“I’d like to stay,” he said. “But there’s something about… Something might happen to me. I just need to let you know something.” He put his face into a hand, laughing. “I’m sorry, Mel, I’m not good at talking about this.”
Melanie handed him a head of broccoli. “Rinse this off, please. And cut it in florets. You can talk and be busy. Sometimes it helps if you’re a little distracted.”
It did help. Occupied with this little bit of business, he did his best to sketch out a coherent, generalized story of what transpired in therapy. Then he braced himself to be politely shown the door.
“So,” Melanie said, “what I hear you saying is one minute she had the proverbial hand down your pants in the lighting booth. And the next minute it was Armageddon.”
He nodded, rinsing broccoli bits off the blade of the knife and setting it in the sink. “Something like that.”
Melanie wiped her hands off and poured herself another glass of wine. “You know, I’m no shrink, but if one minute you’re making out with your girlfriend and sporting wood and feeling good and dying to get her back in bed. And the next minute the place erupts in gunfire, a man blows his head off in front of you and your girlfriend is all but bleeding to death… I don’t know, baby, I think my mind would keep all those things tied together for a real long time. Wouldn’t surprise me if you two were messed up afterward to the point where you couldn’t make much love.”
A humbling gratitude took him by the throat. He thought he would cry from the sheer sweetness of being understood. “We couldn’t. I mean we could, but it was just…messed up.”
“And you were so young. God.” Melanie scraped the garlic, golden-brown and fragrant, into a small bowl, then took the skillet and spatula over to the sink. “So what made you guys break up eventually?” She flicked the faucet on. Clouds of steam wafted up and fogged the window.
“I found her in bed with one of my closest friends.”
Melanie shut off the water and looked over her shoulder at him. She reached down the counter to her block of knives, selected one, considered it then solemnly offered it to him.
Erik burst out laughing. Her expression was so dry, so perfectly ironic and beautifully timed, and he began to love her.
She put the knife back into the block. “I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna feed your ass,” she said. “And then I’ll either take you back to your car tonight, or I’ll take you back to it in the morning. You decide.”
“All right.”
“And if you stay and those wolves of yours end up coming, well you know what? I got a baseball bat and a whole lot of Valium. So bring it.”
He reached for her then, pulled her into him. Her neck was damp with steam, her hands redolent of garlic, her body’s lush, soft curves warm against him. “Thanks for taking care of me,” he said.
She leaned back in the circle of his arms. “I had a good time last night,” she said. “It was one of the best dates I’ve ever been on. And frankly, you should give a seminar on kissing.”
Erik smiled at the floor, a pleased heat rising up into his face.
“I’m glad I could be here for you tonight. I’m touched you shared all this with me. And I hope you’ll stay.”
“I’m thinking I might.”
She rested her hand on his jaw. “So much blood. So much pain, baby, and you were so young. I’m sorry.”
Her thumb ran along his cheekbone. Then it glided across his lips. He closed his teeth on it, gently, but held it there. The moment swelled in electric silence as he felt something in him unwind, uncoil. A gate opened and desire coursed through his body, bright, hot, purposeful. He took her head in his hands, brought his mouth to hers. She reached around his waist and with a definitive twist, turned off the burners of the stove.
She took his hand, led him back into the bedroom. They kissed, hungry, peeling each other’s clothes off with shaking hands. The night sat up and begged, ravenous. He was alive. He hadn’t died. Sons and daughters had died today but he was alive, down on his knees, naked, running his mouth over Melanie’s stomach, curling his fingertips into the waistband of her underwear.