He glances over at me. “Rings,” he says with a curious look hidden within his eyes.
“I have a ring,” I say, holding out my hand in case he somehow forgot about the one he bought me in Texas.
“That’s an engagement ring.”
“Yeah, but it’s enough.”
“Well, I need one, too,” he says. “Or did you forget about me? It takes two, y’know.”
I chuckle lightly as we make it to the short line at the register. “OK, you’re right, but I’m fine with the ring I have. Besides, I know you spent a lot of money on this necklace. You can’t be doing that.”
“Are we back to that already?” he asks playfully, pulling his wallet from his pocket. “I didn’t lie to you about what I paid for the necklace.”
Maybe he really is telling the truth.
“I believe you,” I finally say.
He smiles and leaves it at that.
Andrew
20
Yes, I’m a damn liar. That necklace cost a little over six hundred bucks, but I know better than to tell her that. She thinks that expensive things are always all about how many zeroes are behind the decimal, but it’s not always about that. Really, I think it’s usually the girl that makes it all about the price. Shit, I’ve seen chicks bitch and moan about how their guy didn’t spend enough. I wonder if they even realize that they make it hard on us when they get together with their friends and compare rocks like we might compare inches. We don’t really do that, by the way. At least, I’ve never known a guy who wanted to whip his shit out and compete with me.
I wanted to buy something really nice for Camryn for her birthday. It just so happens that the one thing I liked out of everything I looked at happened to be expensive.
Deal with it, baby.
She might faint if she ever finds out how much I spent on our wedding rings, which I bought while we were in Chicago. It’s been hard keeping Camryn from seeing them. But I managed to tuck the little box I keep them in, safely into a hidden compartment in my duffel bag.
We spend the entire day doing what we always do, hanging out together and making the most of the cold weather. When we arrive back at our hotel, I grab my guitar and play for her a song I wrote and have been working on for a week. I hoped to have it done by her birthday because it is part of her birthday present. I wrote it just for her. I call it “The Tulip on the Hill,” a song inspired by the first day we spent together when I got out of the hospital after my surgery:
“I just think you should take it easy,” Camryn said that day. “No burying your head underneath Billy Frank’s hoods for a while, or bungee jumping or drag-racing.”
I laughed lightly, letting my head fall to the side to see her. I was laying longways across the top of a stone picnic table. Camryn sat on the bench near my head.
“So your definition of taking it easy is to do absolutely nothing?” I asked, smiling at her with my head propped in my hands behind me.
“What’s wrong with a quiet day in the park?” she asked and reached out to trace my brow with her fingertips.
“Nothing,” I said and kissed her fingers when her hand made it to my mouth. “I like being alone with you.”
She tilted her head gently to one side and her expression softened. Then she looked out at the park. The trees were full, and the grass was thick and green. It really was a nice day. I wondered why we seemed like the only two outside enjoying it.
“I think tulips are pretty,” she said distantly, staring toward the small, grassy hill on the other side of me.
I looked, too, and saw a single tulip perched on the top of that hill, all alone. I’m not sure why, but ever since that day, whenever I see a tulip anywhere, I think of her.
I’ll never forget the smile on her face as I play and sing the song to her. It’s so warm and bright and endearing, the kind of smile that says I Love You More Than Anything In This World without having to say the words.
21
January 21—my twenty-sixth birthday
I’m having a sweet dream that involves me skydiving (for some odd reason, with actor Christopher Lee) and the sky is as blue as… well, the sky. Christopher Lee, with red goggles plastered over his eyes, gives me a thumbs-up just before the wind whisks him away into the blue ether. Then suddenly my heart stops, and I suck in a sharp, frigid breath. My eyes pop open to the real world. My body jerks upward from the bed so fast that my arm swings out beside me, and I hit the lamp mounted on the wall.
“Ho-ly-shit!” I yell out.
It takes me a second to realize what happened. Between seeing Camryn at the foot of the bed holding an ice bucket and me frantically tossing the cold, wet sheets to the side, I’m still trying to catch my breath.
Camryn cackles loudly. “Happy birthday, baby! Get up!”
I guess I deserved that after what I did to her on the morning of her birthday last month. But the devious little shit really got me good, much worse than I did her. I guess paybacks really are a bitch.
Unable to keep from smiling, I just go with it and slowly ease my naked ass off the bed. Already she’s got that uh-oh look on her face as she begins to back away from me and move toward the door. Knowing it’s her only way out, I watch as she gauges the situation.
“I’m sorry!” she says with a terrified smile, her hand bent behind her feeling her way for the door.
“Uh-huh, I’m sure you are, babe.”
I walk very slowly toward her, my hooded eyes watching her as if I’m a predator toying with its prey.
She cackles again. “Andrew! You better not!” She’s just two feet from the door now. But I take my time, letting her think she might actually make it that far, my grin deepening to the point that I know I must look like a sadistic madman by now.
Suddenly, Camryn squeals, unable to contain it any longer and dashes to the door thrusting it open. “Nooo! Please!” she yells and laughs at the same time as the door swings wide open, smashing into the wall. She runs out into the hallway.
When I come running out after her, the shocked look on her face and the hilarious fact that she actually stopped, is a dead giveaway that she didn’t expect me to go this far with no clothes.
“Oh my God! Andrew, no!” she screams out as she starts running full throttle down the length of the brightly lit hall.
I just keep on running after her, everything I have hanging in the breeze. That girl has a lot to learn if she actually thought I’d be too embarrassed to run out after her, butt naked and with shrinkage. I don’t care. She’s going to regret that bucket of ice.
We run past room 321 just as an elderly couple is stepping out. The man pulls his wide-eyed wife back as the crazy naked man zooms past.
“Oh dear God…,” I hear a voice far behind me say.
Finally, when Camryn makes it to the very end of the long hallway, she stops and faces me, her back arched over, both hands out in front of her as if to put up a shield. Tears are streaming from her eyes from laughing so hard.
“I give up! I give up! Oh my God, you’re naked!” She can’t stop laughing. I laugh too when I hear her snort once.
“You’re really in for it,” I say as I grab her and hoist her over my shoulder.
She doesn’t even try kicking and screaming and flailing this time. One, she still can’t stop laughing long enough to gain that kind of control over her body. And two, she knows better. I just hope she doesn’t pee on me.
I carry her all the way back down the hallway toward our room, and when we come to room 321 I say “Sorry you had to see that. You have a good day now” with a nod as I pass. The couple just stares, the husband shaking his head at me with a revolted look.
I close the door behind us and throw Camryn down on the bed amid the chunks of ice and freezing water. She’s still laughing.
I stand between her legs and take off her shorts and panties at the same time, staring down at her without muttering a word. I’m hard in seconds. Her playful mood shifts in an instant, and she bites down o
n her bottom lip, looking up at me with those sweetly seductive blue eyes that always bring out the primal in me.
Without any real warning, I lower myself on top of her and bury myself inside her.
“Are you really sorry?” I whisper, moving in and out of her slowly. My chest pressed hard against hers, our tattoos touching, Orpheus and Eurydice becoming whole again as we become one with each other.
“Yes…,” she says, the word shuddering from her lips.
I thrust inside of her a little deeper, pushing one of her thighs up with my hand.
Her eyelids become heavy and she tilts her head back.
I crush my mouth over hers, and her moans reverberate through my throat as I start to fuck her harder.
Then something inside of me grows dark, predatory. I climb onto the bed and grab both of her thighs, digging my fingers into her flesh as I drag her across the bed toward me so fast she doesn’t get a chance to move. Seizing both of her arms, I flip her body over and pin her wrists behind her back and force her on her knees. With my free hand, I touch the soft contours of her ass as it’s raised up in front of me, squeezing each cheek in my hand tight before I smack them so hard her body jerks forward. She whimpers. Then I press my hand against the back of her neck, pushing the side of her face harder against the mattress. I feel the heat coming off her flesh from where my hand has already left red marks.
She whimpers again, and I twist her wrists tighter in my hand. Reaching down with the other, I put two fingers in her mouth and hook her cheek with them while push my cock inside of her from behind.
She cries a little, her thighs beginning to shake, but I don’t stop. I know she really doesn’t want me to.
After I come and my heartbeat slows, I pull her naked body next to mine, her sweating head nestled in the crook of my arm. She kisses my chest and walks her index and middle fingers over my bicep and toward my mouth. I take her hand and kiss her fingers.
“I’m so glad that you’re you again,” she says softly.
“That I’m me?” I ask, and she tilts her head back so she can see my eyes. “Haven’t I always been?”
“No, not always.”
“When have I not been?” I’m truly confused, but I find her coyness over whatever she’s getting at adorable.
“After we lost Lily,” she says, and the playful smile that had been growing at my lips fades. “I don’t blame you for it, but after Lily you treated me like a porcelain doll, afraid you’d break me if you handled me too roughly.”
I squeeze my arm around her a little tighter and her cheek falls back against my chest.
“Well, I didn’t want to hurt you,” I say, brushing my thumb back and forth over her arm. “I still feel like that sometimes.”
“Well don’t,” she whispers and kisses my chest again. “Never hold back with me, Andrew. I always want you to be yourself.”
I grin and squeeze her arm again. “You know you’re giving me permission to ravage you whenever I want, right?”
“Yeah, I’m fully aware of that,” she says, and I hear a matching grin in her voice.
I kiss her on the top of her head and pull her over on top of me.
“Happy birthday,” she says again and slips her tongue into my mouth.
* * *
Thank God for Florida in the winter. After my very surprising—and satisfying, I might add—birthday this morning, Camryn and I spend the day practicing our new song. Well, it’s not technically ours, but to mix things up a bit we’ve adopted Stevie Nicks’s kickass hit “Edge of Seventeen.” Camryn is getting frustrated with the way the lyrics blend so fast into each other, but she’s determined to get it right. This is her song, the one she wants to sing on her own. That’s a huge step for her, because we’ve always done songs together.
And I admire her for it.
She looks so frustrated, but underneath it, all I see is my Camryn coming back to me more every day. Her soul seems lighter, the light in her eyes brighter, and every time she smiles it reminds me of when we first met.
“You can do this,” I say sitting on the windowsill with my electric guitar resting against my chest. “Don’t try so hard, baby, just own it.”
She sighs and throws her head back, plopping on the chair by the small round table next to me. “I know all the words, but I always get tripped up on those last few verses. I don’t know why.”
“I just told you,” I say. “You’re thinking about it too hard, because you start the song already expecting to mess up when you get to that part. Don’t think about it. Now try again.”
She takes another deep, aggravated breath and stands up.
We practice for another hour before we head to the nearest steak house for a late afternoon lunch.
“You’ll get it right. Don’t worry about it,” I say, as the waitress brings us our steaks.
“I know. It’s just frustrating.” She starts to cut her steak, knife in one hand, fork in the other.
“It took me a little while to get ‘Laugh, I Nearly Died’ down,” I say and bite a huge chunk of steak off the end of my fork. I chew a little bit and then say, with my mouth still full, “My next must-learn song is ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ by Bill Withers. I’ve always wanted to learn that song, and I think it’s about time I retire the Stones.
She seems surprised. She points her fork at me and swallows and says, “Oooh! Nice choice!”
“You know that song?” I’m a little surprised too, considering she wasn’t much of a classic rock or blues buff when we met.
She nods and takes a quick bite of mashed potatoes. “I love that song. My dad had it on a playlist he liked to listen to when he drove out of state on business. That Withers guy can sing.”
I let out a ripple of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, looking at me confused.
“You sounded so country just now.” I take a swig of my beer and laugh a little more, shaking my head.
“What? Sayin’ I sounded like a hick?” Her eyes are all wide, but her smile couldn’t be any more obvious.
“More like a country bumpkin. That Withers guy can sang! Oooh-weee!” I mock her, throwing my head back.
She laughs with me, though trying her damndest to hide her red face. “Well, I’m definitely with you on that,” she says, taking a swig of her own beer. She sets the glass back down on the table and adds, with narrowed eyes, “The song choice, not the country bumpkin thing.”
“Of course,” I say with a grin and finish up my steak.
The first steak we ever had together was just like she promised, a few days after I got out of the hospital after my surgery. And like that day and every steak she’s had since, she only manages to eat half. Just means more for me. When I see her give off signs of being so stuffed she’s getting nauseous, I reach across the table and slide her plate toward me.
She keeps glancing at her phone, and at one point she starts texting a reply to someone.
“Natalie on you again about coming home?”
“Yeah, she’s relentless.” She puts the phone away in her purse.
Camryn is a horrible liar. Horrible. She couldn’t lie to save her life, and right now, the way she keeps gazing off at the log-cabin-style wall, she’s definitely lying. I pick my teeth clean with a toothpick and study her.
“Are you ready to go?” I ask.
She smiles weakly at me, obviously hiding something, and then I notice the screen on her phone illuminate inside her purse. She checks the text message and suddenly she’s more eager to leave. Her smile gets bigger, and she stands up quickly from the table.
“Wait, I have to pay.” I wave the waitress over to us, and Camryn sits back down in the booth impatiently.
“Why so in a hurry all of a sudden?” I tease her as the waitress places the bill on the table, but before she walks away I pull my credit card from my wallet.
“No reason,” Camryn says.
I just grin. “OK,” I say and lean back against the seat, stretching my arms
over the top and making myself comfortable. It’s a ploy. The more comfortable that I look the more impatient she becomes.
Minutes later the waitress returns with my credit card and the receipt. I jot down her tip on the store receipt and very slowly get up, put on my coat, stretch my arms high in the air above me, fake-yawn—
“Dammit, will you hurry up!”
I knew she couldn’t stand it much longer. I laugh, grab her by the hand, and leave the restaurant.
When we make it back to the hotel, Camryn stops in the lobby, “You go ahead. I’ll be up in a second.”
It’s obvious she’s up to something, but it being my birthday I just play along with her game, kiss her cheek, and hop inside the elevator. But once I’m inside the room, I’m the one getting impatient.
I don’t have to wait long before she’s entering the room holding a new guitar.
I stand up the second I see it. “Wow…”
Her smile is sweet and tender, bashful even. It’s as though a tiny part of her is worried I won’t like it.
I walk straight over to her.
“Happy Birthday, Andrew,” she says, holding it out for me.
I place one hand around the neck, the other at the body and I admire it with the biggest smile. Sleek. Beautiful. Perfect. As I turn it around in my hands to check out the backside, I notice a line of silver cursive writing along the back of the neck that reads:
He drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek,
and made Hell grant what Love did seek.
A line from one of several stories told of Orpheus and Eurydice. I honestly don’t know what to say.
“Do you like it?”
I look up at her. “I love it. It’s perfect.”
She looks away from my eyes with a blush in her face. “Well, I don’t know anything about guitars. I hope it’s not a sucky brand or anything like that. The guy at the guitar shop helped me pick it out. Then I had to wait a few days to have the script put on it, which I never thought would happen because of this and that and—”