Page 84 of Avenged

She laughed. “Yeah, because that will really pay the bills.”

I took the pad and her pencil and set them on the side table, and then I tugged her chin until her pale-blue eyes were forced to look at mine. “Truthfully, it could probably pay more than just your bills.”

She smiled at me then, tender in a way no woman had ever looked at me before, and my heart exploded into fireworks that weren’t supposed to happen until later tonight. “Thank you for saying that, but I very seriously doubt you know how to judge the quality of anyone’s little drawings.”

She was right. I wasn’t qualified to judge anyone’s art, but when I looked at her pictures, I saw her. I saw who she was at the core of her. The strength and determination, the love and hope, the kindness and resiliency.

“Yeah, but Di Felix did, and I’d hazard a guess she knows exactly what she’s talking about. You should email her. I bet you’d be surprised by what she had to say.”

She kissed me and then pulled away. She still wasn’t ready. She didn’t believe in herself yet.

She glanced at the clock and said, “It’s four. The dinner cruise is leaving in an hour.”

“Yeah,” I said, but I was reluctant to leave the little haven we’d built that afternoon for fear of what would happen when the real world settled in over us. It didn’t seem possible that we’d only been back at the house for a couple hours. It should have been a year. It should have been a lifetime, because I wasn’t the same anymore. Four hours, and something had changed inside me. I couldn’t name it yet. I couldn’t call it for what it was, but it was there, wiggling itself into the deep recesses of my brain, saving it for later, when she wasn’t in my arms looking like a goddess from another world.

“I don’t want Dawson’s money to go to waste,” she said. I couldn’t help a smile, because that was exactly the Jersey I’d come to know. Not wanting to put anyone out. Not wanting anyone to spend money, especially on her, that ended up wasted.

“Dawson doesn’t have to know we didn’t go.” I smiled at her.

“But I’d know, and I’d feel bad. As it is, we still have all those unused tickets you gave me.”

“We can use them tomorrow. The festival isn’t over.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said and stood up.

I stared at her gorgeous body. Small, curvy, glowing. I wasn’t sure I could ever look at another woman and not see her instead of them.

“Do you need to use the restroom before I go in?” She turned and went to the closet, showing me her perfect little butt cheeks.

I bounded out of bed and pulled her against me, her rear hitting my penis which was already semi-hard from sleep, and dreams of her, and everything we’d already done that afternoon. I kissed her neck. She reached up with one hand, holding me in place as I continued to lick and kiss the tender spots between her ear and her collarbone.

I didn’t go all in. I didn’t pursue the matter and carry her back to the bed right then, because I knew that, no matter what she’d said earlier, she’d be sore later. We’d put to test just how well the medicine and physical therapy was really helping her. I wasn’t going to make her regret it by continuing to devour her. I wasn’t a complete asshole.

I slapped her on the butt and stepped away. I reached around her and grabbed some of my clothes off the hangers residing next to hers. As if we really were married. As if this was just a normal day in our lives, when it was anything except normal.

“Give me five minutes, and then it’ll be all yours.”

When I looked back at her from the doorway, she had her hand to her heart, eyes closed, with a smile on her face. My heart tried to escape my chest again. My body tried to drag me back to her, but my mind still ruled, and I stepped away to the bathroom and the shower that was calling me.

After I gave up the bathroom to her, I went to the kitchen and removed any evidence of what had happened there, burying the condom wrapper, which had been at the top of the garbage can, and cleaning the surface of the table. I turned on the TV and watched the weather. The storm had come and gone, leaving behind as its only evidence the puddles and the increased humidity. It would be good to be on the water with the breeze pushing away the heaviness.

When she came down the hall, I stilled, remote in my hand, feeling like a teenager gawking at the first woman to give him a wet dream. Her hair was down, the waves from the braids of earlier cascading about her. She’d pulled the majority over one shoulder, leaving the other one bare. The mint-green dress she wore was strapless. The bodice, in almost a leaf-like shape, was tight against her breasts until it hit her waist where the silky material flared out from her hips before ending above her knees, putting on display her snowy legs I’d had wrapped around me a couple times that day. I was reminded again of the Flower Fairies my mom loved so much. Jersey was a bloom coming to life as if it had been hidden in the shadow of a bigger plant that was suddenly gone, leaving the full weight of the sunshine pouring over her.

“You’re beautiful,” I said and was rewarded with a flush to her cheeks.

“Thank you.”

“I mean that.”

She fiddled with her ring. She didn’t believe me. Or she wanted to believe me but couldn’t.

I turned off the TV, grabbed my wallet and my keys, and then held my hand out toward her. She stepped forward, claiming the outstretched palm, and when our hands joined, I was filled with peace. Like everything was right in the world.

I drove us down to the dock on the outskirts of town from which the dinner cruise was setting sail. We were both quiet, like we often had been in the weeks since Comic Con. But it wasn’t awkward or tense. It was comfort. We handed the tickets over to the guy at the gangplank and walked onto the deck of the boat. It was a glorious old sailboat that had been restored to a pristine shimmer. There were already several other couples and families onboard, and it wasn’t long before we were taking off and heading down the shore.

The sea had calmed. The sun was gleaming against the water, and I watched as Jersey talked to a little girl with a Captain America shirt on, trying to convince her that while Captain America was wonderful, being Glasswing would be cooler. The little girl wasn’t really buying it. But Jersey continued to chat with her while the girl’s parents were engaged in some discussion about who was drinking and who was driving.

The sunlight lit up Jersey’s hair. She was beautiful, like a cut-glass vase is beautiful, but then, when the sun hits it, it turns into a thousand shimmering colors of splendor. That was Jersey when she was lit up, talking about anything she was passionate about. It made it hard to look away. I wanted to capture every glorious color and ray and hold on to it so I could show it to her. So, she’d believe in her own beauty as much as I did.

---