Page 9 of The Spirit of Love

Chapter Five

Listen. you can hear it rise.

The voice swells in my dreams, coaxing me from deep sleep. Where am I? How did I get between these silky sheets? Did that storm, that hike, those eyes—did any of that really happen?

I’m still tired, and these sheets are delicious, but a guilty feeling spreads like a storm cloud in my stomach, and I’m not sure why.

I roll onto my side, stretching diagonally, arms over my head.

When my fingers curl around his bedpost, the guilty cloud shifts into a shiver that dives between my legs.

I decide not to imagine him sleeping here. But does he take off his shirt before he climbs in? Does he sleep on his side, his stomach, or his back? Edie says you can tell by the creases in a person’s face. But Sam’s face is so smooth, maybe he sleeps hanging from the rafters like a bat.

How much heat comes off his skin when he’s dreaming? What other women have lain here? Why is it so easy to imagine Sam’s face between a woman’s legs, his shoulders flexing as she writhes?

A green tendril of jealousy curls around my chest, which makes me roll my eyes. I cannot be jealous of imaginary women having twenty orgasms in a row on a random stranger’s face.

But is he a random stranger?

Yes. Although he may not have felt like one last night, he is. I know next to nothing about this man, which means I can’t do what my body’s begging for.

I sit up in bed—God, this bed—and pull back the homemade curtain covering the small loft window. Daylight avalanches into the room.

I check the analog clock on the dresser by the bed. Holy hell, it’s almost noon.

I pad toward the wooden ladder leading down from the loft. I try not to notice that Sam’s bedroom is enchanting—clean and spare and sparkling—but I do:

A book of New York Times crossword puzzles and tortoise-shell reading glasses on a glass tray by the bed.

A mahogany box on the dresser, left open so I can see the corner of his driver’s license—a pornographically good picture, along with a set of keys and a wind-up watch with a leather strap.

Behind the box, a framed Polaroid of what must be little boy Sam. He looks around five years old, and he sits in a forest on a fallen tree, between his stunning mother and a father he’s grown up to look like.

Descending the ladder, the smell of burnt toast finds me. I don’t see Sam in the main room, only charred bread slices on the top of the trash. It makes me smile to imagine him burning them. Toast isn’t one of his two dishes. This scorched breakfast is evidence of his honesty.

And evidence that I’m in trouble, gazing into the trash with a goofy smile on my face. I can’t be seen like this. I can’t be like this.

I move to the bathroom, where I find my dried clothes, folded—yes, horror, even my paisley thong, tactfully tucked into the pocket of my cutoffs.

I put my clothes back on, fold his, and use the spare toothbrush again. I like his toothpaste. I like knowing what he tastes like when he goes to bed.

Through the window that looks onto the back porch where we’d listened to the dawn, I see him, and the man is doing one-armed pull-ups—shirtless—on a metal bar. His body glides, outside gravity, muscles flexing.

I wish I weren’t eight years older with a skepticism that makes me feel warm and wise in Venice but uselessly cold on Catalina. I wish I didn’t have a new career to launch, an industry to dominate.

I wish he’d asked me to stay.

But because life is what it is, I scrawl the following note:

Sam,

Had to run. Heaps of zombie work to do today. Thank you for the S I’m old enough to handle that.

Then what? That I don’t know his mother’s name or what he’s allergic to?

That his cabin and his lifestyle and his body and his kindness late last night felt too appealing?

I recall the adage “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” I disagree. That at any moment, life might become too good to be true is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

So then…what’s my problem? What am I waiting for?

The decision makes itself. I grab what I can of my things, stuff my tent inside the beach’s trash can, and then, for the second time this morning, I take off running.

I run up the rocky path, past the place where the taxi dropped me off, past the fork in the road, past the trees and clumps of cacti I’m starting to memorize.

I slow to a walk when I near the cabin. I need to catch my breath, still my heart, and gather myself as much as I can.

I hear a male voice up ahead. I can’t make out the words, but then—

“Ragweed, Sarah…yes.”

When he rounds a corner in the path, Sam breaks off talking and we both jump at the sight of each other.

“Fenny!” His brown eyes light up like a small town on the Fourth of July.

“Sam.” I look past him. “Were you…talking to someone?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Yes. Myself. I mean…the idea of you.”

“The idea of me? I thought you said ‘Sarah—’?”

“Well.” He clears his throat. “I was brainstorming. Ways to convince you to spend the day with me.”

“Will Sarah be there?”

He glares playfully at me. “Probably not. What are you doing here? Did you leave something at the cabin—or were you on your way to convince me to spend the day with you?”

I bite my lower lip, knowing he’s got me.

“Do you like me, Fenny?”

“Are you in the fourth grade?”

“That’s an honest question from a grown man, even though I think I know the answer.”

“I’m considering trying it out.”

“Try again.”

“I don’t know…”

“What’s so hard for you about saying how you feel?”

I take a step toward Sam. He takes my hand, and we both stare at it for a while. He swings it. Slowly, I use it to pull him toward me. He lifts his other hand to tip my face toward his.

“I never do this,” I say.

“That’s okay.” His lips hover right above mine.

“I need you to know that I’m not a fling person.”

“Message received. But also, I’m getting a strong intuition that you could be an amazing fling person.”

“No.” I drape my hands around his tall, strong neck. “I like to plan and research and cross-examine and—”

“In that case, Dripping Springs.”

I blink. “What?”

“You wanted to know last night. That’s where I’m from, a little town in Texas.

My mom’s side goes back four generations there.

Thirty-two, that’s how many hours I have yet to log in my Search and Rescue training, even though”—and here he winks at me—“you and I both know I’m qualified to handle anything. ”

“TBD on that,” I warn, but I’m smiling.

He smiles back. “I like dogs, but I love birds.”

“You love birds?”

“Birds are wonders, but don’t distract me, because I’ve got this memorized in order. Ragweed, I’m allergic. I take Zyrtec in the spring. My favorite movie is Fearless or anything starring Jeff Bridges.”

“Respect.”

“And Sarah—”

“That’s your mother’s name.”

“That’s my mother’s name.” He nods. “And about the last thing you asked me on the porch.”

“The afterlife,” I remember. Don’t fail this one, please.

Sam scratches his head. “I can’t say I’ve thought about it much before. My world is quiet by design. But since last night, I’ve been feeling…I don’t know. Like there’s more out there that I want to see. Like you. So. Do you want to spend the day with me now?”

I squeeze his hand and grin. “I do.”