Page 121 of Perfect
I think she’s trying to take care of me again, and it’s the best I’ve slept in a long time.
The next morning, I wake up early to find a naked, mostly asleep Alex halfway on top of me with my thigh between hers, her hips moving the tiniest bit. I roll her carefully onto her back, touching her until she’s wet enough that I can push into her. She wakes up to me fucking her, humming with delight as she wraps herself around me. Once she’s fully awake, I fuck her hard the way she likes, loving her screams and the way she begs me formore. I leave her lying on the bed with that dreamy smile she gets after sex and go upstairs to make breakfast, relieved that things feel back on track.
She comes into the kitchen in my sweater and nothing else, her hair fucked up and her thighs still messy with me, and I’m finally calm as she smiles up at me before pulling me down into a long, sweet kiss.
Thisis what I wanted.
I tell her we have plans all day, starting right after breakfast, and she says she needs two hours for her own plans, which she won’t tell me anything about.
In return for not asking any questions, she lets me give heronegift.
***
“What is this place?”
“You’ll see.” I help Alex down the slick rocks, grateful she’s wearing the nice hiking boots I bought her for this exact purpose and not the canvas sneakers she brought with her.
We finally get onto the flat part of the rocks and start ambling across them, Alex taking her time peering into tide pools and pointing out starfish. I watch her, feeling more relaxed. This is how I wanted this trip to go. She smiles up at me from the edge of a tide pool, and she looks so picture-perfect that I wish I could fill my phone with photos of her.
I can’t, not while she’s still worried about Danny, but I’ll fix that problem for her soon enough.
“Honey, we need to time this right. Can you follow me?” I reach my hand down to her, and we pick our way across the rocks, headed for Thor’s Well. I know the best time to see it is at high tide, but that’s a more dangerous time to navigate the rocks,so I get her there just before the tide starts coming in so she can watch it change.
There’s a burst of water ahead, and she looks at it, confused and excited. It’s fun to see this from her eyes, and I pull her closer to the collapsed sea cave as a wave crests over the rocks. She watches with wide eyes as a bigger wave rolls in, the water covering the rocks before it pours down into the cave mouth, making it briefly look like there’s a sinkhole in the ocean. A minute later, a large wave hits the inside of the cave exactly right, and the water bursts up through the hole like a geyser.
Alex isdelighted, taking photos with her phone and watching with an amazed smile, seeming to enjoy it most when the water creates the illusion of a hole in the ocean. I lead her closer, but she gets nervous about getting too close. I keep going, stopping a few feet from the cave opening and looking down at the churning water, waiting. I see the right wave come in and step back quickly, watching the water surge into the air, and I laugh as the water sprays my face.
When I grin over at Alex, she’s putting her phone away with a shy smile.
We walk around the perimeter, and I keep my eyes on the waves and the water level gathering on the rocks so Alex can enjoy it. We stay until the water on the rocks starts getting too high, then I lead her away, watching her feet for her so she can peruse the tide pools. Alex is nearly giddy, chatting animatedly about rock formations and tidepools, googling Thor’s Well and reading up on it as we return to the car.
We navigate down the coast, and Alex slips her hand into mine almost absently as she changes the radio dial from news to Christmas music, and something in me unwinds a bit.
She makes me pull off into a large store down the coast and tells me to wait in the car and to give her as long as she needs, and she seems excited as she hurries into the store. She left herphone in the car, so I open it, looking through her photos. There are mostly scenic photos of the coast or Portland, a few of Miles and Bailey, some of Anna and Jessica, and now a handful ofme.
She’s never taken a photo of me before, and my chest loosens entirely.
There’s a few of me looking at tide pools, a photo where I’m looking down into the cave, another where I’m laughing at the water shooting upwards, and yet another where I’m looking over at Alex with a stupid smile.
I put her phone down and sigh in relief. She’s been more adjusted lately, butthisis different. She wants these reminders of me, of the time we’re spending together, and they’re proof of me as an established part of her life. I have worked so fucking hard to make this relationship work because I knew we were connected, and I fucked it up over and over again, but I finally fixed it.
We’refinallyon the same page now.
When I see Alex coming out of the store with a cart full of bags, I get out to help her put them in the trunk, but she points her finger at me, her expression stern.
“No! Stay in the car. You can’t see anything!” I grin and do what she says.
I keep asking her teasing questions about the bags, trying to guess what’s inside, and she keeps deflecting, trailing off in the middle of sentences as she looks out at the water. I forget she’s never been this far down the coast, so I drive slowly and stay quiet, letting her enjoy the fog drifting off the grey, frothy ocean and into the evergreens that jut up out of the cliffs. She slips her hand into mine again, and we drive like that, quiet, with slightly staticky Christmas music playing softly in the car.
I glance over at her any time I can, and she mostly looks happy, but occasionally she looks contemplative, and once she seems downright sad. She’s probably thinking about herparents, or about her asshole ex who ruined every possible holiday for her in some way or another. We’re going to have to spend years building up new traditions and getting her to like holidays again.
Years. I smile at the thought.
We stop for lunch at a crab shack in Bandon, and Alex is thrilled. She cracks open the legs with efficient, practiced movements. She eschews the melted butter completely, just pops the tender crab in her mouth, her lips closing around her fingers and sucking quickly before she cracks open more of the leg. I have to remind myself to eat, remind myself that I love this place, that I haven’t been here in ten years, but everything is obscured by the fact that Alex is here with me, happy and enjoying herself, stealing one of my crab legs since she doesn’t seem to like the body meat as much.
“You’re lucky I like you,” I tease as she pulls another one of my legs to her plate.
“More like the other way around,” she mutters, smiling up at me. I stare down at my food for a second, overwhelmed by the impulse to tell her I love her.
