Page 53 of Lost and Found

“I can move some clients around,” I hear myself say.

I lie awake for hours after I initially try to go to bed that night—my brain wandering,wondering. I wonder if maybe I smiled too much today and if that’s why my face is sore. If I have been smiling too much in general lately. Am I still grieving enough if I’m smiling more? I know I’m doing my best to welcome memories as they come, but is it some other sort of avoidance if I welcome happy and hopeful feelings this much, too?

I listen to the ambient sounds of Silas existing in the rooms below, and I question the comfort it brings me. Is that warmth I feel just because I’m replacing the sounds of Merritt in my house that I used to hear? Filling a void? I don’t think so, but I don’t know. I’m starting to believe that no one ever really knows if they’re doing this shit right. I feel better and wonder if it’s wrong of me, but I feel better all the same.

My thoughts get dozier, and I wonder about a baby and if it’s okay and safe for me to feel as excited or to want it like I do. I stare at the ceiling fan above me with my hand running patterns over my stomach, and I let myself wonder what it’ll feel like. What they’ll be like. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes after a while. Cracking myself open to that want, letting myself feel the entirety of it, nearly hurts. I cling onto every imagined moment that hasn’t yet happened and maybe never will, and grief takes on yet another facet. Maybe grief isn’t just a place or person you can’t go back to, but somewhere you’ve never been and someone you’re scared you’ll never get to know.

But then my thoughts leap to the cat I’m hoping to know, and I’m laughing at myself. In the light of the full moon,my perspective has softened, some. The welcome reception not being perfect doesn’t feel like a cautionary tale or make me think I’m not ready for other responsibilities because Iknowshe’ll be loved and cared for by me even if she hardly tolerates me, forever. Not locked in a cage, hidden away for the rest of her life. I don’t have to be perfect, and neither does she; I just have to love and nurture her the way a life should be. Even if I don’t get the chance to apply this to motherhood, I can try to look at my own grief through that lens. Keep it close and cared for whether or not it snarls and whether or not I understand it all the time.

When sleep continues to evade me, I decide to check on Calcifur and quietly make my way downstairs. I spot Silas first, asleep on his side on the couch. The cat pops up from behind his legs with a grouchy meow and darts back into her crate.

My best guess is he had the same idea and came out here to check on her, too. There’s a crumpled-up receipt and some string on the coffee table before him. I bet he was playing with her and tiring her out. Tuckered himself out first.

The thought slips into my mind like a sliver:I bet he’ll make a great dad someday.

The way he deftly manages to be two disparate people—by turns playful and solid. I have to swallow something unpleasant and it takes me a moment to recognize it as jealousy.

Up closer, I mark the tension in his brow, a light sheen of sweat covering his skin. More sweat gathers on his neck, his pulse beating visibly. A breath punches out of him in a rush, followed by a long moan that raises the hair on the back of my neck. It sounds pained, agonized. He twitches wildly.

“Silas.” I try to rouse him with my hand on his clammy shoulder.

He hisses like I’ve scalded him in his sleep.

“Si.” I jostle him harder.

He rolls just as I’m giving him another shove, and my palm slides, taking my balance over with it. One of his hands shoots up to clamp around my arm, and I end up teetering farther and coming down hard onto his chest when he yanks me into him. Hisooffans away my hair and then we’re there, face-to-face, eye to eye, centimeters apart. His rough breaths force his chest into mine, and . . . and oh no. Ohshit. He’s hard against the outline of my hip. A dizzying flood of lust washes over me.

“Bea” scrapes out of him. Our noses skim and his eyes sweep down to my lips. He swallows when mine do the same.

“You were having a dream,” I say. My head tilts a degree before I permit it to.

“I was,” he agrees. He’s still breathing hard, eyes flicking to my mouth again.

“I tried to wake you,” I murmur.

“Didn’t work,” he says.Why haven’t I gotten up?

Everything goes still, every sound muffles. His hand slowly coasts up my back and threads into my hair. We’re pressed together from shoulder to hip, one of his thighs between mine. A sound gathers at the back of my throat when his fingers slowly curl and tighten against my scalp.

“Si?”

“Yes.” It doesn’t come out like a question. He sounds like he’s answering something I didn’t ask. “Yeah, Bea. Go on.” Still not a question.

His hand curls a little tighter, his heartbeat hammering into mine.

“Fuck it,” I whisper. And press my lips to his.

It unleashes him. He flips us, rolls me under him, uses his knee to nudge me up higher, wedging himself between my legs until he’s got me where he wants. His mouth is back on mine before my gasp can take shape. Our tongues meet, my hips lift. He grinds into me, groaning into my mouth. We’re a tangledfrenzy, but there’s nothing clumsy about it. We’re precise, adroit, his weight balanced on the forearm he plants beside my head, his other hand around my waist, sliding up my ribs to cup a breast. He rocks against me, and I thrust into him. He yanks the neck of my tank top down, and his mouth closes around my nipple.

“Shit,” I sputter, high and winded. My back arches, skin loud against the leather.

“Shh. Too loud and you might wake me up,” he rattles, flattening his tongue and licking me lazily.

I’d love to take that for what it is—a very convenient excuse for what we’re doing here.

Oh god, the gorgeous, heavy weight of him. There’s a spring coiling tight in my core.

Wait. “Silas.”