She leans back, her head resting on the edge of the hot tub, and I look up too, wanting to see the same set of stars that she does.
"Do you believe in destiny?" she asks. "And fate? In the universe, in God, any of that stuff?"
"I believe in that stuff, sure," I tell her honestly. "After losing Beth, it helped me make more sense of the world. My family, we don't go to church on Sundays or anything like that, but I believe the world's bigger than me. That things don't have to end here on earth. Maybe that makes me sappy, or romantic, or a fool, but it makes the world seem a little less cruel. And after Plum's mom died, after all that, I didn't really want to live in a world that was all hard edges and cruel lines. I wanted something to believe in. I want Plum to have a world full of hope."
Meadow's head rests against my shoulder. "That's beautiful," she says.
"What about you?" I ask her. "What do you think?"
"I think that there are so many stars in that sky, and I hope that your daughter, Plum… I hope when she looks up at it, she feels her mom looking down at her."
I can feel Meadow smile against my skin and my chest fucking pounds at the beauty of the moment. Being here with a woman like her… "Fuck," I say, "you're making me a sentimental fool."
She pulls herself into my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I'm making a grown man cry?"
"I figure you are."
"What's going to happen tomorrow? Are we going to wake up and this will have all been make believe? Because if so, Reuben, I don't want this night to end. I want to stop time altogether. I want to have this moment last a lifetime."
The moment the words leave her lips, she presses her hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry. Maybe that is too..."
"No," I growl. "It's everything." I kiss her hard then with a need I've never felt before. I wrap my arms around her back, pulling her close to me. "I don't want to hurt you," I say, "but Meadow, I need you."
She whimpers. "Yes. I need you too." And I kiss her ear, her neck. I hold her tight. She lifts her ass and it's like her body knows my body, even though we've only begun to memorize each other. But it's like her soul is already imprinted in mine, and she gasps as she begins to be filled up by me. My hard, thick length belongs in one place and one place only, her.
She gasps, her head drops back, and her long neck makes me harder, thicker than I thought possible.
"God, you're beautiful," I gasp. Her breasts bob in the water. Her whole body is locked to mine. She sinks down on my cock, and I know the pressure must be intense because there are tears in her eyes when she looks at me. "I don't want to hurt you, baby."
"It's not pain. It's something more, something deeper. It's..." She lets out a sigh that's laced with love, and fuck, right then and there I know it’s true. I know it’s real.
“I love you,” I say. “I love you, Meadow.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t know me.”
“I know all I need to know. I love you.”
She gasps as I fill her up and she holds onto me so, so tight. “Reuben,” she says, “I love you too.”
It’s impossible, I think, to fall in love in the space of a day, but as I hold her, as we move as one, as she begs for more—to be brought to the edge and back—I know that the impossible is possible.
Just like there's life after death, there's love here in the woods for me. And I found her when she fell and somehow I got to be the guy to pick her back up and now I never want her to fall again.
I hold onto her tight, tight as I can. I won't let this girl go. "You're mine," I promise.
She gasps. "I'm yours," she repeats, and it's like we've made a promise, a vow signed, sealed, and delivered, our future set in the space of one damn day. I have no idea what's going to happen next. What people will think, what our families will say, how this is going to go with Plum.
Plum, I think. I set those thoughts aside as Meadow’s body is filled up by mine. We finish quickly because there was only one destination, one place we needed to go, and then I help her out of the hot tub, carrying her back into the house, to my bed. I lay towels on the quilt and she wraps herself up in one, and I carry in a bottle of white wine, two glasses. I pour her one and another for me.