Page 3 of After His Eulogy
He looks at me a second longer. He puts the lube on the cushion next to my hip. He bends down. He kisses my mouth, soft, not sex-kiss, the other kind. The kind that has nothing to do with want. The kind that’s justyou.
“You sure you want to do this here,” he says, against my mouth.
“I’m sure.”
“Bed’s three rooms away.”
“I want it here.”
“Why.”
“Because I want to,” I say.
“Okay.”
He gets the lube. Gets his fingers slick. Gets them inside me and I make a sound and I let myself make it, because what does it matter now. He works me open. He’s good at this. He has always been good at this. His other hand is on my chest and his thumb is moving over my nipple in the absent way it does when he’s concentrating on something else.
“You’re tight,” he says, almost to himself. “It’s been a minute.”
“Two weeks.”
“Three.”
“Three.”
“You been okay.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Mm.”
He doesn’t push. He never pushes. I love him so much for it. For what that has cost me. For what it’s going to cost him later, when somebody comes to the door.
“Reece.”
“What.”
“Look at me.”
I look at him.
“Where are you.”
“I’m right here.”
“You’re not.”
“Griffin.”
“Hey.” He cups the side of my face with the hand that’s not inside me. His thumb is on my cheekbone. He looks at me theway he looks at me when he has decided I matter more than whatever else is in the room. “Come back.”
“I’m here.”
“Be here.”
“I’m here, Griffin.”
I am not. I am six months from now in a town I do not know yet, in a bed I have not slept in, alone, thinking about his thumb on my cheekbone on a Wednesday in May.
