“Jo?” I call.
She emerges from the bedroom, brushing her teeth. “Huh?”
“When you’re done there, throw on some clothes.”
“Where’re we going?” she asks, around the toothbrush.
I smirk, blow a kiss to her. “And spoil the surprise? Not telling.”
“Should I dress up?”
“Nope.”
I grin at the excitement radiating off of her. Seeing her looking better puts my heart at ease—maybe it’s only temporary, but I’ll take it.
She’s got verve, and energy, and joy—and it’s infectious.
A few minutes later, there’s a honk out front.
“Who’s that?” Jo asks, stuffing her feet into a pair of sandals.
“Our ride.” I put my phone and wallet and keys into my pockets and offer her my arm. “Our chariot awaits, my lady.”
She slides her hand around my arm and curtsies. “Thank you, kind sir.”
Outside, a blacked-out Rolls Royce. Jen wasn’t messing around, clearly. Jolene’s eyes go wide, recognizing the logo. I just grin. “This is just phase one, babe.”
Inside, buttery soft leather, classical music playing softly, champagne, the works.
“A real limo,” she breathes, eyes wide as she takes in the interior. “You really went all out.”
“Full disclosure, and giving credit where it’s due: I told Jen what I wanted, and she made it happen. Perks of employing the most kick-ass manager ever.”
“No kidding,” she says. “You should probably give her a raise or a bonus or something.”
“Planning on it,” I laugh. “And like I said, this is just the ride to the first part of the day.”
“You called me babe,” she says, grinning and leaning into me.
“You okay with that?”
She nods. “More than okay.”
“What if I called you something like…like sugar dumpling?”
She snorts. “I mean, if that’s what’s meaningful to you, sure.”
“Teasing.”
“I know.” A grin. “My sweet duckling.”
I pull a face. “Yeah, no.”
The “shopping experience,” as Jen referred to it, is a curated selection of gowns for Jo, with accessories and shoes and everything, all in a private room in a nondescript tower in the middle of downtown LA. There’s a handful of tuxedo options for me, with a tailor on hand to customize them to my measurements, and whichever dress Jolene chooses. While our selections are being tailored, there’s a catered rooftop lunch. I wasn’t allowed to see what Jo chose, and apparently the plan is to change right before dinner, after the helicopter ride.
After lunch, the limo takes us, and the garment bags containing our outfits, to a private airfield outside LA. A small, sleek helicopter is waiting, and the day is calm and clear.
When Jolene emerges from the limo and sees the helicopter, she squeals and claps her hands, and then launches at me. “You remembered!”
“You think I’d forget? As if.”
She kisses my jaw. “Best ever.”
“It’s barely gotten started,” I say, laughing. “But I’ll take the kisses.”
Her kisses are soft and light, peppering up my jawline and back down. “Yeah? You’ll accept the kisses?”
“Mmmhmmm.”
Her lips find mine. “And this?”
“I’ll definitely accept that.”
Her hands slide up my chest. “I really missed you, you know.” Her breath is sweet, her lips soft. “I know it was hard for you to be away. But just…it made it easier for me to know that…that you’re not sacrificing everything you’ve worked for to get to where you are now, for me.”
She touches my lips to forestall my protest.
“I know you would,” she says. “And you wouldn’t complain when the consequences come due. And Wes, I appreciate that more than I know how to say. But I can’t let you, for several reasons. One, it’s not going to do any good. There’s nothing anyone can do for me. You blowing off the role of a lifetime isn’t going to add days or weeks to my life. I know that sounds harsh or whatever, but it’s the truth. Two, it really does help me focus on conserving my mental, physical, and emotional energy into feeling better if I know you’re okay. If I know you’re doing the things that you need to be doing. Which is not sitting at my bedside while I sleep, or holding my hair back while I throw up. As much as your presence comforts me—and it does, I promise on my soul—what comforts me more is knowing you’re going to have a future and be successful after this is all over. Three, and this one is harder for me to say—you’re not…accustomed to my bad days. Seeing me like that is new to you. You suffer through them. Not that my mom doesn’t—she does, she feels it every bit as much as she did the first time I got sick. But for you, it’s new and it’s fresh and it’s horrible. And I don’t want to cause you pain. There’s enough pain in this world, Wes. Too much. I don’t want you to see me like that. Not because I’m embarrassed or I don’t think you can handle it or because I’m trying to preserve the mystery in our relationship or anything. But because when I feel better, I want to see the light and the life and the joy and the energy and the zest for life that is so much a part of what I…” she pauses, swallows, keeps going, “what I’m falling for, about you. And every time you sit with me while I’m sick, some of that light dies a little. And I need that light. It comforts me. It gives me strength to get through the next bout.”
A long, slow, deep silence.
“Do you understand?” she asks, her voice a rough whisper.
I nod. Swallow hard. “Yeah, Jo. I understand.”
“So.” She brushes my lips with both of her thumbs. “I need you to make me one tiny little promise.”
I pull her against me, hold her waist. “And that would be what?”
She blinks hard. Swallows. “After…after I…”
I shake my head, and it’s my turn to shush her with my finger over her lips. “Nope, nope, nope. We’re not going there, we’re not talking about after anything. Absolutely not. I will make no promises, and we’re not discussing it. We’re going to enjoy today. This moment. You’re here, you’re okay, you’re alive and we’re together and we’re going to have an amazing, magical, romantic day together.”
“But Wes—” she protests.
“No!” I snap, my voice a harsher growl than I’d intended. “We are not having that conversation.”
She nods. Eyes closed, breathing in deeply, slowly. “Okay—okay. Yeah, you’re right.”
I pull her close and sigh. “I’m sorry. That was—that came out harsher than I intended.”
She nuzzles against my chest. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“So, what we’re going to do now is, you’re going to kiss me and we’re going to put all that shit out of our minds. All that matters is you and me, and this day. That’s it. So, Jolene Park, kiss me like you mean it.”
Her lips curve in a smile and she lifts up on her toes and nuzzles my lips with hers, teasing, toying, touching. And then…our mouths fuse, and it’s not me kissing her or her kissing me, but a mutual meeting, desire matching desire. I give her my breath, take her tongue. Her fingers bury in my hair and clutch me, fierce and strong, and her body presses against mine and I feel her desperation, her hunger, her need, her intensity.
How long do we kiss there, like that? An eternity? Mere moments?
Not long enough.
I could kiss her forever, never stop, never need to breathe or pause or move, only her, only this kiss.
Alas, it ends, eventually.
We pull away at the same time, and our eyes open, and she’s smiling, glowing, lit by the late afternoon sun.
I lift her into the helicopter, and fasten the five-point harness, teasing and flirting with touches, “accidentally” brushing her inner thighs and her breasts more than is strictly necessary.
She bites her lip and sits still for it.
I give her a headset and help her a
djust it, then buckle myself in and fit my own headset on. Give the pilot the thumbs-up.
A few minutes of preflight checklist and the engine warming up and the rotors getting up to speed, and she’s gripping my hand and watching everything at once—or trying to.
Her grin is ear to ear.
Joy radiates from her. It’s infectious, pushing warmth into me from skin inward, like sunlight melting through my flesh and heating my bones and filling my veins with light—this is Jolene: joy, life, and light.
I take mental snapshots of her smile as we lift off.
Memorize the excited glee in her laughter as she peers out the window at the ground now hundreds and then thousands of feet down as we tilt forward and pick up speed.
I burn into my soul the feel of her hand in mine, fingers twined. Her eyes lit up like the sun on the rippling green sea. Jade and grass and leaves, sunlit—the color of her eyes.
Skin: pale cream dappled with freckles.
Her hair: Copper and sunset red.
All of her: beautiful. Alive. Vital, and pure.
This One Magical Day
Jolene
The landscape whips beneath us in a blur of greenery and rolling hills and forests and seascape. We follow the shoreline north until wide beaches give way to towering cliff faces, against which the sea throws itself with white-spraying violence.
We fly north for over an hour.
Eventually, we slow and the nose flares up and we settle gently to the earth. We’re at an airfield…sort of. It’s not an airport by any measure of the term. There’s a handful of half-barrel hangars lining a long strip of close-shorn grass, with pylons marking distance and outlining the landing strip. And…that’s it. The sea is in the distance, visible only as that subtle shift in the skyline, a sense of the earth falling away from the sky. The rotors slow and the roar of the engine mutes and fades, and the pilot exits and opens the passenger door. Wes hops down and then his hands grasp me by the waist and he lifts me down easily, setting me on my feet and brushing his lips against mine, almost accidentally.
There’s no one here, just our helicopter, and the pilot, who heads without a word or backward glance for one of the hangars.
I glance at Wes. “Now what?”
He just grins and doesn’t answer.
After a moment, the answer is made clear: an enormous horse trots into view, pulling a carriage. The horse is absolutely mammoth, even from a distance. It’s mostly black, with a few splotches of white on its flanks; its feet from the hocks down are booted in a thick billowing mane of white hair as voluminous as its actual mane…which is, in a word, fabulous.
“Oh my god, that horse!” I gasp. “It’s incredible. Do you know what kind it is?”
Wes shrugs, laughing. “Nope, but we can ask.”
The carriage is ornate, white with a plush red leather interior. The driver is a burly middle-aged man with boulder-like shoulders and a shaggy brown beard, wearing a flat cap and, I swear to god, an actual briar pipe clenched in his teeth.
As he approaches Wes and me, he tugs one-handed on the reins. “Whoa, fella. Whoa.” The carriage halts precisely beside us, the opening aligned exactly in front of us; the driver tips his hat, pulling his pipe from his teeth with a brilliant, welcoming smile. “Evenin’, sir, madam.” He has a faint Irish accent. How perfect can this be? “My name is Michael, and this fine, fancy fella is Magnus.”
I’m in awe of the horse. He—and it is, very visibly, a he—is gargantuan. His shoulders are nearly at my head height, and he’s thick with muscle, broad and hard. His coat is silky and glistening, glossy black with those two splotches milky white on either flank and the white boots of thick fur at each hoof.
I glance at the driver. “What kind of horse is he? Can I pet him?”
The driver smiles at me kindly. “He’s a Gypsy Vanner, and of course you can. Just let him smell your hand, first. He’ll nuzzle you to tell you it’s all right after that.”
I shuffle closer to Magnus, and his big dark eye regards me sidelong. His head bobs, and he turns to look at me straight on. I extend my hand, palm out, and his wide nostrils flare, blowing hot breath on my hands. I smell hay on his breath. He bobs his head again and whickers, a low mutter. His nose is velvet against my hand when he nuzzles me, and I rub his nose, and then pet the white blaze running up between his perky, swiveling ears.
“There’s nothin’ he likes more than to have his ears scratched,” Michael says. “Unless it’s a carrot.” And with that, he reaches beside himself and tosses me a carrot.
I catch it and show it to Magnus. His thick lips curl back and he shows me huge flat whitish-yellow teeth, and I let him take the carrot from me—he snaps off half, and I keep the part I’m holding. He crunches noisily, and I scratch his ears while he chews. His eye is fixed on me, liquid and dark brown and wise and deep. He nudges me, lips wiggling as he snuffles my shirt and my cheek with whiskery lips, hunting for the rest of the carrot he knows I have. I give it to him, and it vanishes into his mouth with a loud snap and grinding crunches. I scratch his ears again, and he wiggles his head side to side, as if to get me to scratch higher and then lower, this way and that.
Michael drapes the reins across the footboard, descends and rounds the rear of the carriage. Wes climbs in first, and then Michael hands me up. There’s a thick wool blanket folded on the rear-facing bench, but it’s a warm evening, not too hot and not cool yet either. I cuddle in close to Wes as Michael settles back into the driver’s seat, clamps his pipe in his teeth and grabs the reins.
He taps them lightly against Magnus’s back with a grunted, “Giddyap, Magnus. There’s a boy.”
The huge horse lunges into a smooth trot, and we head toward the sea in a northwest line. A gull’s caw overhead, is answered in the distance. It’s early evening, now. The sun is plunging with subtle speed under the horizon, huge and red-orange and bright, staining the sea a scintillating barrage of colors.
This is happiness.
Wes’s arm is around me, and his heart thumps steadily against my ear. He’s solid and warm and comforting. I can hear the sea in the distance.
Michael twists in the seat and gestures with his pipe. “Mind if I have a puff?”
Wes just shrugs, giving the decision to me.
“Not at all,” I say. “Go ahead.”
He keeps the reins clutched in his fist, putting the pipe to his teeth. He hesitates as if to make sure I’m watching, glancing at me with a sly sideways grin, and produces a flaring spurt of flame from his fingertips in a neat bit of prestidigitation, and then with a hollow-cheeked suck, the flame bends toward the pipe, bursts upward as a plume of smoke wafts skyward, and then he puffs again and the flame once more bends toward the pipe bowl.
He rubs his fingertips together, and the flame vanishes; he puffs once, twice, and then blows a plume of grayish-blue smoke to the sky. There’s a gentle breeze blowing, and it pulls the smoke away, but I get a whiff—it’s sweet, and not unpleasant.
Magnus trots steadily northwest, and the sea grows closer and louder, and the gulls gather in ever greater numbers, white W shapes wheeling and dipping and flapping and cawing.
I lose track of time—or rather, I never really even started trying to keep track. The ride is smooth and lulling and the scenery beautiful, and I’m content and utterly happy to be fully in this moment.
“Whoa, Magnus. Ease up, there, boy-o. Whoa. Good boy.” Michael clamps the pipe in the corner of his jaws as the carriage rolls to a stop, comes around to hand me down to soft, knee-high grass, which ripples like the waves of the sea in the near-distance.
I can hear it, the soft susurrus of the sea, the waves crashing distant and restless and reckless against the rock, hundreds of feet below. Wes climbs down and wraps his hand around my waist, tucking me against his side.
We’re at a low, small cabin made of large boulders with a cedar shake roof. The windows glow yellow-orange. The door is deep, dark oak with wrought iron straps and a heavy handle. Wes g
oes right through, leading me into a low-ceilinged living room with exposed beam rafters, dark wood floors that are so old they almost seem soft, and a stone fireplace set for a fire but unlit. There’s a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Michael follows us in with our garment bags and lays them on the bed.
“Thank you, Michael,” he says.
Michael tips his hat with the hand clutching his smoke-trailing pipe. “My pleasure, Mr. Britton. I’ll return in the morning to bring you back to the airfield. Enjoy your evening.” He exits with a tip of his hat, closing the heavy door behind him.
“This whole thing feels…” I shrug, grinning. “Old world.”
“That’s the idea,” Wes says. “How Jen found it, I’ll never know. She’s magic, that woman.” He gestures at the bedroom. “You can dress in there, I’ll change out here.”
I smirk at him. “You don’t want to change together?”
He chuckles. “For this particular experience, no. I want to see you come out and be blown away by your beauty.”
I blush. “Can’t argue with that logic.”
He retrieves his garment bag, and I’m alone in the bedroom—it’s small and cozy, with wood-paneled walls and the same ancient, worn flooring as in the living room, and the exposed beam ceiling. There’s a fireplace here, using the same chimney. The bed is enormous, taking up most of the room, leaving just enough space for an armoire.
I unzip the bag and gingerly lay out the dress—a forest green gown a shade or two darker than my eyes. It’s got a gauzy, flowy skirt that bells out from my hips and swirls around my ankles, with a tight silk bodice and sleeveless heart-shaped neckline. Part of what thrilled me so much about the shopping experience was that the girl who helped me decide on the dress tactfully suggested this one, because it has built-in padding in the bust, as well as being cleverly cut to cushion and support. Translation: it makes it look like I actually have boobs. Which is thrilling in a way you just can’t understand, unless you understand. I slip into it, adjust and tug and smooth, and then regard myself in the floor-length mirror propped against one wall in the tiny bedroom.