Page 12 of The Fall

Six

The air is velvet-soft as we step into Florida’s night, the sky dazzlingly full of stars as the cicadas thrum their low nocturne in the trees.

Blair settles his hand on the small of my back as we walk to his truck.

It’s a beast of a vehicle. Even with my fragmented memories, an image forms—remembered?

Imagined?—of Blair behind the wheel, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on my thigh, his gaze fixed on the road.

What did we talk about? What music did we listen to?

He opens the passenger door for me and waits for me to climb inside. Again, it’s unexpected: Blair Callahan, destroyer of the rink, terror of the ice, a true gentleman.

The truck shuts out the world, narrowing it to him and me.

I brush my fingers against his hand, and he curls his through mine, linking us.

I have no memories of the first time Blair took my hand, but the fit is right.

I’m desperate for these tiny moments of familiarity, for the times when my body knows what my mind can’t.

“Thank you.” My voice is soft in the hush of the truck. “For tonight. For everything.”

He squeezes my hand. “Always,” he says. “I’m always here for you.”

He means it. I feel it deep in my marrow.

I can’t look away from him. The way the streetlights curve around his shoulders, the moonlight drifting on the edge of his jaw.

Everything carries meaning; there are layers to him, to us, that I don’t see yet.

He traces the pad of his thumb over my knuckles and the creases of my skin, leaving sparks in its wake.

We drift to a stop at a red light, and his lips whisper against my knuckles. He locks his gaze on mine, and in this brief, weightless fraction of forever, there is only him. There is only this.

I don’t trust myself to speak. He kisses my knuckles again, longer this time, before he turns my hand over and drops his lips to my palm.

The light changes, and the truck moves forward. The line between where I end and Blair begins dissolves.

The ride home is not long enough. I’m not ready to give up this quiet and our pocket of stillness. But, the journey slips away, second by imperceptible second, until we’re pulling into the driveway, headlights casting shadows across the front of our home.

Blair kills the engine. He turns to me. His face is soft in the moonlight, his eyes dark and deep.

I lean across the center console and kiss him, slow at first, then rougher when his tongue sweeps against mine and he pushes into me.

I lose myself in the kiss, in the way Blair’s lips slide against mine, the way he cradles the back of my head.

I close my eyes as he works his fingers through my hair.

This careful tending, this quiet care: this is love in its purest form.

He moves his mouth to my neck, and I tip my head back, giving him access. His lips are warm, his stubble a gentle scrape against my skin. Everywhere he touches leaves me shaking.

He pulls back and brushes our noses together. My lips catch his, kiss him again. I cannot get enough.

Finally we make it inside.

The house is dark, and a soft glow drips out of our bedroom from the lava lamp glowing on the corner of our dresser. How did I not see it before? It’s heinously gaudy: neon-blue blobs and plastic hockey players floating up and down.

This lamp is a memory. I remember the way the wax glows when it heats up, the way it breaks apart and forms new, impossible shapes.

I remember the soft, imperceptible hum of the bulb as it warms the liquid inside.

I don’t chase the feeling, though; I don’t try to force the memory.

I let it wash over me, another piece of the puzzle that is my life now.

Yesterday—to me—I was a loser, a has-been washout, and everyone saw me flaming out fast. Everything between then and now is a blur, and I might as well be an alien for all I know about myself and my life or about why seeing a lava lamp can turn me upside down.

And yet, and yet.

I’m bone-tired. The day, the emotional roller coaster of half-remembered moments, has left me raw. Routine takes over, and I slip into the bathroom. The door clicks shut behind me.

I’m alone with my thoughts.

A stranger looks back at me from inside the mirror, a man with my eyes.

He’s healthier. Stronger. His jaw is more defined, his shoulders broader.

There’s a strength there I don’t recognize, a confidence that doesn’t belong to me.

This is not the Torey Kendrick who walked off that Vancouver beach into the cold shadows of his failures yesterday.

The light casts a chiaroscuro of shadows across my face, a too-perfect metaphor. I lean closer. My eyes are wide, pupils dilated. I can see my pulse jumping.

I trace my finger along the contours of my reflection.

Maybe I can pull the person I used to be out of this glass.

I want the man who belongs here, not the failure.

I try to picture myself as a man who had it all figured out, a man who didn’t second-guess his every move.

If I squint, maybe the pieces of the life Blair and I share will come into focus.

Nerves steal back into me. My breath trembles, fogs the mirror. Can I do this?

Sharing a bed with Blair, being intimate with him—it’s uncharted territory. Territory that, logically, I’ve navigated before but to me, is still terrifyingly unknown.

I grip the edge of the sink, lean in.

“Remember,” I whisper, “this is Blair. Your Blair.”

I breathe, in and out, letting the air fill my lungs.

“You can do this. You’ve done this before,” I whisper again. “You’ve faced down tougher shit.”

Have I, though? It feels like a lie. The toughest shit I’ve ever faced is out there, waiting for me. Blair’s trust and his love, his body, all of it is so intimate, so unfathomable.

It takes all my courage to turn the knob and step back into the bedroom.

Blair’s waiting. He’s already in bed, shirtless. “Hey,” he says. “I have something for you.”

“Oh yeah?” The voice that comes out is barely mine. I’m imagining him lifting that blanket, revealing?—

Blair pats the empty space on the bed beside him and shifts onto his knees. He’s wearing pajama pants. “A massage. Lie down. Get comfortable.”

Holy shit.

I do as he says, stretching out on my stomach, my face turned to the side on his pillow. I’m shaking so hard I think I’ll fall apart.

The bed dips as Blair straddles my thighs. There’s the soft snick of a bottle cap, then a warm ribbon of oil runs down my back.

Blair sets his warm and slick hands against my shoulders. A small sound escapes me, half sigh, half moan. His hands are strong, but his touch is gentle, and when he works his thumbs into the tight muscles of my back, I let out a long, slow exhale.

“You’re so tense,” he whispers. “Let go. I’ve got you.”

I’m so tired of holding myself up. I dissolve into the rhythm of his fingers. Skin-to-skin, his palms on my back. His slow, careful touch unknots me, and I bury my face in his pillow to let myself enjoy him touching me. I’m adrift. Our breathing syncs, in and out.

The lava lamp glows, the plastic hockey players dancing in slow motion. The bubbles of light drift and shift, the shadows on the walls swaying like we’re under the ocean in another world.

Eyes heavy, breaths slow and steady. In this half-light, half-sleep, the scaffolding of my consciousness softens and blurs. Fragments of memory flutter at the margins of my mind. The two of us, tangled together beneath these same sheets. Laughing. Kissing. Moving together in the dark.

My breath catches. He makes slow circles with his thumbs, working into my muscles. The tightness begins to ease, knot by knot releasing. His hands dance between firm and gentle, and I float somewhere between past and present. He digs into a tight spot at my hips. I groan.

“Right there?”

“Yeah. Right there.”

He works me back to myself, one slow stroke at a time. I shudder out a breath, and my body follows, softening into the mattress. It’s overwhelming to have his hands on me this way, to know my body remembers him even when my mind can’t connect all the dots.

The bed—our bed—slowly stops being unfamiliar territory. I’m his, all his. Every inch of me is branded with the heat of him. I want to bottle this feeling, this intense, aching sense of belonging.

If I could sketch this moment, I would. I’d capture the way the lamplight paints his hands in gold, the curve of his shoulders cast against the light.

His capable hands, the steady calm he always brings.

I’d capture our bed, these soft sheets and the warm cocoon.

I’d scribble in his scent, the whisper of my contented heartbeat.

Remember this, I tell myself. Remember.

Let the whole world fall away. Let my memories spiral into the dark. Everything I’m missing is right here, with him. There’s nothing else I need.

My last thread of consciousness is tethered to Blair’s touch, to his lips on my shoulder as he kisses me, slowly, gently.

So this is what it feels like to be found.

Consciousness returns in blurry stages. I reach for Blair, my fingers tangling in cool, empty sheets.

He’s not here.

I crack open my eyes, squinting against the light that puddles through the ajar bathroom door. Steam slips through the gap.

My heart stumbles, caught between ache and anticipation.

Blair is in there.

I imagine it: water sluicing over his broad shoulders, down the swoop of his back, leading down to the curve of his ass. My mouth is dry.

It’s been a while, and never with a man. Well?—

God, this is too fucking confusing. My memories have skipped over the part where I apparently decided this—and decided him—was what I wanted.

The Blair I remember is a stranger. The Blair in that shower is my lover.

Loving him is muscle memory, but touching him.

.. It still feels like a line I’ve never dared to cross.

Do I dare?