Page 21 of Still the One

If I have one superpower it’s to enjoy a moment when it presents itself. To block out most of reality and just go for it. In this instance, because of our muddled history, the utter bliss of the moment, of this short night we have together, threatens to escape me a few times, but I can pull it together. All I need do is look down at what Mac’s doing. Mac and I are having sex, which feels more like a miracle than anything else. Her lips meander down, pressing on my skin, surely leaving their imprint on me forever. She settles between my legs and I can’t just lie back, close my eyes, and enjoy what’s about to transpire. I have to look. I need to see her.

She gazes up at me briefly with those eyes I used to know so well. Those eyes I only ever needed a brief look from to know what was up. They are a mystery to me now. Since I left, Mac has lived another life without me. I have no idea what’s going on inside her head, although I can easily tell she’s enjoying this just as much as I am. She wouldn’t have come so quickly if she wasn’t, if she wasn’t so turned on by my ‘magic voodoo fingers’. For all that we’ve lost, we still have so much between us. And my silly brain can’t help but go there—can’t help but dream of what lies beyond this moment and this night. It’s stronger than me, but then, luckily, Mac’s kisses on my lower belly grow more intense, and my brain stops working.

I become all ragged breath and tensed-up muscles. I am made of nothing but the most divine anticipation. This is perhaps the best moment of all, that instant just before Mac makes me explode. Because it’s all there in this moment. This weekend, all the years we had and all the ones we didn’t. Our difficult and easy conversations. The coming together on the dance floor of all places. Our walk on the beach in the dark. How magnificent Mac still is after all these years. How easily I could fall for her again, just because she’s there and that’s really all it took the first time as well. I saw her and something inside me shifted, something deep inside me knew that girl was special. That a move had to be made. Many moves were made, not all good and not all bad, and we didn’t make it in the end, but how I’d love a shot at another chance. Oh, how I want to make things right with Mac. How I crave her absolution. How I want her to tell me, and mean it from the bottom of her heart, that I have been forgiven for making the biggest mistake of my life. But just like I knew deep down when I met her that she would be very special to me, I now know that this will never happen. She might be able to forgive me—she may already have—but the damage I caused can never be undone. Life can’t be rewound. Regrets can be lived with, but the course of a life can’t be altered after the facts.

So, it’s not just pure bliss blooming in my heart after all. There’s an edge of remorse, of bitter pain, clinging to it. Although, somehow, the life we’ve lived, and the people we’ve become to each other because of it, casts a particular kind of light on this moment. It takes a special kind of intimacy to so easily come together again after all these years. We’ll never again be the Mac and Jamie we once were, but we are this version of us now.

Mac sure does take her sweet time, but her lips are approaching. I groan with anticipation. How long has it been since I felt her tongue there? How long have I wanted to feel it there again? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. And—oh.

It’s as though someone unplugs whatever was holding me together up until this point. As soon as Mac touches my clit, my muscles go slack, my bones melt into my flesh. I sink into the mattress while my body releases years and years of pent-up emotion. All the shame. All the guilt. All the regret and hurt. It all catches up with me as her tongue skates along my clit. What follows next is more an exorcism than an orgasm. An expulsion of the pain I caused her but also myself. It’s the bottomless regret I’ve lived with for all this time transforming into something more bearable. It’s all the feelings I’ve had to suppress in order to get on with my life clawing their way to the surface, not to wound me, but to exit my system once and for all.

Then I do cry because tears are a big part of this too. All the tears I didn’t allow myself to cry because I was the one who fucked up. I was the one who made the choice, so I had to grin and bear it.

“Hey, sweetheart.” Mac calling me sweetheart only makes me cry harder. “Oh, god. Oh, come here.” She crawls up to me and pushes her warm, comforting body against mine. She holds me in her arms and whispers sweet nothings in my ear just to soothe me. She’s so kind, just like she always was. I used to jokingly ask her how someone as hot as her could also be so kind—as though one would exclude the other. It was a joke then, but it’s not very funny now. Because kind is the very last thing Mac should ever be to me again.

Chapter 13

Mac

Instead of a pounding hangover, which I’d expect after a wild wedding party, I wake up with a throbbing between my legs. My body aches in places I didn’t even know I had muscles—me, a former athlete and current sports journalist. It’s my job to know about the human body and its limits. My own body was stretched far beyond its limits last night. After that first quick climax, I might as well have been the orgasmic popcorn Jamie used to be. She was all over me for the rest of the night, as though she wanted—needed—to make up for twenty years in one night.

I turn onto my side. Light peeks from underneath the curtains, but Jamie’s still sleeping. To witness her fall apart like that was the most remarkable thing to have happened since I’ve arrived here. She regrouped quickly enough, but still. I was with her for ten years and I’ve never seen her do anything like that. She’s not the kind to break down like that.

I can’t resist running my fingers through her hair. I’m glad she’s not awake yet because it gives me a moment to ponder what this is between us. I remember what I said last night. It’s just a kiss. That was my first lie. To think that what happened in this bed was just sex would be another. It’s not possible for us to just have sex. If only it hadn’t been so damn good. If only Jamie couldn’t still play my body like it’s all she’s ever done in her life. If only she wasn’t so damn sexy and desirable, because it clashes greatly with all the other things I feel for her. But I can’t claim to hate her any longer. That wasn’t hate sex. Nor was it makeup sex. It’s way too late for that. I don’t really know what it was beyond, maybe, reunion sex. Nostalgia mixed with all the other emotions a wedding can unearth in a person. I settle on that. Because that’s all it, ultimately, can be.

“Morning.” Jamie’s face breaks into the biggest smile. “Wow,” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

“You’re still here.” She catches my hand between hers and holds on to it for dear life, as though I might still make a run for it now.

“Do you want me to go?” I ask, knowing full well it’s the last thing she would want.

Jamie shakes her head. “I want you to stay here all day long.”

“We’re in Maui. We have to see the sights.” It’s a hell of a long flight from New York to Hawaii. The inside of a hotel room isn’t all I want to have seen before I go home, although a hotel room with Jamie Sullivan in it could probably sway me. But no. Hard no, actually.

“How long are you staying?” Jamie asks.

“One more night. You?”

“A week.” She pulls her lips into a pout. “You came all this way for three nights?”

“I couldn’t get more time off.”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” Jamie asks. How does she know? She used to be the bread-obsessed workaholic, not me.

“Doesn’t matter. People are counting on me being back at the studio on Wednesday.”

“Are you saying you’re a big deal at ATC?” Jamie threads her fingers through mine.

“I’m a very big deal,” I half-joke. It’s ironic because the only reason I became so successful is because I haven’t had much of a life outside of work. When you don’t have a spouse and children, you can work as much as you like. You can become the one person the producers know they can always rely on, because no one else is relying on you.

“I wish you were staying longer,” Jamie says.

“Why?” It’s not that I want to kill the mood, but something needs to be said.

“To spend more time together. We have so much to catch up on.”

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