Page 61 of The Starfish Sisters

I laugh, and straighten a little because this is one of my attributes, too, even if they’re not exactly what they once were.

He tilts his head, meets my eyes for a long moment, and something new rises, knitting a bubble around us, creating a world that is only ours. The potential leaves me a little breathless, and more than a little terrified. If I give in to all these ... desires, will it undo me?

And yet, there he is, the Ben I’ve come to know so well, smelling of something delectable I once understood and haven’t forgotten. It draws me closer. He takes my hand.

“And? What else?” I prompt.

“Do we want to talk about her?”

“Why not? I want to know about you.”

“Fair enough.” He moves his thumb over my knuckles. “She was really smart, and independent, and she made me work pretty hard to get her attention.” It’s his turn to edge closer. His thigh and mine are touching, the skin heating between us. “What about you? How did you meet your husband?”

“Oh my God, it was such a long time ago.” I take a breath and let it go. “We met in art school.” I turn my hand and Ben moves the pad of his thumb over the center of my palm. It’s heady, such a light whisper, and I feel the pulse moving down my wrist, up to my elbow, beyond. “He was a junior when I was a freshman, and he was kind of theitguy, you know? Everybody thought he was going to be a really big star.” Ben moves his index finger along the back of my hand. It sends tiny stars through my body. “I had a big, big crush on him. That was my style in those days, you know, crushing from afar.”

He laughs a little. “Don’t we all?”

“Maybe.” I nod. “For a year, he didn’t even know I existed, and then we were in a class when I was a sophomore and he noticed me.”

“Why did you like him?”

“He had great hair, very thick, very dark”—I realize that Ben, too, has that same thick, wavy hair, so dark, and I suddenly wonder if I will have the chance to plunge my fingers into it—“and he was good-looking, and he was kind of the king of the school.” I lift a shoulder. “Sex was really the main thing if I’m honest.”

“The things that lead us when we’re young, huh?”

A richness has risen between us, shimmering and full of promise, and I look at his mouth. “Only when we’re young?”

The lights are low, and the sun has set, and in our quiet little corner, Ben raises a hand and cups my jaw. His eyes touch my lips, then my gaze, and then he leans in and presses his lips to mine. It’s deliberate and direct, just like him, and I lift my chin to meet it. His beard is silky soft against my chin, and his lower lip is plump, and he smells like dawn,like earth, like all things that grow. I make a soft sound and pull him closer, opening my mouth to his tongue, to this splendid new thing.

To Ben.

He raises his head, smooths hair from my face. “Shall we get out of here?”

In the car, I feel nerves rising. I haven’t had sex with another person in ... so long. I try to think back, and it must have been a guy I dated in the 2010s before I came back to Blue Cove to care for Amma. I’d not really had a serious relationship since long before that, busy as I was with my child and building my career and all the things it takes to be alive in the world. Men distracted me, knocked me off track. I’d date someone, get too invested, feel devastated when it didn’t work out, blame myself. It was a terrible merry-go-round, and I eventually stepped off, choosing to simply find short-term “sex affairs” with men who also wanted to get laid without a lot of strings attached. Most human adults need sex and the touching that goes with it.

But then Amma took a turn and I came back to Blue Cove and there hasn’t been an opportunity until now. As we get closer to my house, I feel my nerves rising, my thoughts tangling over what my expectations are, what this might be, if we are going to ruin this good friendship if we find out we can’t make a sexual relationship work.

We don’t talk a lot, and at my house, I get out. “Are you coming in?”

“Am I still invited?”

“Yes.” At least that much I know.

He follows me into the quiet house. Only the light over the kitchen counter is on, and I grasp for something to hang my nerves on. “Do you want some tea?”

“Not really,” he says in a low rumble. He drops his keys on the side table and takes off his jacket, tosses it over a chair.

“That’s going to get dog and cat hair all over it.”

“I don’t care.” He steps up to me, takes my hand, and positions it on his waist. Our chests brush. I smell his skin, slightly hot, and it makes me literally dizzy, so I grasp him more closely and lean in with a kind of delirium that feels utterly unlike me and impossible to resist. “I just want to kiss you.”

He envelops me, taller and bigger in a way that’s primal and satisfying. I feel the whole of him. He bends in and kisses me with the same command he brings to everything else, a confidence of movement and knowledge, his hands on my back, my waist, then down to my butt, so happily. He makes a low sound and bends into my neck. “If you knew how many times I’ve thought of this. You have the most luscious body.” He kisses my neck, my throat, opens my wrap dress and kisses my breasts.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I say, and lead him. And there in my long-empty bed, we have very physical, very noisy, very satisfying sex. He knows his way around a woman’s body, and his vigor gives me permission to let down my guard, and it is good.

It is very, very good.

Lying curled in his arms, listening to his sleep breathing, fear clutches me again. How can I trust this? How can I allow myself to be vulnerable again? It feels like I’ve been keeping the world at arm’s length forever.