Page 53 of Time To Live Again

“Holy shit,” I mumble, trying to catch my breath. “That just happened.”

“It sure did.” She rests her forehead on mine.

We burst out laughing.

* * *

We clean upagain, then Olive goes to the left side of the bed, still naked—no complaints here—and I go to the right, also naked as a jaybird, like this is our norm.

She slides under the comforter. “Get in the bed, sexy.” She flings my side of the blanket open for me, then smooths her hand over it.

I shuffle under the blanket and shiver. “It’s cold. Come and warm me up.”

“Yeah, okay, Mr. I-Run-Hot. Excuses to invade my space,” she quips. “Already so needy.”

Out of pure instinct, we wrap our arms and legs around each other, our warm bodies not helping with my problem below. If I had my way, we’d stay in this bed wrapped up like this until the second she has to leave.

“Something hard is digging into my hip.” Olive looks under the covers and then at me with a playful grin. “Oh, it’s you. I thought it was a steel pipe or something.”

I narrow my eyes and grab her ass. “You think you’re funny, don’t you? I know a way to get rid of it. Should I show you and put our pillow talk on the back burner?”

She gasps. “No way. How are you able to go another round?”

“It’s your fault.”

She huffs. “Whatever. I’m spent. Only cuddles from now on.”

“All right. I’ll behave.”

She kisses my nose. “Good. Now start talking.”

I readjust under the thick comforter, stuff a pillow under my head, and face her. She does the same, then hooks her leg over my hip.That doesn’t help either.

I trace my finger over her bottom lip. “Y’know, you didn’t have to sing me a song to make me kiss you. You could’ve smacked those plump lips of yours on mine at any time. I don’t mind when a woman takes charge sometimes, like you did before. Remind me how it’s done.” I run my hand up her outer thigh.

Olive shakes her head in amusement, then nudges my chest, keeping me from getting closer. “Leo, I’d love to ‘show you how it’s done’ later. Stop deflecting. My questions are piling up. I don’t know where to start. First, Tonya told me you haven’t danced in years but wouldn’t tell me why.”News to me. “Then you sang tonight like you were fucking Freddie Mercury himself. And according to what the people were saying around us, you haven’t donethatin a while either. Are you famous and I’m the only one who didn’t get the memo?”

I crack up. “No. Far from it. I’ve lived here forever, remember? It’s a small island—everyone knows everyone.”

“Hmm. Makes sense. And here, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Would’ve been cool if you were famous.” She shrugs, the corner of her mouth tilting upward. “Too bad.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is?” I peck her lips.

She pulls her head back and pins me with her stare. “I do wonder—are you the same person I met on my birthday?”

“Oh, I guarantee I am. There are layers I keep hidden from everyone, but I’m not going to hide anymore. Not from you.”

“Good.” She caresses my cheek. “Start talking when you’re ready, and let’s see where it leads. We’ve got all night.”

I can’t believe I’m going to spill my guts to Olive. It’ll bring up a lot of painful memories, but maybe this is where my healing will finally begin. I like that she’ll be the one I tell my past to and how it has shaped me. I’m not proud of everything I’ve done since Corey died, but I did it to survive.

Here it goes. Time to walk down memory lane.

“I had a cousin. His name was Corey. We were born a couple weeks apart and were inseparable. It was like we were twins. We basically grew up in this hotel because our moms worked here. Corey’s mom, my aunt Betty, is married to my uncle Mason, Ma’s brother.

“Anyway, you can probably figure it out. We were best friends and did everything together. We had fun, we got in trouble, we annoyed the shit out of our parents.” I relax into the bed while I think about the stupid things we used to do. “Because we fed off each other and I did more crazy shit than him, our parents put us in a hip-hop dance class when we were ten years old to keep us occupied and to burn off the excess energy we had. It pissed us off in the beginning until we realized we were pretty damn good at it and it was fun. We took lessons all through school.”

I massage my forehead, trying to get the past in order. Sometimes I forget when things happened.

---