Page 205 of The Fall
“You didn’t.” I thread our fingers together and lean back in his arms.
“I must be doing something right,” he says softly.
“You are.” I reach behind him and cradle his head, twisting in his arms until our lips meet. His breath catches, and mine follows, our rhythms matched closer than the waves.
Days blend into stretches of gold-tinted light or deep-blue shadow. Small moments expand to fill entire lifetimes?—
his kiss against my temple, the sweetness of coconut and honey on his lips, our quiet laughter between cotton sheets, sea foam gathering around our ankles, Blair humming while he works shampoo through my hair, my voice breaking around his name, our fingers laced beneath a canopy of stars?—
and always returning to Blair breathing beside me, constant as the tide, both of us falling in love over and over and over again.
The fire in front of us is showing its orange bones, and Blair kneels, holding a marshmallow skewered and spinning in lazy circles over the coals. Smoke curls around his wrist. Embers pop and splinter. The ocean is close, folding in on itself.
There’s a metal skewer in my hand, too, with a marshmallow skewered at the tip, but it’s already blackened.
I hand Blair my ruined marshmallow. He takes it and peels off the shell with his teeth.
“You keep burning them,” he says around a gooey mouthful.
“You like it that way.”
He laughs and hands me his perfectly golden marshmallow. I take it and eat slowly.
“You’re good at this,” I say.
“Years of practice.” Blair reaches for another marshmallow from the bag between us.
“Did you go camping a lot as a kid?” I prop my elbows on my knees and watch him work.
Blair shakes his head, eyes on the fire as he positions his marshmallow at the perfect distance from the embers. “Mom worked nights, so Cody and I would cook s’mores in the microwave, but they were never right.” He rotates the skewer. “I bought a gas stove with my first big bucks from my newspaper route so we could toast them properly.”
So Blair, so perfectly him. I hoard these nuggets of his past he offers like jewels.
“Your turn.” He offers me the skewer. “I’ll guide you this time.”
I take it from him as he moves behind me. His hand covers mine, adjusting my grip, our fingers intertwined.
“Lower,” he says, his breath warm against my ear. “Not too close to the coals.”
We turn the marshmallow together. His other arm wraps around my waist, holding me against him. The night air is cool on my face, but everywhere Blair touches me is warm.
“There,” he says when the marshmallow turns golden brown. “Perfect.”
He doesn’t move away when it’s done, just stays against my back, his chin resting on my shoulder. The fire dances, amber flames licking at the darkness.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
His breath is slow and steady against my neck. For a long moment, the only answer is the hiss and crackle of the wood. “That we never did this,” he says, his voice a low rumble that travels through his chest into mine. “Not under an open sky.” He shifts then, pulling away, and settles onto the sand beside me.
His eyes are fixed on a point somewhere past the stars. “Cody used to know all the constellations. He’d drag me outside, and we’d lay on the hood of my car for hours while he pointed them out.”
“I bet you complained the whole time,” I say, bumping my shoulder against his.
“Every minute.” He smiles, still gazing upward. “But I’d give anything to hear him go on about Orion’s Belt one more time.”
“Which one was his favorite?” I ask.
Blair points up. “That one there. Cassiopeia. The queen.” His finger draws a zigzag pattern. “He said it looked like aWfor ‘winner’ when we won games. And anMfor ‘moron’ when I pissed him off.”
