To See You (25 page)

It was a lullaby about warm, sticky nights and twisted sheets and hearts.

Our fingers weave together, gripping palms and fingernails, the sheets twisted around our legs, our souls tangled in one another. I can’t ever let go, my heart would shrivel and die, the sheets would evaporate with the world around me
. . . the singer crooned.

“That’s for my next project. It’s an epic love story. The book sold millions of copies and now it’s a movie. This is for the scene where they break up. You know, before they get their happy ending.”

“It’s . . . wow . . . it takes my breath away. Play it again.”

He did and we kissed, his hands holding my face tight to his, cupping my cheeks as he made love to my mouth.

And then it was time to go to the airport.

I felt like the sheet was pulled out from under me. My heart shriveled like a prune, just like the song said.

Long kisses and hurried moments—that’s how we spent April and May. Layton came to me next and then I went back to him, both of us delaying going to the airport until the last final second.

This long-distance romance was both all-consuming and freeing. I couldn’t stop thinking of Layton, yet I’d never felt better about myself. It wasn’t only him, although he was the one who got me thinking . . . the man behind my life change. He didn’t even know it, but he was.

Seated in 2D, he’d altered the course of my life, pushed over the first domino until all the other tiles fell, and I was writing. Really doing it, and happy. Blissfully at peace.

Except I missed Layton. His scent, touch, and rich laugh were all I was hungry for . . . and ice cream. I was eating it daily, and I didn’t care. It was all part of the new me—Charli v. 2.0.

Oh, a small piece of me belonged to Harriette. That dog, she actually made me want to go to California. Her floppy ears, fur everywhere, and sweet eyes (much like her owner), the way she padded around after me, laid at the foot of the bed or the threshold to the bathroom. She was woven into my heart.

Janie was shocked, and I didn’t care. My best friend rode it out, accepting all my new nuances. She couldn’t help but notice my happiness. I was like a unicorn these days—shooting out rainbows and sparkly stars, that was me.

Me!

In June, Layton and I took a few days off and had a staycation in New York. I locked up my apartment and we checked into Layton’s hotel, the one he stayed at when he visited the city.

“Let’s paint this place with a better memory than you rushing out on me,” he whispered in my ear as we crossed the threshold to a suite.

The air outside was humid and the city quiet while everyone escaped to the Hamptons. We didn’t care.

Holed up inside our small bubble, Layton played a playlist from his iPod while we lazed in bed, leaving only to take a run or eat. The restaurants weren’t crowded and we lingered at the table, laughing and talking. Mostly staring into each other’s eyes and holding hands.

On our last night, we escaped to an Italian bistro and shared a bottle of red and a plate of pasta. Tucked in next to each other in a booth, we didn’t even bother with two forks.

“Remember when we had sushi but we didn’t share a plate? This is better,” Layton said as he pulled me in tight.

He kissed my ear, his breath garlicky from the food and grapey from the wine. I grabbed his cheek and kissed his lips. A closed-mouth kiss, soft and tender, trying to say what I wanted.

Don’t go. Stay
.

How could I ask that?

I couldn’t.

The questions loomed. Where was this going? When would it end? Who would be more brokenhearted?

Me.

I tangled my ankle with his, my small flip-flop resting against his Chuck. I ran my hand down his flat-front shorts to his bare knee, and I got goose bumps. I wanted to run my fingers under the shorts, along his thigh, and up higher, higher.

“This has been magical,” I said instead of asking questions.

“It has.” His hand rounded my hair, pushing it behind my ear.

“Perfection, one hundred percent.”

I pushed a strand of hair away from his eye. He’d let his hair go even longer at my request, and tugging on it had become one of my favorite pastimes.

“Let’s get out of here.”

He tossed money on the table and we walked back to the hotel, stopping to share an ice cream cone. Lick for lick, we passed the treat back and forth, my tongue running over where his had been.

“Who knew ice cream was so sensual?” I asked, the tip of my tongue lingering on the coolness.

“Oh?”

Layton cocked his eyebrow. Then he stopped on the sidewalk in the middle of Columbus Circle and grabbed the cone for his turn, dabbing it on my lips before licking it off, taking his time with my mouth.

I closed my eyes and imagined a lifetime of this. How did we get there? How did that happen?

It couldn’t.

“You’re so beautiful, Charleston.” He tossed the cone in a garbage and kissed me in earnest. “So damn gorgeous, inside and out,” his lips uttered against mine.

I couldn’t respond for fear of what kind of crazy proclamations would come spilling out of my mouth. I kissed him back.

“Get a room,” a person shouted as they walked by, knocking us out of our tiny world.

“We have one,” Layton yelled back, and we laughed as we made our way to the hotel and up in the elevator, falling straight into bed when we got to our room.

He kissed down my neck, biting, sucking, nibbling, and tasting, and I wanted him to feast on me forever.

I love you
.

Clothes came off, thrown on the floor, and we were naked, skin to skin, taking and giving. He slid down my body, his tongue taking its time. He lapped my belly-button, ran the tip along where my thigh met my groin, teasing me.

And then he was loving me where I so desperately wanted. My hips reached and he took. Took me there and higher as he brought me to orgasm.

When I wanted to return the favor, he wouldn’t let me, pushing his way deep inside my core and riding me to an even higher climax. I had to bite my tongue to keep from waking the entire hotel, and to stop myself from yelling
I love you, forever and ever
.

What the hell were we doing?

I
n July, I was back to the West Coast for two days, nowhere near enough time, never enough.

What would be enough? How could we measure the adequacy of our time together when we still didn’t know what we were? The situation was bordering on lunacy.

We were two broken people, trying to find our way with blinders on because someone was destined to be even more broken when we were done.

One weekend a month, alternating locations, swallowing as much of each other’s air as we could in forty-eight to sixty-four hours wasn’t even close to enough.

Janie poked fun at our situation, but I knew she was happy for me. We’d worked out and were chatting over coffee one Sunday, both of us stirring our foam into our lattes.

“Janie, I need you to support me in this. I need you because I don’t have anyone else,” I said matter-of-factly as she took my hand and squeezed our palms together. “I know this wasn’t what you wanted for me, but it feels right to me, and you know my mom is so messed up.”

“It’s probably with both your dad and grandma gone, she’s even more focused on you. But I do love you and if this makes you happy, I support you.”

She gave my hand another squeeze and leaned over the table and kissed me on the cheek. My affectionate Janie couldn’t spend a second without kissing someone.

“Plus, you look so good recently,” she said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had ass fat injected into your cheeks. You’re always smiling and look perkier, and your face doesn’t look all sunken in.”

“That’s the muffins I eat at the coffee shop,” I said with a laugh. “Not ass fat.”

“Well, you should work for those muffin people because they look good on you.”

I shook my head. She was crazy at moments, but the closest thing I had to a sister or confidante.

August turned into a bigger challenge. Layton was working around the clock on three movies and also traveling to Colorado to meet with a smaller studio. I was on deadline for my first book, my editor champing at the bit for my words.

Layton and I met for one glorious night in Arizona. We both flew there Saturday morning and I took the red-eye home on Sunday. Layton took the midnight flight home to Los Angeles. In between, we crawled into bed, ordered room service, and had coffee on our balcony—which was the only time we spent outside the room.

He left a love bite on my thigh and we giggled like teenagers about hickeys.

We watched a bootleg of a movie he worked on, releasing later in the month. He fed me strawberries dipped in champagne in bed. I read him the prologue of my latest work in progress. He made love to me, softly and slowly late Sunday afternoon before we headed to the airport.

I cried on the way home. It was the first time I’d cried. The melancholy surrounding our separating deepened each time I said good-bye. This time, it actually caused physical pain. My chest burned as much as my thighs ached.

But we still hadn’t said
I love you
.

There were lots of
I’m falling for you
s and
I miss you
s and
I care so much for you
s. No mentions of love. I knew I did love him, as sure as my tear fell onto the tray of my coach seat.

On my flight home, I reminisced about the first time we met. Layton had been almost invisible to me back then.

Since then, everything had changed. I didn’t fly first class anymore. Janie took a step back from managing my love life. I was writing, and eating muffins.

And Layton was now my everything.

The next month, my mom’s name popped up on my iPhone as soon as I packed up my stuff at the coffee shop. I thought about screening it, but she’d just call again.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hey, Charli. What’s new? Are you still
just
writing?” Her disdain traveled all the way from another state, through the phone and deep into my soul.

“Yes, Mom. I am. That’s what I want to do.”

It was still sort of nice out, breezy, the sun was beginning to set, so I decided to walk a bit. I connected my earbuds and stuck them in while only half listening to her.