Page 114 of Unbound

“Sky Blue and Black” plays, the gentle piano adding cadence to my steps back toward where Bennett is watching me.

“Want to dance?” he asks. We’ve all been dancing and singing along to music all night, at Adam Reiner’s suggestion. Where Bennett is stoic and calm, his dad is openly affectionate toward him and a slight goofball.

As much as I don’t want to admit it to myself, Adam Reiner is exactly the father I dreamed up for myself in my quiet moments alone, when things were bad enough that I’d imagine my dad was somewhere out there, trying desperately to find me. That he hadn’t meant to leave and that at any moment he’d burst through the door to our trailer home and pick me up. Take me away from it all.

Adam ruffles his son’s curls as he passes us and quietly excuses himself for the evening.

I raise my left hand to the swell of Bennett’s shoulder, my right hand held gently in his grip as we start to dance. My head rests on his chest and he hums, low and soft beneath his breath. I can feel the vibrations more than I can hear his voice.

Bennett and I dance, slow and careful as the CD plays. It feels like magic. It feels like love.

My heartbeat thumps in time with his—him, him, him.

Later that night, he makes love to me in the bed I once read to him from. He asks me again as he cares for me afterward what poem I’m reminded of when we have sex. I tell him I don’t know. He recites a line from a sonnet I’ve never heard of and kisses a pathway down my spine through each word.

“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair,” he says, his fingers obsessively caught in the strands I know he adores.

“Your mouth,” he says as he presses a kiss to my lips.

“Your voice,” he says, kissing down my throat.

“Your hair,” he says, pressing a kiss to my forehead at the edge of my hairline. “Your hair.” He repeats as he presses me back into the mattress, intent to take me again.

I look into his ocean eyes as he pushes gently into me and my heart learns to beat at his command, reaching for him from my chest.

Even if I don’t get to keep him, I will never love anyone the way I love him.

Chapter 50

NOW

Paloma

After we’ve showered, Bennett starts the firepit and bundles me up.

“You know, we could’ve waited to wash off,” I say, smirking as he zips up his jacket to nearly cover my chin. “We’re about to ruin it all and smell like a bonfire.”

He shrugs, taking a beanie out of one of the baskets by the door. I spot the old Winnipeg Jets logo on the front as he sets it on my head. “You know I have to care for you after sex. It’s part of it, for me. Sometimes it’s better than the sex.”

My eyes blow wide. “Better?”

“Sometimes.” He shakes his head, exasperated as he reaches out to pull the beanie down to cover my eyes with a laugh. “Warm enough?”

I pull it back up and watch him with a bright smile. How many people get to see this side of Bennett—the playful, smiling, slightly goofy version of him? The piece that resembles his dad most.

Does Adam Reiner know how much of himself is present in the happiness of his son?

I want to ask about them, about what happened between them. But instead, I slide on the gloves Bennett’s laid out for me and follow him out the sliding glass doors, into the whipping night wind and down toward the beach.

“You sure you’re not too cold?” he asks, and I nod.

“I’m good.” The flames illuminate the side of his face. The soft sound of the waves is enough to have me relaxing entirely in the familiar setting. “I like being near the water.”

He smirks. “I know, love.”

“I’m really happy for you, about the major change. I think you’ll be a lot happier.”

His smile is bright and wide. “I already am.”