Purple Hearts(30)

Luke sat on the bed, unlacing his boots.

The bed. Bed, singular. There was nothing in our agreement about having to share a comforter. “Why the hell did you get a queen bed?” I asked.

He untucked his button-down and I felt my body getting hot with embarrassment, and a strange pang like lust, which I hated.

“Frankie said that’s all they had available,” he muttered.

“Oh, I’m sure.” I took off the Walmart ring and flung it on the table next to a telephone from 1992, finally able to feel my finger.

He kicked off his boots. “Yes, I’m the one who did everything wrong. Blame me.”

I slipped off my Converses and socks, switched off the lamp, and got under the covers. He slipped in next to me. It was strange to feel his weight, his breath on the back of my neck.

After a moment, Luke said, “Everything was going fine until you had to be a . . . fuckin’ . . . social justice warrior.”

“I’m not a social justice warrior.” I kicked off my jeans, trying to keep the comforter in place. “I’m a sane human who got scared to be around, like, violent chanting.”

He said nothing. I could feel him forming an opinion. “You’re not the only one who’s in this, you know.”

He sat up behind me, leaning on his arm. “It’s not the same, Cassie.”

“How is it not the same?” Silence. My palms turned clammy from sweat, heart thumping. “Tell me exactly how it’s different. If we’re caught, we’re both in trouble.”

He swallowed. “You’re going to be safe at home.”

I turned to face him. “I wouldn’t call diabetes safe. And that’s not an answer.”

He sat up, bare chested. “Can I get any respect from you?”

I sat up with him. His eyes went to my bare legs. I didn’t care. “Talking about killing motherfucking A-rabs? I think you and I have a different definition of respect.”

“I didn’t say those things,” he said slowly, emphasizing each syllable, moving his face closer to mine.

I imitated him. “But you let them happen.”

“There’s a culture, Cassie. I’m the one going overseas with these people.” Then he muttered, “And you get to stay at home and reap the benefits. So a thank-you would be nice.”

Okay. Enough. I took his face in my hands. “Oh, Luke, thank you, man.”

“Stop,” he said. He pushed my hands away.

I clapped my hands together in fake prayer. “For all that you do for everyone. Thank you so much.”

He was quiet. The skin of his chest and stomach glowed from the motel neon. I realized that when he was still, like he was yesterday, like he was now, I could see him well enough to appreciate how beautiful he was. How easy it was to forget everything in the dark and light of his eyes playing, the line of his nose falling straight to the center of sad lips. Much simpler than whatever it was we were arguing about, much easier than remembering that we were stuck in this, no matter who won the fight.

Before all our words could rush back, I kissed him hard on the mouth. I expected him to push me away.

But he didn’t. A current traveled from my lips to elsewhere, alighting my skin. When I stopped, I saw the rarest hint of a smile. It was unlike any expression I’d ever seen Luke make. “What the hell was that?”

I looked at his lips again. “I don’t know.”

This time, he kissed me.

While our mouths were still connected, I pushed him until he was lying flat, opening my mouth to his, placing my hand on his stomach.

He grabbed my leg and pulled me across until I was on top of him. His skin smelled like Frankie’s house, like expensive soap, like the cool, dark basement where they did the laundry.

He grabbed me and I let him, but when his hands started to move down my sides and onto my hips, I pulled them off and pressed them above his head. We locked eyes again. His muscles tensed under my weight. Between my legs, I could feel the flesh of his stomach get harder. He could flip me like a pancake if he wanted to.

But he didn’t move.

“You like this, don’t you?” I heard myself say.

He raised his eyebrows. “And you don’t?”

I let go of his hands. His tongue met my tongue. I tasted tap water and salt, felt his solid arms, moved my hands across his chest, down his stomach. While we kissed, the line his fingers made on my thighs reached the cloth of my bikini cuts. I curled my finger around the elastic, and felt his fingers follow mine.

I scooted back inch by inch until we could both see the brass button on his Levi’s, his zipper.

His right hand made a slow path up my shirt to my left breast, scooping under the fabric of my bra, stroking my nipple with his rough thumb.

“Fuck it,” one of us said.

He went to unbutton his shirt while I yanked on the waistband of his pants. When I looked up I found Luke sitting, pulling me to his lap, his mouth on mine, unable to wait. With his back against the headboard, I lifted my hips to meet his, and though we both knew what was coming, our eyes met, amazed.





Luke


I woke up to nothing, which was more jarring than waking up to a sound. My brain just snapped on, like an old refrigerator sputtering to life in the middle of the night. My arms were around Cassie, her thick, black hair loose all over my chest, under my chin, her hand resting on my stomach. The hours after we left Chili’s snaked across the dark ceiling; the compressed silence of the car, losing my temper, and then on the bed, her eyes on mine as she pushed my hands above my head into the scratchy motel comforter.