Page 37 of Gravity
ChapterFourteen
Hunter
We hear Guy coming up the walk in the morning. He's whistling the Montréal Étoiles cheer, the never endingOlé, olé-olé, Olé. His boots crunch through ice-crusted snow, and before he opens the back door, he spends a minute stomping them on the back porch.
Which is good for us, because we slept right through the sunrise. Full light is beaming through the dusty windows. Outside, the world is winter-wonderland white, sparkling so brightly it's like diamonds fell in heaps, not snow. The sky is a perfect, endless blue. Not a cloud in sight.
Bryce and I spent the night entwined, our arms and legs around and between each other's, even our toes curling together. He pillowed his head on my bicep and I held his hand and traced my thumb over his knuckles and the length of his delicate fingers. We whispered like time had stopped, like there was nothing beyond that saggy air mattress, those old sleeping bags, or our bubble of darkness lit by the fading fire.
I wanted to explore each and every inch of him, to lay him down and map his muscles with my mouth, trail my fingertips along each curve and cut of his body. I wanted to know how he sounds when my lips traveled down the inside of his thigh. I wanted to hear him breathless and panting, struggling to say my name as I memorized the blissed and beautiful way he threw his head back.
We fell asleep despite our stubbornness. I didn't want to close my eyes, and it seemed neither did Bryce. We kissed and smiled and our noses brushed as we held each other. My blinks grew longer, and longer, and then the last thing I remember was watching his eyelids flutter shut as he turned his cheek into my arm and kissed my shoulder.
It was almost pitch black when we woke the first time. The fire was low, burned down to writhing coals and fading embers. There was just enough light to catch on his open eyes. They looked like shooting stars.
I kissed him immediately. His arms wound around my head, and mine wound around his waist. He was hard, and so was I, and we moved together soundlessly, trading breaths and kisses and gasps. When he came, he pushed his forehead against mine and sighed, “Je suis à toi.”
I followed, soaring over the edge as his words filled me.
Again, we slept, until Guy's footsteps penetrated our dreams.
The air mattress has gone completely flat. It's a sheet of rumpled plastic beneath our tangled and come-stained sleeping bags and blankets. Our clothes are scattered—pants to the left and right, shirts thrown overhead, socks bunched and rolled away. We jump up and dress like we are chasing speed records, and as Guy steps in through the back door, Bryce flips the sleeping bags to hide the very obvious evidence that we spent half the night having sex.
Not that we can hideeverything. We both smell like sex and sweat. The wholedépanneurmight smell like what we've been up to.
“J'ai survécu,” Guy calls from the door.
I must be picking up more French than I realize, because, after a moment grinding over his words, their meaning pops to life like air bubbles in my brain.I survived. I grin. He did, and I’m glad he's not frozen on the walkway to his trailer.
“Et tu?Comment ça va?” Guy asks.
“Oui!” Bryce shoves his shaking hands into his jeans pockets as Guy shakes out of his jacket by the back door. “Ça va!”
“C'est tiguidou.” Guy beams.
Guy brews coffee and microwaves breakfast burritos as Bryce and I clean the remnants of our trash and pack away the blankets, sleeping bags, and air mattress. Bryce insists on buying everything we used, though Guy refuses to take anything. They bicker in French until Bryce throws his hands up and starts shopping to spend money. He grabs a shovel, new ice scrapers, two pairs of winter gloves, bags of salt, snacks, cases of Gatorade, packs of Twinkies and cupcakes, and one of every flavor of chips Guy has in stock.
I leave them to their passionate argument and brave the cold to shovel Guy's front porch and his walkway. The salt Bryce is buying goes right onto Guy's porch, and I trudge through the thigh-deep drifts to spread more salt on the path between thedépanneurand Guy's trailer. The air is so frigid it feels like it's about to shatter.
Snowplows are already churning on the highway. If we can make it to the onramp, we can head for home. Bryce's truck is buried under a mountain of snow, and it takes me almost half an hour to clear it out and shovel a path for us.
When I head back inside thedépanneur, Guy has a cup of coffee in a Montréal Étoilestravel mug and a breakfast burrito ready for me. Bryce is sweeping, and Guy is still muttering about not taking his money.
“Alors, I am walking out with all of this,” Bryce says as he joins me. He waves to the pile of our sleeping bags, the busted air mattress, the shovel and scrapers I just used, the empty sacks of salt I'm throwing into the trash, and the snacks that could feed our entire team for days. “And I am not a thief. So, here is my money.” He lays at least five hundred dollars more than what everything he's buying is worth on the counter in front of Guy.
Guy scowls, then nods to my breakfast. “There is no charge for that. Or for the mug.”
“Merci,” Bryce says. “Merci beaucoup, monsieur.”
Guy helps us load Bryce's truck, shakes my hand, and then kisses Bryce on each cheek. “Tout ira bien, mon capitane.”
“Oui. Oui, tout ira bien. Je marquerai pour toi, monsieur.” He squeezes Guy's hand and thanks him again and again until Guy grumbles and waves him away.
We pile into Bryce's truck, and, as we drive across the snow toward the highway, Guy calls,“Allez Montréal!”
Plows have pushed most of last night's blizzard to the shoulders, and though the roads are messy, they're passable. We crunch through dirty snowpack and briny slush and chewed-up ice, but the drive is uneventful, even peaceful. Bryce tunes the radio to a local station. Classic French love songs fill the air with pops and clicks as they replay old vinyl. The haunted yearning of Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel, and the bell-like voice of Emilie-Claire Barlow. “Les Yeux Ouverts”dances above the winter wonderland, as if the high hat is striking against ice and the bass drum sounds out muffled beats on snow drifts.
An hour into the drive, Bryce reaches across the center console and takes my hand. Outside, the storm has remade the world. Inside, we have remade what lies between us.
