I Have Lost My Way(50)

Freya carries a stack of dishes into the kitchen. She means to share her concerns about Harun with Nathaniel, but when he comes to stand next to her at the sink, their hips touching, she’s back in the park, behind the chain-link fence, holding the Louisville Slugger, Nathaniel so close to her she can feel every part of him, and her mind is a blank slate onto which she’s writing loopy hearts.

“Hey” is all she can think to say, looking at his reflection in the window over the sink.

“Hey,” Nathaniel says back to her reflection.

They rinse off the plates and stack them in the dishwasher. One of the bowls slips out of Freya’s hand, and Nathaniel catches it.

“Saved me again,” Freya says. “You’ve been doing that all day, it seems.”

“And so have you.”

“You seem to forget I fell on you.”

“I didn’t forget. I’m glad you fell on me.”

“You said that before. Do you enjoy concussions?”

“No.”

“So why would you be glad I fell on you?”

“Because it saved me.”

“Saved you? From what?”

Nathaniel stops washing dishes, and even though he’s staring at Freya’s reflection, she can feel his gaze boring into her. The cord connecting them tugs tighter so there’s no space left between them.

“From my plan B,” Nathaniel says.

“What was your plan B?” Freya asks, her voice strangled in an entirely different way than it’s been these past few weeks.

But Nathaniel doesn’t answer. Halima appears with a new stack of plates. “You guys are making me look bad,” she grumbles.

“What was your plan B?” Freya asks again after Halima leaves.

Nathaniel closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m on to my plan C.”

“Being a hospice nurse?”

“Maybe,” Nathaniel replies, looking at her dead-on. “Or maybe this.”

And then he kisses her.



* * *



— — —

His mouth on her mouth. Her breath in his lungs. Nathaniel can breathe.

His fingers twining her hair. Her fingers clutching his hips. Nathaniel can feel.

His tongue against her neck. Her lips against his throat. Nathaniel can taste.

His groan in her ear. Her sigh in his ear. Nathaniel can hear.

His eyes open. Her eyes open. Nathaniel can see.

As Nathaniel kisses Freya and Freya kisses Nathaniel, every part of him that he thought was dead, that he thought no longer deserved to exist, comes roaring back.

One kiss. Nathaniel is alive.



* * *



— — —

“Are you guys almost done with the dishes?” Halima asks.

Nathaniel and Freya spring apart.

“Uhh,” Halima says, coloring, stuttering. “My father wants to make a speech. So maybe . . .”

She looks back and forth between them, her gaze skittering here and there until it lands on Nathaniel, whose Louisville Slugger has returned with a vengeance.

Halima scurries out, looking at anything but them.



* * *



— — —

They start to laugh.

“I guess we should go back in there,” Freya says, but she’s not sure she can. Her desire may not be as billboard-obvious as Nathaniel’s, but it is literally making her weak in the knees. “I need a moment.”



* * *



— — —

Nathaniel needs more than a moment. He needs all the moments. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Upstairs, I think.”

He kisses her once more. More of a peck this time, hitting the side of her grinning mouth. As he retreats, his desire threatens to explode out of his skin.

“To be continued,” Freya calls after him. “Later.”

Climbing the stairs is painful, but it’s the good kind of painful. The alive kind of painful. The plan C kind of painful.

Later. He hadn’t considered the possibility.



* * *



— — —

Freya returns to the table, floating, melting, thinking the kinds of thoughts she ought not be thinking at Harun’s family’s dinner table.

“Where’s Nathaniel?” someone asks her.

“He’ll be right down,” Freya replies, and the anticipation of his return makes her feel giddy.

“Dad, we gotta work in the morning,” Saif says.

“Go on,” Harun’s mother urges. “We still have dessert.”

“Fine, fine.” His father looks at Harun, who is looking down at the table. “Beta, tomorrow you leave for the land of your family, to partake in a rite of heritage, and in doing so, you will enlarge our family yet again. Inshallah.”

A chorus of Inshallahs echoes around the table. Harun’s mother dabs at her eyes with a napkin.

“And maybe our family will expand again,” Harun’s mother says. “The table can always be set for more.”

Upstairs, the floor creaks. Soon Nathaniel will come back down. He will smile at Freya. The dessert will be eaten, the dishes cleared. And then . . .