Page 13 of Red Hot Harmony

Everything in front of us was pitch-black and my eyes took a little while to get used to the darkness.

“What do you think about this one?” I gestured at a lounge chair emerging from the shadows.

“Sure.”

We settled in. It was just big enough for two people, not overly soft, and had a faint smell of seaweed and salt. There was a long moment of silence that seemed to go on and on. Finally, I felt Camille’s head fall on my shoulder. We were thigh to thigh and the little space left between us began to disappear as she molded herself to my side.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen the ocean?” I asked, curious.

“A long time.”

“How come? You live less than an hour away.”

She sighed deeply, and I felt the rise of her chest as it expanded as my own body buzzed from this new type of closeness. “I don’t know. I guess...I just got lost.”

I thought about her answer, measuring it against my own journey and realizing I was lost too.

We sat wordless a little longer. In the distance, ragged voices and soft footsteps moved back and forth. There were other people here, their silhouettes dark shadows against the backdrop of the warm October night.

Camille shifted in my arms, facing me. Her hair danced in the wind and whipped against my cheeks. She touched my temple, fingertips brushing a path down my skin to the corner of my mouth as if studying me.

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” she half asked, half stated. “A regular date.”

“If I have, I don’t remember,” I confessed. “Would’ve been too drunk to remember.”

Small hands slipped to the back of my neck, gently pulling me forward and down. Our breaths met. Our lips brushed.

There was a spill of moist heat into my mouth as she dipped in her tongue to seek out mine.

I welcomed it, welcomed every delicious second of this kiss she was giving me so easily.

It wasn’t pretentious or fussy or particularly different from all the other kisses I’d stolen, but it did make me feel strange. Grounded. Certain. True.

Tension in my body rose. Escalated like blood pressure.

I grabbed her face, cupping her soft cheeks, deepening the experience. She tasted like salt suddenly and I realized it had come from the ocean, and it fit her, it made me only want her more.

She pulled back carefully, her breathing shallow and loud, her eyes locked on mine. And even in this darkness, they were the greenest green.

“I don’tfucka man on the first date,” she said, but it wasn’t resistance I caught in her voice.

It was desire.

“I didn’t expect you would.” I brought my mouth to her face and slid it over the arch of her cheekbone. Up, up, up. Until I met her lashes, their sweep tickling my upper lip.

It was all new and bright and wonderful and I wanted to savor this pleasure, to hold on to the sensation, to draw it out until my final days.

The thought pivoted in my head, making me dizzy with need.

“So now that I’ve met your friends,” she whispered. “You should meet some of mine. My mother is particularly curious.”

They were the same words said to me once by a girl from Hollywood, a girl I’d slept with in high school. It’d been a feeble attempt to solidify our relationship, to label me as her official boyfriend, to put a collar on me. Like the asshole I was, I broke it off with her at the first mention of parents.

This time, I said, “Okay, mama. I’ll play.”

It was close to midnight when I returned home after dropping Camille off.

I sat in my Camaro in front of my huge empty house and went through the events of the evening slowly, dissecting every single phrase exchange and every kiss.

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