When We Believed in Mermaids(41)
He inclines his head, puzzling over me, then captures a lock of my hair and tucks it behind my ear. His mouth turns up on one side, activating that ridiculously charming dimple. “Now I am convinced that you have not known the right men.” He settles his beer on the ground, then takes mine. “I have been thinking today about kissing you.”
“I’ve thought of that too.”
One hand runs up my arm, and he follows the motion with his gaze. “I thought of it in the bookstore, when you looked so sad, but it was not quite right.” His hand moves over my shoulder, up to my neck. “And as we came out of the café, you smiled up at me, and your throat looked long and golden.” His fingers alight against my throat, slide to my clavicle. All the nerves in my body rustle to life, and yet I’m enjoying the slow caress.
“When you leaped over the railing, my heart squeezed so hard I could not breathe, because what if”—now he touches my ear, my temple, my wet hair, and pulls me closer—“what if I had lost the chance?”
I lift my face, and he cradles my head as our lips join. And then I forget to keep my guard up or shield myself with cynicism, because his mouth is as lush as plums, and he shifts slightly to fit us together more perfectly. My head is in his palm and the front of my knee against his thigh, and it’s like a fragrant smoke surrounds us, makes me dizzy. Behind my eyes, the world is faintly rose. I reach out a hand to brace myself, holding on to his upper arm, and as if I’ve asked permission, he opens his lips slightly and invites me in, and I go, I go, reach for his tongue and it reaches mine, and then I’m lost in it, a kiss so perfect it might be a poem, or a dance, or something I’ve dreamed.
With a little gasp I pull back, covering my mouth with my hand as I look up to his dark eyes, eyes that crinkle a little at the corners. He smooths back my hair from my forehead. “Is that happiness too?”
I let go of a soft laugh. “I don’t know. Let me try again.” And I pull him closer, lean back, and invite him to press into me as the ferry chugs across the water and the family nearby shrieks over raindrops that start to fall. I’m aware of a big drop that splashes on my forehead and a pair that plop on my hand, but mostly what I’m feeling is Javier’s mouth kissing me; and Javier’s body close to mine; and Javier’s graceful tongue, which I want on me everywhere; and Javier’s back, which I want naked.
And it doesn’t matter when there is more rain, a slow, soft patter that falls on us all the way to the CBD. We only press closer and kiss more. I taste the salt on his lips from the sea and the rain, and we’re soaked and kissing and lost.
And I don’t even think for a moment to consider this might be dangerous. That I might—that I have let down all my guards.
I just kiss him. In the rain. On a ferry halfway around the world. Kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him.
Chapter Twelve
Mari
I met Nan years ago in Raglan, a town on the central coast of the North Island known for great surfing. I was waiting tables in Hamilton and had only just begun to allow myself to surf again, fearful of running into someone I might know. Raglan was only a few miles away, and I drove out there on the weekdays, when the crowds were small and passionate, to ride the left-breaking waves.
By then it had been nearly two and a half years since I’d fled France on the passport of a dead girl, and I had since discarded that identity too, to become Mari Sanders from Tofino, British Columbia. I found a guy to make me the papers I needed and trashed the original passport, scattering it from Queenstown, where I first arrived, all the way north.
I had not had a single mind-altering substance, not so much as a mouthful of beer, in 812 days. It was the thing that made the rest worth it and the only thing I believed would save me: to be sober, I had to leave the wreck of my old life and make a new one. Never look back.
On the beach the first day, I met Nan. Tall, skinny, black-haired, she was a law student at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, and had grown up, as I had, surfing. We clicked, respectful of each other’s chops. Within months, we lived together in Hamilton and surfed every time we could manage. I worked in a café and enrolled at Wintec, the equivalent of community college. I started in cookery and hospitality, thinking of my family’s restaurant, but it was a hard-partying group, and I found myself struggling against the wave of their happy drunkenness.
I made friends with a woman in landscape design and construction and made the switch. Much to my surprise, it was a perfect fit. I liked working outside, loved working with my body, and once I started to understand the basics of horticulture with a range of plants I’d never seen, I fell in love.
Nan finished her law degree a year later and moved to Auckland, but I stayed in Hamilton, surfing Raglan on the weekends, making a life for myself. We kept in touch, and when Simon, an Auckland native, wooed me north, our friendship took up where it had left off. Once or twice a month now, we meet for dinner near her law offices in the CBD and catch up.
Tonight I find parking almost immediately and walk down to the Britomart and our special restaurant, an Italian one that reminds us both of childhood. Nan stands in front, sleek and skinny, her hair swept up in a French knot that suits her cheekbones. “They’re having a special event,” she says. “We’ll have to go elsewhere.”
“No worries. Any preference?”
“Mind walking a few blocks? There’s a Spanish guitarist at the tapas place. Everyone is talking about him.”