Page 81 of An Introvert's Guide to Life and Love
Due to some apparently ultra-strong self-control on his part, we’re not immediately kissing. He swivels me around so my back presses against the side of the pool, his hands digging into my thighs harder than is strictly necessary given that I’m weightless underwater.
“Is this a green light, Rosen?” he asks, and it’s not at all lost on me that his voice is suddenly raspy.
“A green light for tonight,” I confirm, and our mouths meet before I’ve finished saying the words, both slick and wet from pool water.
He pushes himself against me, our kiss feverish and desperate, just like the first time. There’s no room between us other than our clinging, wet clothes, and he’s not shy about grinding into me, so I grind back and work myself into a frenzy, my back rubbing against the edge of the pool so hard I know I’ll have a scrape there.
After minutes that seem like an hour, Daniel pulls away, looking as shaken and breathless as I feel. I’m looking around for a pool chair or someplace comfortable enough to turn this party horizontal, but he’s thinking something different.
“Okay,” he gasps, holding up a hand. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Red light,” he says, swimming backward, away from me. “For tonight.”
“Red light? After all that?” I cock my head at him, my brain blurry from the cocktail of hormones racing through me.
“Allthat”—he waves a finger through the air in my general direction—“was more than enough to—” He stops and runs a wet hand over his face. “It was more than enough. Trust me.”
I’m legitimately confused for a second.
“I don’t know about you, Mallory, but that… You know, I’m not a monk; I have had hookups before, but they don’t usually feel like that. Again, I don’t know about you.” He seems a little embarrassed to be admitting this. But I know what he means.
“No,” I agree. “They don’t usually feel like that.”
“So. You might have been right.”
“Right? That we shouldn’t have?” I deflate at this.
“Maybe.” He gives a nervous laugh. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now.”
“Me neither,” I say. “Except I wish we had a towel.”
With an unspoken agreement not to touch each other again, wesprawl out on pool chairs and spend the next hour and a half talking as the balmy night air dries us off.
When we finally say good night, I have to admit to myself that the talking might not have been such a great idea, either. If he hadn’t suggested going home, since it was past one in the morning, I could’ve kept talking to him all night long.
Chapter 27
So, that happened. And I don’t know how to feel about it. On the one hand, I am basically floating on cloud nine. On the other hand, I’m slightly mortified by the way Daniel pulled back, and I feel like an idiot for getting carried away. Saying goodbye to Gramps and the beach and Pebble Cottage will be hard enough… did I have to go and add an extra layer of emotional complexity to it all?
I can’t help replaying every moment again and again, from the moment in the driveway when we found ourselves alone, to the feverish groping in the pool. I replay it all while I’m sitting in planning meetings, while I’m stirring a pot of soup, while I’m walking on the beach at night after my workday is over and Gramps is asleep. As I walk, I catch up on the latest episode ofElementary, but I haven’t been paying attention for the last few minutes (my mind got snagged on the memory of the look on Daniel’s face when he said, “Red light”). But something the podcast hosts are talking about catches my attention. One of them is moving to another city soon for a new job, and she’s saying that she created a bucket list of things to do before she moves. Touristy things that she never got around to doing in her own city.
And suddenly I’m counting the days I have left. Only eleven. Eleven days before I have to go back to Seattle—home to a place that doesn’t even feel like home right now.
Staring out at the dark water—so dark I can only tell where the gulf begins by where the bank of purple clouds on the horizon ends—I realize there are so many things I still want to do. Not only do I need to finish the floors and walls at Pebble Cottage, I need to soak up every minute of life here. Because I don’t know when I’ll be back. Once I go home, my job here will be done: The cottage will be rented out, and Gramps will be in a better place than he was when I found him. And once I’m home, there will be no beach walks, no Jacuzzi, no mermaid bar, no dinners with Gramps. No cottage. No Daniel.
Before I know what I’m doing, I stand up and strip off my jogging shorts, tank top, sports bra, and underwear. I leave them in a pile on the sand with my phone and earbuds on top, and then I jog out into the dark waves. Naked.
I’m not a naked person. Even when I’m changing in front of my sister, or in a gym locker room, I always cover myself with a towel. But right now, swimming naked in the Gulf of Mexico under a thin wafer of moon just seems like the right thing to do. I swim out to the sandbar, reveling in the feel of the silky salt water on my skin. Until I step on a slippery stingray that swims away before I can scream. Maybe next time I’ll try morning swimming. Sunrise swimming, even. I’m pretty sure sharks come out at night.
The next morning, I hear Gramps bustling around pouring himself cereal—but only after he scoops some food into Wally’s bowl—and I’m instantly awake. Like, freakishly awake given that it’s before sixA.M.
“Morning,” I say, stepping into the kitchen as I slip on a cardigan.
“Ah!” Gramps nearly drops the carton of milk. I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. “What are you doing up?”
I shrug. “Seizing the day.”
