Page 94 of Poetry On Ice
I keep my head tilted toward him, close, because I swear to God, I can’t stand any space between us for one second more, and then I take his hand in mine and lace our fingers tightly together.
His mouth drops open, lips peeling back. “Are you sure?”
I lift his hand to my lips, stamping a long, gentle kiss right where his thumb and forefinger meet, and say, “I’ve never been this sure, or proud, of anything.”
Epilogue
Ant Decker
It’s been a long,lazy summer. The garden is more overgrown than it was, and now and again, we talk about doing something about it, but so far, we haven’t been moved to take action. Truth is, I’ve started to like how it looks. I’ve grown used to the soft tap of tree branches on our bedroom window when the wind blows from the north. There’s something protected and cozy about being surrounded by so much greenery. I’m not saying we won’t get to it at some point, but for now, we’re happy to drag the picnic blanket out into the back garden on warm afternoons and lie in the sun until we’re so sleepy neither of us can move.
We spent the first few days after we came out cloistered at my place. Bodie and Luddy came around that night and confiscated every device we had that connected to the internet. We spent two days in a complete bubble. Stacey flew out, the McGuires brought homemade meals over, and my mom and dad called every day forover a week to ask how the weather in Seattle was. Bodie printed out a long list of supportive comments people posted and made Robbie and I read through those twice before he gave us back our phones.
We both loved the gesture, and a media detox was definitely the right thing to do at the time, but you know what, now that it’s done and I’m out, it’s astonishing how few fucks I have to give about what anyone thinks.
I’ve got Robbie. What do I care about anything else?
Initially, we tried splitting our time between his place and mine, but we kept gravitating back to his house.
What can I tell you, my place is designer-y as fuck.
I’ve spent so much time at Robbie’s that I realized a while back that I live here. You’d think that realization would stress the hell out of me, you really would, but nah. Far from it. When Robbie said, “I’ve booked movers to move the rest of your stuff over here,” one random Saturday morning, I didn’t panic. I didn’t even break out in a sweat.
I just said, “Good idea, baby.”
Good idea, baby? Can you fucking believe it?
That was a month ago. Since then, we’ve had tradesmen here patching the roof and fixing the porch.
We’ve hung out with some of the guys on the team and their families, we see the McGuires regularly, andStacey’s been out to stay with us again. Beth and Bodie are such a regular feature they’ve claimed one of the guest rooms as their own. They’ve taken to bringing groceries when they come and whipping up meals together. Robbie and I function as taste testers. They’ve made it clear they don’t consider our cooking acceptable.
I guess they don’t believe hot chocolate is a meal, even if it is the best hot chocolate this planet has ever seen.
I’m sure some other things must have happened because it’s been months since the season ended. I just can’t think what they are off the top of my head.
What I do know is that Robbie and I have been home a lot. He’s been naked a lot. A lot, a lot. And when he isn’t, he’s wearing slutty socks with slutty shorts and boxy T-shirts that show a hint of his cum gutters when he raises his arms.
My blood pressure has been through the roof.
I’m amazed I’m still standing.
I’ve been a hot mess with one thing on my mind: Robbie McGuire. I’m almost as exhausted as I am in-season, and I’m definitely more dehydrated. At this point, I doubt I could tell up from down if you questioned me under torture, but ask me to draw a map of every freckle on Robbie’s body, and I swear, it’d be the easiestAI ever got.
That’s not to say we’re completely oblivious to the outside world. We’re aware life is going on around us. Just the other day, for example, we got a new neighbor, and we both noticed. Admittedly, it took a few days, but still.
It caused a bit of excitement because there was something familiar about him, something about the way he moves, or his frame. It took a minute for me to place him, and I couldn’t believe it when I did.
“Robbie!” I yelled. “Get your ass down here. You’ll never believe who just moved in across the road.”
Robbie took the stairs two at a time and made it down in record time, squashing himself next to me as we peered through the blinds like a pair of nosy neighbors.
He was as rapt as I was.
“Ben Stirling!?” he cried. “Ben fucking Stirling has moved in across the road? Oh my God. I can’t believe it’s him. We have to bake a pie and take it over.”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure people only do that in the movies, Princess.”
“You could not be more wrong, Ant. My dad bakes a pie whenever a new person moves onto our street. He always has. It has to be done. It’d be rude not to. The only question is what kind of pie a legend like Ben Stirling would like. Apple or cherry. I don’t know…apple seems like a neutral, hedge-your-bets kind of pie, don’t you think?”