“Do you?”
I shook my head as Freddy opened the car door for me. He drove back to Avalon with his arm around my shoulders, my hand holding his as it rested just above my breast.
Freddy parked around the corner where he always did. I hadn’t interacted with any neighbors yet, but I didn’t need anyone telling Ada that Freddy’s car was in the driveway. We walked hand in hand down the sidewalk, my stomach aflutter as we neared the house.
He kissed me at the top of the porch steps, his right arm tight around my waist, his left hand wrapped in my hair. Then he stopped. “Well,” he said, his lips so close to mine that I could feel his breath. “This is where I leave you.”
I knew I shouldn’t say it. I had promised Ada. I had already broken my promise by seeing him at all, but I didn’t have to break it further. But every fiber of my being strained against what I knew was right. And in the end, I couldn’t stop myself.
“Or . . .”
“Or . . . ?” Freddy asked, his eyes twinkling merrily.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke, our breathing ragged with the fire of what we felt. “You could—maybe—come in—for a couple minutes . . .”
He pulled back and searched my face in the dim porchlight. “Are you sure?”
I bit my bottom lip, his eyes trained on my mouth, then nodded ever so slightly.
Freddy smiled, but it was sad this time. “Be more sure than that first,” he said, kissing me lightly. “I called off work tomorrow. We can spend all day together.” Then he turned to leave.
But before he got to the first step, I grabbed his arm and pulled him back to me. “Come in,” I said, much stronger this time.
“You’re sure?”
“Stop asking me that or you’re not invited anymore.”
Freddy laughed and made a bowing gesture. “After you.”
I opened the door and—
Sally came barreling in from the living room, yapping her head off at the intruder. “Sally, hush,” I said. But she hid behind me, baring her teeth and growling at Freddy.
“Sally?” Freddy asked. “Are you sure it’s not a nickname for Satan?”
“Ada says she’s a wonderful judge of character, but she normally hates me.”
“Apparently she prefers you to me,” he said as he leaned in to kiss the side of my neck. “I can’t say that I blame her.”
“She can sense a rake a mile away.”
He was still kissing my neck, pausing only to answer me, his breath hot at my collarbone. “Reformed rake. You’re making an honest man of me.”
“You’re not going to show up with a ring tomorrow, are you?”
Freddy took my left hand, kissing the fourth finger where a ring would go. “I will if you want me to.” Then he wrapped his arms around me, Sally still growling by my feet. “I meant what I said, Marilyn. I’m yours. I’m not leaving unless you tell me to.”
“And if I tell you to?”
“You’ll break my heart.” He leaned down, kissing along my neck, from my earlobe to the hollow where it met my shoulder, then down to my breastbone, just above where the lace of my dress started.
“Then stay,” I whispered, taking his hand and leading him toward the stairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“What time is it?” Freddy asked drowsily. We had dozed in and out, our bodies entwined in the bed, fitted together like pieces of a puzzle.
“I don’t care,” I said, nestling in deeper to the crook of his arm.
He chuckled and shifted slightly, reaching over my head for the alarm clock on the nightstand, its radium dial glowing green in the darkness. “Do you want to go watch the sun rise over the ocean?”
I sat up. I did. I wanted to watch the day dawn over the new world I was living in. “Let’s go!”
Freddy laughed as I jumped out of bed, then I winced slightly at the soreness in my thighs. “You might want some clothes,” he said. “Although I’ll never object to none.”
I leaned over the bed, kissing him lazily, as if we had all the time in the world instead of just a few days. He started to pull me back to him, but I resisted. “Shouldn’t have mentioned the sunrise if you didn’t want to go,” I murmured. “Come on.”
Freddy heaved himself out of the bed, and pulled on his pants and then his undershirt as I stepped into a pair of underwear and put my beach caftan on over them.
He looked at me, silhouetted in the light from the hall. “What are you waiting for?”
“Just memorizing how you look right now.”
“You mean a mess?” I pushed my curls back.
“Perfectly you,” he said, coming and kissing my forehead. “Let’s go.”
I grabbed the beach towel that had been hanging on the porch railing to dry, and we ran down the steps together, then climbed the path over the dune in the gray darkness.
The beach was empty and the air chilly. I should have been self-conscious in just the sheer fabric of my coverup, but after the previous night, I couldn’t imagine ever feeling shy around Freddy again.
He spread the towel just above the line where the wet sand indicated that the tide was going out, then sat and held a hand out to me to sit next to him.
Freddy wrapped his arm around me, and we watched the horizon for a pinprick of light. But his lips soon found my neck, and my breathing hitched as they slipped lower, his fingers reaching up to unbutton the caftan. Before I knew it, he had shifted us and was laying me down on the towel, while I reached for the button on his trousers.
I turned my head as our bodies found their rhythm, catching sight of the first beam of sun peeking over the water, and I called Freddy’s name. “Look,” I said.
“I’m looking at something much more beautiful.”
But after, as Freddy buttoned his pants and reached down to fasten my caftan, he shook his head. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
I looked at him suspiciously. Here it was. “No?”
“No, no, no, don’t look at me like that. I meant without . . .” He trailed off.
I could feel my face flushing, and I bit my lip as his meaning became clear. “Oh.”
“It was just the one time,” he said. “I’m sure it will be fine. And if it’s not, well, we’ll just move our timeline up.”
I made a wry face. “You do know that you haven’t asked me, and I haven’t said yes.”
“And I don’t intend to—yet. I’m just saying you don’t have to worry about me.”
Leaning into him as the sun separated from the ocean, I turned my face toward his. “I’m not.”
He kissed my hair, and we sat together contentedly for a long time.
Eventually, Freddy went home for a shower, fresh clothes, and a nap. He would return in the afternoon, after Frannie had finished checking on me, promising another fun outing. “I don’t care what we do,” I protested. “I’m happy to just lie on the beach with you.”
He grinned lasciviously.
“I don’t mean like that!”
“I’m crushed. But I still want to take you out.”