Page 100 of Power Play

She turned her head to face me, and we stared at each other across the distance of a few inches. “I’m glad,” she whispered.

“Me too,” I whispered, and we smiled at each other. Exhausted.

“Just imagine how we’ll do in a bed that doesn’t squeak,” I said.

“All the beds in this house squeak.”

“The one at my house doesn’t,” I said and then yawned.

I knew it was a mistake the second I said it. But I couldn’t unsay it. I couldn’t undo any of this. I also couldn’t change the way I felt. I’d love to see her when this vacation was over. It didn’t have to be serious. It didn’t have to be anything other than what it was, two people fucking each other’s brains out.

She was the one making it difficult. What I needed to do was just play it cool.

I sat up on the edge of the bed, my back to her, and took off the condom. I stepped out of the room, making my way down the hallway to the bathroom to piss and wash my hands.

When I came back to my room she was gone.

24

Liam

The next day I surprised the girls with an early morning trip on the ferry out to the bird sanctuary. They lost their nerdy science minds.

As had become our rule, we didn’t kiss in front of Tess. I could sometimes put my arm around Kit. Or she’d rest her head on my shoulder. But we didn’t hold hands. We didn’t kiss. We were friendly. Laughing and affectionate, but there was a line in the sand.

After last night, it felt like that line was now a trench.

Kit smiled. She laughed at my bad jokes, but the walls were up between us.

We took pictures of birds. We took pictures of bird tracks. We took pictures of bird shit. An old man with a sun hat and walking sticks recognized me. So we talked about the Stanley Cup while the girls looked at their bird book and made notes in a notebook.

“I didn’t know you had such a beautiful family,” he said, pointing at the girls. “Two peas in a pod, those two.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “I mean, we’re not official or anything. It’s just casual.”

“Hmmm,” the old man said. “Hard to be casual when it comes to kids.”

“Yeah,” I said, the words falling heavily against my body. Like body shots from Wyatt when he isn’t playing nice anymore.

We took the afternoon ferry back to town, the three of us sitting on the bow, unwilling to give up the sunshine for a calmer trip. Tess curled up between us and almost immediately fell asleep.

“You want to have kids?” I asked Kit, surprising myself.

Startled, she looked at me with wide, panicked eyes. “Calm down. I’m not asking if you want to have them right now with me. I mean in general.”

“Yes,” she said, relaxing a tiny iota. “Someday. I mean, I’ve spent the last few years trying to clean up the past. I haven’t really had a chance to think about the future. What about you?”

“I do,” I said. “I have some fears about the mental health problems my mom dealt with, but I’ve always seen myself with kids.”

“Can I ask about your mom? Her condition?”

“She lived with bipolar disease and some hard-to-treat depression. It was kind of terrifying for a few years, but it got better when she found the right combination of meds. My brother kind of took over as my parent, while Dad focused on Mom. Wyatt became an unmitigated control freak. Still is to this day.”

“And what did you become?” She asked over the wind and waves. She pulled her hair back and held it with one hand but still some escaped her grip and clung to her lips. I pulled them away. The sensation of her lip against my skin brought back a million memories of what we did to each other in bed. What we would do tonight.

“Don’t give me those eyes,” she said with a knowing grin. “What did you become?”

“A clown. A pleaser. Anything to make her smile,” I said. “Make her not so sad.”

---