Funny Feelings (72)

I see the side of his brow twitch, an unsure look passing across it. He curls his neck up as much as the angle allows and searches my face.

When he notes the tears in my eyes he flips around and sits up, gathers me to his lap before he snatches the hand that still holds its sign. He presses it to his lips.

“I love you, Meyer. I think I knew I was going to love you from that first day I watched you stomp in puddles with a gaggle of seven year old girls. I love you for the man you are, the father you are, and the friend you’ve been to me. I was so lonely before I found you guys, too.”

His own eyes grow misty and he presses his own sign into my chest.

“I love you, too, Fee.”





31





NOW





MEYER


Our hotel room looks like a deserted island that we’ve been marooned on. Two days later a sheet hangs draped from the corner of the tv, across the desk and a nearby chair. A makeshift shelter littered with discarded clothes and towels underneath, washed up from rounds of crashing into each other.

I think I threw the sheet during a particularly enthusiastic tumble, when we got tangled and twisted up in it until we fell off the bed, finishing on the floor as soon as I freed us from the obstruction. I’m pretty sure that’s also when I earned the little rug burn souvenirs that adorn my knees, come to think of it.

Sometimes I feel desperate. Like each satiated moment makes the next one feel more urgent. Like if I don’t get inside her again and tell her, press my lips between her delicate shoulder blades with her hair wrapped snuggly around my fist, she might slip through my fingers. I think it must be the same for her, too. Like yesterday, when we left for the gym and made it ten minutes working out across from each other in the tiny hotel exercise room before we bolted back upstairs. Or later that afternoon when she came back from doing yoga on her own—having learned our lesson as far as that’s concerned. I couldn’t stop myself from tidying up a bit while she was gone; made the bed, showered. Sat down with a book that I got lost in until she walked through the door, tossed her key on the dresser and planted a hand on her hip.

“This is going to be a problem for us, My,” she’d declared, sounding exasperated.

I looked around the room in a mild panic. Was she irritated at me for tidying? Annoyed that I was sitting naked on the chair? I had showered… “What?”

“I was unaware that you wore glasses,” she said, and I moved to take them off with a laugh, assuming she was about to give me shit for my age. “No,” she shook her head slowly, eyes heating. “Keep them on.” And then she peeled off every stitch of her clothes before she strutted my way, my clean-up work undone soon after.

I make the bed again now while Fee gets ready for dinner, but don’t bother with the sheet this time. It weirdly embellishes the room and makes it feel more homey, I decide.

I spy on her reflection in the mirrored closet doors while she bops around the bathroom. She spins herself up in her hair dryer cord precariously while she sings along to some happy tune playing through the speaker, smiling to herself.

“Hey My!” she calls out. “I was looking at the tour schedule and Hazel’s off track again when we’re in Florida! I was thinking we could bring her to Universal and Disneyworld!”

An oily feeling slicks through my gut, but I call back. “Yeah!”

She flicks off the hairdryer and pops her head into the hallway. “What? I couldn’t hear,” she asks, smiling.

“I said yeah. I’d love that. She will, too.”

“Okay, good.”

“Good,” I smile, but it feels wooden. And then, “Fee?” Her head tilts back out again, chin resting on the door frame. “I love you.”

Her returning smile beams. It’s my own ray of god damn sunshine, burning through me. We’re not in each others arms, we’re just exchanging small words in a nondescript hotel room in a nondescript city. And I’ve probably told her I love her a hundred times in the last two days, but by the way she looks at me you’d think it was the first time all over again. “I love you, too.”

She goes back to getting ready, and I dive inward and start contemplating. I know I need to talk to her about the tour, about not being her manager going forward. What started as a choice I thought I’d need to make for my own self preservation has turned into something else entirely, though.

I don’t know how to explain to her that she’s inspired me to want to fall back in love with my career. That I’ve realized that the only thing I really love about managing her is… her.

That I’m already so protective of this thing we’ve got. That I don’t want to put any potential strain on it with working together. Because I don’t ever want to resent it.

I groan inwardly at the idea, disgusted that I can’t just be. That I feel I have to put every protection in place from the jump.

But, after the events of the other night, when I wasn’t there for her… I think—I think that all it would do right now is hurt her.

She’s already working through everything that happened, has continued to talk with me openly about how she feels she abandoned herself a bit—not with that joke, but by singling out that woman and being harsh.

Her confidence is shaken, but not lost. And mentioning the tour and making plans is another good sign that she’s going to be fine. I think bringing this up now would only throw another unexpected hurtle at her and the last thing I want to do is make any damn thing more difficult for her in any way.