Page 41 of Gravity
How long will your smile last when you look my way?
How long will I hold your hand?
For a lifetime or a day?
He stops. His eyes open as he drops his chin. “Désolé. I never have an audience. I use these silly songs to get things out of my head.”
“It's not silly, it's beautiful.”
He smiles. “Tu es merveilleux.” His thumb brushes over the strings, up and down, up and down. “I will write you a love song. Something that is just yours.” He starts strumming and looks me in the eyes as he begins to sing again.
Tell me anything you want
Whisper to me your dreams
And I will spend eternity
Figuring out how to take the stars from the sky
And spread them like sand scattered at your feet
Tell me how to make your heart race
Tell me how to make you smile
Let me write you a love story
Let me give you my heart
Let me empty the oceans for you—
He stops playing when I lurch toward him, and he drops the guitar to the carpet when my lips land on his. We sink into the bed in a tangle of limbs, and our kiss goes on and on until we cry each other's names and disintegrate in each other's arms again.
* * *
When I wake,he's gone.
The bathroom is dark, but there's a light coming from down the hall. It's only four a.m., and we fell asleep for the last time just a few hours ago. We spent all afternoon, all evening, and half the night making love, in between rounds of Doritos and candy bars.
The room is chilly when I slide out of his bed, and I drag the blanket we were cuddled under around my shoulders before I pad out to the kitchen.
Bryce is there, standing in front of the counter in the lone light of a single lamp turned on over the sink. He has tugged on a pair of sweats but not a shirt, and goosebumps have risen across his arms and the tops of his shoulders. He's staring into a cup of water like he's trying to identify each individual hydrogen atom. I step behind him and wrap him in my arms beneath the blanket.
He lays his head back against my shoulder. “Did I wake you?”
“No.” I kiss his hair and rest my cheek against his temple. “I missed you. What are you doing out here?”
A beat. His back is tight, his muscles clenched. His index finger taps against the water glass. “I’m thinking about the game.”
We play at the arena tonight. It's our first home game since we lost everything on the road. Montréal's newspapers have been brutal to the team, and especially to Bryce. “Falling Star” was one headline. “Crash Landing” was another. ESPN, which only weeks ago called Bryce “the next Great One” now calls him “one of the worst collapses of a professional athlete.”
They're wrong. They're all wrong. We're going to prove how wrong they are, starting tonight. “It's going to be an incredible game,” I say. “You're going to be amazing. You alreadyareamazing.”
He snorts.
“You're going to make everyone eat all the shitty things they've been saying. Tomorrow, you're going to be the biggest headline in every paper in the country.”
His smile is small and sad. “You're too kind,mon coeur. But…”
