I’ve got coffee percolating for Ian and water boiling for my tea and, as I add the last bunch of strawberries to the fruit salad I’m making, I realize that I’m happy. I’m not content, I’m not not happy, I’m not pleased or comfortable or any of the other words that kind of sort of mean happy. I’m actually happy. No, I’m fucking ecstatic and that…that is something I can’t remember ever feeling before in my entire adult life.
The knowledge threatens to bring me to my knees in a way that the bruises never did.
I grab on to the counter, suck in some breaths through my nose and blow them out slowly through my mouth. I might even give myself permission to cry a little, except that Ian chooses that moment to walk into the kitchen.
He’s pulled his dress pants back on, but the top clasp is undone and I get an eyeful of his V-cut as he makes his way slowly toward me. His eyes are on me, too, and I can tell he’s cataloging all the damage he can see—which isn’t much, thankfully, due to the robe I picked out earlier.
But still he stops a few feet from me, as if he’s nervous about facing me. Or as if he’s asking permission to touch me. It’s a ridiculous idea considering everything we did to each other in that bed last night, and I’m determined to break through his reticence whether he’s ready for me to or not.
It helps that the universe seems to be on the same page as I am, considering the playlist shifts over to Ed’s “Thinking Out Loud” at the same moment I reach over and flip off the stove. I leave the last of the pancakes in the bottom of the pan to stay warm, and then I grab on to Ian and make him dance with me right in the middle of the kitchen.
It’s no ballroom dance like in the video, but he goes with it and it’s fun and sexy and exactly what we both need to break the tension on the first morning after we’ve actually managed to spend together.
The song comes to an end too soon, but I don’t feel so bad about it when Ian lowers me into a huge dip. I shriek a little, clutch onto his shoulders, then smack him playfully as he laughs at me. But the clouds are gone from his eyes and that’s all I can ask for really. It’s more than I was expecting when I got my first glimpse of his eyes this morning, so dark and resolute.
“The coffee’s ready,” I tell him as he brings me slowly back to center. “Why don’t you grab yourself a cup while I dish everything up.”
He makes a noncommittal noise, but then does what I say, depositing his coffee on the counter before grabbing the kettle off the stove and pouring me a cup of Irish breakfast tea.
Does the man miss nothing, I wonder, as I slide a plate full of pancakes onto the breakfast bar that doubles as a kitchen table. I’m not complaining, obviously, because tea, but geez. How am I supposed to keep up with a guy who remembers not only that I drink tea, but how I drink it, after only seeing me with it twice in the last five days.
“Sit down.” I gesture to one of the barstools as I grab the bowl of fruit salad, but he cozies up to my back instead. He wraps his arms around my waist, nuzzles kisses into my neck. And though I’m fully aware that he’s doing this at least partly because he wants to check out how bad my bruises are, I don’t actually care. Because he’s holding me and he’s happy—we’re both happy—and after everything we got through last night, that alone feels like a celebration.
We talk about everything and nothing over breakfast, politics and music and art and philosophy. At one point Ian launches a whole campaign to convince me that waffles are better than pancakes, but considering he’s eaten seven pancakes so far, I’m having a hard time taking his arguments seriously.
When breakfast is over and the dishwasher is loaded—with Ian’s help—we grab another cup of coffee/tea respectively and make our way out to the patio. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the sky is a gorgeous blue instead of the more typical smog gray, and the ocean is glistening invitingly.
For a second I think about talking Ian into taking a swim, but I recognize it for what it is. An avoidance technique. Because there are things I need to tell him, things that will affect our relationship and that I have no desire to try to hide from him. Not when he’s been so brutally, brutally honest with me. And not when I want so desperately to actually give this relationship thing a try.
And so I gesture for him to sit down in one of the patio loungers that is angled to look out over the ocean. Once he does, I settle in between his knees, my back pressed snug to his front so that we’re both looking out over the waves as they crash, strong and infinite, against the shore.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping I could borrow a little of their strength for this last big talk we have to get through.