned into this crumbling, brittle thing that I could barely hold together anymore.
And so I kept climbing.
I’d never been in the loft before, and it was surprisingly spacious, with a giant screened window that looked out on the lake, showcasing a view of the sunset, the dusky pink sky reflecting off the dark water below. So what if the ceiling was dangerously close to the top of my head. Mack’s bed was big and white, with two stacks of pillows and a crisp, light comforter. There was even a tiny bedside table next to it that looked handmade.
I shifted onto the bed and tucked myself in. Just as I felt myself about to get trapped in my head again, he was there to pull me out, his hand sliding down the length of my thigh, to my calf. As if motivated purely by instinct, I responded by shifting my leg closer, draping it over his hip bone.
I had him exactly where I wanted him, and his breath hitched as he traced a finger up my thigh.
“This still okay?” he asked in a gravelly voice, and I kissed him yes.
“Mmm-hmm,” I mumbled, and he broke away from me for a second to grab the box of condoms that he’d placed near us. Then there was that sound: the rip, and the shuffling that always followed, and then he sighed, and my entire body ached in response. When he pushed inside me, slower than I’d ever seen him do anything in my entire lifetime, I cried out, uninhibited.
The few times I’d let myself imagine what it would be like if Mack and I ever slept together, I pictured it quick and dirty, a “just get it over with” kind of experience where we’d both dust off our hands when we finished and walk away. Instead, he was slow and patient, as if he was trying to memorize every inch of my body, like he didn’t want this to end.
I wrapped my legs around Mack and pulled him closer, shifting my hips higher to meet him as he gripped my hands in his, bringing them to rest alongside my face. Slow kisses morphed into something more frantic, searching, the promise of so much more left to discover.
Finally, for the first time in so long, I felt completely in the moment. I wasn’t anxiously anticipating emails from Amaya, or rehashing my failed relationship, or shame-spiraling over the friendships I’d let lapse without realizing it.
I was, simply, here.
24
AT SOME POINT, it had become nighttime, and the moon announced itself through the window above us, casting shadows across Mack’s back. My hand slipped in and out of the darkness as I scratched my fingers along his spine, my heart leaping a bit when I saw the sated smile on his face. I racked my brain for some sort of quip to dial down the tension still swirling in me and came up empty.
Finally, when I couldn’t take the silence one second longer, I blurted out, “So is randomly sleeping with someone at these friend reunions one of the traditions I missed?”
When I accepted my award for Worst Post-Sex Conversation Starter of All Time, I would thank this line for making it all possible. Luckily, Mack just played along.
“I mean there was that time Nick, Eloise, and I—”
Despite his nerves earlier, he now seemed completely unruffled by what had just happened between us.
“Ew, don’t even joke about that,” I squealed.
He leveled a look at me, his eyes soft like half moons. “I solemnly swear I have not hooked up with any of our friends. Now, Steve and Marla, however—”
“Oh my god, Mack, I’m going to go down there and get a canoe paddle and smack you in the head with it.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He rolled onto his back with a laugh, and pulled me close to him, tucking me into his shoulder, that same spot I’d been drooling over just hours before. “This can be a new tradition. For our last summer at Pine Lake.”
I exhaled slowly, letting the warmth of his touch ground me. Mack and I were naked, in his bed, post-sex and cuddling like it was the most normal thing we could be doing right now. And maybe it was, I reasoned. Sex could be low stakes and fun, and we could each go back to our lives in a few days with some solid orgasms under our belts. It was no big deal. And it had been good. Like, really good. Great even?
Great.
It had been great.
