Page 77 of I Almost Do

When he's finished, he stays there, his forehead pressed against mine, his chest rising and falling like bellows as his semen dries on my skin. Finally, he draws back, pulls up his pants, and moves to the kitchen sink. He returns in moments with a warm, wet paper towel and begins to wipe me clean.

I try to catch his eyes, but he won't meet my gaze. "Hey," I say. "What's wrong?"

He grimaces. ”I shouldn't have done that to you."

Whoa.Whoa. Now he's going to backtrack on masturbating too?

"Yes, you should have. We both wanted it, so why shouldn't you?"

"Did we? Because you didn't get a damn thing out of that. It was just me being selfish."

“I got being close to you out of it.”

"Yeah. Okay." He picks up my T-shirt and shorts and hands them to me. I've barely gotten my shirt over my head when he's headed for the door. "I have some work I need to get to in my office," he says.

"James…."

He stops with a white-knuckled grip on the doorframe. He doesn't turn his head back when he asks, "Yes?"

"The vacation. I want to go somewhere withyou. We've never done that. We never even took a honeymoon." Of course we didn't. When would there have been an appropriate time for that?

After a beat, he says, "We can do that. Any requests?"

I shrug. "Anywhere you want is fine. Somewhere you'll have fun. Surprise me."

He raps the doorframe with a double tap of his knuckles. And then he's gone.

Jamesbecomesevenmorestandoffish after that night in the kitchen.

He’s never unkind. If I reach for his hand, he holds it for a few brief moments, then kisses my knuckles and finds a reason to drop it. If I kiss him, he keeps his hands at his sides, gently returns my kiss, then hurries away. And he always,alwaysreminds me he loves me.

Then he surprises me with a trip to Hawaii.

It’s a vacation, not a honeymoon. Not that I’d ever had any confusion there. James books us a suite with two bedrooms, and at first, this trip feels like it’s going to be more of the same cold kindness.

However, his veneer begins to crack on the very first day when I ask him to apply sunscreen to my back. He’s efficient about it. But I’ve got pale, freckled skin. I need a lot of sunscreen, and it has to be reapplied often. The very act of touching me repeatedly seems to break down some wall inside him. It’s as though every time he touches me and nothing horrible happens, he gets a little more comfortable doing so the next time.

But the day James sees me slip-slapping my way across the deck in snorkel gear is the day the knot in my chest finally begins to unwind.

Those blue eyes of his sparkle, and his grin is real.

When we’re preparing to do a tandem zipline, he laughs and pats my butt when I clutch him like a spider monkey. And when I turn to him from our seats in the helicopter to point out something in excitement, he smiles and reaches to hold my hand.

By the end of our vacation, he no longer rushes through applying my sunscreen and lets me do the same for him. He puts his arm around me or his hand on my back again. He drops random kisses on my forehead and temple again. When he catches me rubbing my lip, he takes over and does it for me.

His smiles come easier, his shoulders are relaxed, and, while he’s with me, he doesn’t answer a single work email.

He’s almost back to the James from before my health crisis.

And then we're home, and he's tan and, yes, working a lot, but he's still smiling easier. And that knot I carry loosens a little more.

It's as though our vacation worked as some kind of mental reset button for him. We're not intimate with each other. We're not even intimateneareach other. But the trip still seems to have been a change for the better for him, and it gives me hope.

The next week, he tells me he's taking me to a trendy club for my twenty-second birthday. I haven't seen that particular expression on his face in a long time. Part adult calculation and part mischievous boy. It says he's up to something. And it fills me with hopeful excitement.

When we arrive, the VIP lounge is full of my friends, both the New Yorkers and the Pennsylvania crowd, who road-tripped here to surprise me.

"Somebody has to keep Tequila Bronwyn in check," James says about Sydney's invitation. He can be as grumpy as he wants. He doesn’t fool me. He loves my friends.

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