“I think I’m falling in love with you, Charlie,” I whisper. The thought is out of my head before I even have a chance to process it, and I curse my lips for going faster.
My words hang in the air between us. I swear my heart stills for the space of two beats while I wonder if I’ve made a tremendous mistake letting the post-orgasm haze loosen my lips.
He leans forward kissing me so softly, I’m not even sure it happened. His wet hand rises to my face, tracing my jaw with a finger.
“That’s just the endorphins talking.” Charlie’s voice is quiet when he responds, like he’s trying to convince himself.
It’s hard not to be crestfallen that he would dismiss my words so easily, but I want to make him understand. “Charlie, no I--”
He silences my objection with another kiss. There is a sadness in his eyes when he does, trying to bury the comment and the feelings with it.
I want to talk about this, open more than just my legs to him, but the story about his father nudges my mind, and I know that as much as I’m thinking this is a coma dream, he could be thinking something similar, trying to hide from these emotions that have grown much bigger than this villa. I wrap my legs around him, my softness pressed against him, giving him an out of this conversation.
“Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to it when we get back to New York,” he whispers, wrapping an arm around my back. The strength of his arm pulls my body flush against him as he tangles a hand in my hair. This vulnerability from him holds me in place. An ex broke his heart once, leaving behind a man who is afraid to let love back in.
I don’t expect to be the woman that makes him love again. But if this is real, if there is any chance that he is not a figment of my imagination, then I want him to know that he is worthy of love. Even if it means I can only love him for a little while.
Charlie tries to appease me by waving a coffee under my nose, but I only growl at him. Our two weeks in paradise have ended and now I have to get back on the death trap they call a plane. We never talked again about how I told him I was falling in love with him, letting the rhythmic movement of our bodies communicate our feelings toward each other.
I grew up lucky, with two parents who not only loved me, but loved each other. By showing me what that looked like, they set me up for life with high standards. It also made me yearn for that own love in my life to the point of bad relationship decisions in the past. My parents showed me that love is more than hugs and kisses. It’s in how my mom cut my dad’s hair because he swore no one could do it better even when it was a little lopsided, or how he would make her banana pancakes on her parents’ birthdays to ease her hurt. It made me able to recognize love when Charlie massages my scar with the cream nightly or wakes me with coffee, the precise amount of creamer stirred in.
“Are you sure we have to go back?” I ask, taking one last sad look around the villa, coffee in hand. The last week of the trip was spent with both of us naked almost the entire time. Our villa’s location meant that even when we went swimming for midnight dips in the ocean, there were no prying eyes to see what we were getting up to, even if we weren't the best at keeping quiet.
I have always laughed at the term ‘lovemaking’, thinking of it as something reserved for cheesy love stories, but that’s the only appropriate word I could come up with. We took our time together, always touching each other. We would spend hours not necessarily chasing release, but trying to learn the dips and valleys of each other’s bodies. It wasn’t about getting there fastest or the frenetic need that would sometimes overtake us. It was about finding out that Charlie is ticklish around his hips or that he enjoys tracing the wing tattoos on my low back first with his fingers, then his tongue. Even when we weren’t being intimate, Charlie always found a reason to find his hands on me: smoothing back my hair, pulling my feet onto his lap, holding my hand while we went for a walk.
I had joked that the value pack of condoms was ambitious. However, when we left, there were only two left and they got tucked into Charlie’s laptop case.
Charlie’s thumb grazes my lower lip, pushed out into a pout. I nip at him, teasingly, earning a gentle spank on my ass.
When we arrived two weeks ago, we had two carry-on bags. Now, we’re departing with two checked bags stuffed to the gills with clothes and silly souvenirs purchased on our rare trips out. I pull the worn green baseball cap I stole from Charlie down over my sunglasses, gesturing for him to lead the way. He steps in my way, tilting my chin up with his hand and using the other to remove the hat so he can see my face better.
“Hey, hey, I promise we can come back,” he swears, and it sends a thrill up my spine that he’s seeing a future for us together.
He leans down and kisses me, short and sweet. Charlie keeps his hand on the small of my back or on me somewhere else the whole way back to the airport.
I may have misjudged Charlie. His love language is touch. The way he brushes hair from my face, or how he kept a hand at my elbow when we went for walks in the park early in my recovery. But giving gifts is also his love language. He’s nonstop showered me with technology, and clothes, that beautiful cane and this trip.
While at the airport, I post a silly photo of us pouting on the tarmac before boarding the plane. His stubble is rough on my cheek as he kisses me for a second photo. Charlie grips my hand, knowing that taking off makes me want to puke. Our first flight is the same short trip to Tahiti on a propeller plane that takes off only after people switch seats to rebalance the plane.
When we land in Tahiti, I’m surprised to see that I have two followers. Sitting in the airport lounge, I show off to Charlie, who has already cracked open his laptop.
“I have followers on Pictogram! Now, you have to take me somewhere on the private jet so I can show I am one with the influencers,” I joke, settling into the corner booth we’ve staked out for ourselves. There is an icon on the app, showing that in addition to the followers, I also have a message.
“Oh, ew,” I mutter as I read the text on the screen. I am somewhat surprised and yet not at all. Charlie’s hand is rubbing his chin as he reads an email when I distract him with my reaction. I pass him my phone so he can see what caused my response.
“‘Be my sugar baby as you ride my big fat cock.’ Oh! And there’s a picture of that big fat cock. Classy. Will your new sugar daddy be picking you up from the airport?” Charlie says, amused.
A mother sitting nearby with her children glares at us, pulling them closer to her. I quickly block the sender and delete the message, while I deal with the strong urge to scrub my eyeballs and brain to remove the image.
“Did you miss the part where I said ‘eww’?” I ask, bumping him with my shoulder.
“Well, I assumed you just didn’t want the dick pic. Maybe you were looking for another sugar daddy now that you have me wrapped around your finger, ” he teases, pressing a small kiss to the palm of my hand. I let out an unattractive snort, trying to hide my smile.
His attention turns back to his laptop, while I look at the other follower. My entire body goes still when I see it’s Vivian and that she’s accepted me as a follower. I didn't think I had requested her when I found her that day at the start of the trip, but I must have.
I struggle with going through her photos to see what her life has been like for the last few years. I wonder if there will be some kernel of what happened between us. I let my curiosity win, scrolling through her pictures.
I’m surprised when a recent photo is of her hand with a gorgeous canary diamond on her finger. If it’s the guy she was with when I knew her, he really took his time. I scroll through and see a photo of her and who I assume is her fiancé ice skating in Bryant Park. Definitely not the same guy, but he looks familiar, and I’m annoyed that I can’t place him. I wonder if I do know him, if I’ve met him in the last five years and that's why he feels familiar.