Page 78 of Afterglow
Her seatbelt releases with a click, and her hand stays clasped to mine as she bends a knee onto the leather seat and faces me. “Fletcher.”
I stare ahead, afraid of falling apart. Even before the tender contact, I’d been distracted on the drive to the airport. Miller convinced me to come home for Thanksgiving, using Dad’s retirement and ailing health, and citing the stretch of time since my last visit.
“You should,” Bea said once I got off the phone with my sister. Leaden guilt pressed into my chest. Her head tilted toward me in comfort and understanding, the sweep of her hand over the slope of my shoulders softening the weight held there. “It’s family.”
“You’re my family.” My lips reached for her temple, cherishing its soft warmth.
“I know,” she cooed, “You’re my family too, but if you want and it helps, I’ll come along.”
I agreed. I’d go anywhere with her.
“Fletcher, look at me.”
When I don’t, she raises the console and climbs onto my lap, positioning my arms tight around her hips and cupping my face in her sweet hands. If she thinks this is a punishment, joke’s on her. This is exactly where I wanna be.
“I’m here, okay?” A wrinkle forms in my brow when our foreheads meet. I inhale her, her chaotic energy now a familiarcalm. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve been uneasy this past week.”
Everything with my family makes me uneasy. Everything is overcomplicated. Meals, sleeping arrangements,fuck, the sheer number of people and the expected onslaught of comments about contracts and questions about the future of my career have my anxiety ready to flood out.
Instead, I dam it, burying my face in the crook of her neck, wanting to drown in rosewater and never come up for air. Her heavy sigh pushes our chests together. “What’s going on in thatoutrageouslyhandsome head of yours?”
That cracks open my smile, widening against her skin, and she must feel it because she hums in approval.
“There it is.”
I knock my head into the headrest with a sharp, whiny exhale. “I don’t wanna face them. It’s always…too much.” My palms are sweaty just thinking about it. “The noise, the constant talking, arguing, kids screaming,God…” The overstimulation requires many days of solitude afterward. I let her go to scrub my face with both hands, surely leaving behind a red hue.
Her expression shifts, puzzled at the admission. “What do you do when you’re on the ice? How do you block the noise out?”
“That’s different.” My fingers scratch a spot behind my ear. “There’s separation. They’re behind the boards, and they’re strangers. I can drown them out.”
“You get into the so-called ‘zone?’”
“Yeah. And while I wish I could, I can’t really tune out my family.”
“Good thing I’m chatty and charming,” Bea’s shoulder lifts, eyes rounding, playful and coy. “I can field all the small talk.”
What a horrible job. My sisters are fine, if not overbearing in a well-intentioned way, but a cardboard cutout makes a more interesting conversation partner than Parker.
“That’s the other thing: bringing you into their wreckage. They don’t…” —one eye wrinkles shut in a cringe— “see me like you do.” I don’t want her to see the way they treat me. “I don’t want it to change what you think of me, I guess…”
“Nothing can change that.” Her palms slide to my chest, over the pumping organ that beats only for her. “I know, see, feel who you are. You’re my boyfriend. My Dreamboat. What they say doesn’t matter to me.”
“But—”
“Shh.” The hush of her breath draws a long, shaky breath from me, neck going lax from the massaged circles into my nape. “We don’t have to stay, okay? If you’re not having a good time, we can visit for a bit and spend the night somewhere else. You can even blame it on me.”
I nod loosely. “Okay.”
Bea scoots from my lap but keeps one set of our hands entwined. “Now,” she begins, wearing a naughty grin, “are you ready to drive to the airport or would you rather me suck the life out of your cock so we can have a relaxed flight?”
When we get to Charlottetown, I detour onto Route 1, driving the rental Chevy on the scenic way to Summerside. And it’s so worth it.
Bea’s smiles and excited giggles quite literally clear the rainclouds from the shore. It lightens the worry on my face, too, and I loosen my shoulders, relaxing into my seat.
I don’t recall appreciating the foamy surf smacking against those magnificent red cliffs, the rolling green hills in the distance, for a long time. Maybe since I was a kid. Once I left, thelush island’s scenery was a reminder of weighty responsibilities rather than a thing of beauty. Perspective is funny like that.
Behraz makes everything wondrous and joyful. I’ll never get over having her by my side.
