As he gallivants around our luxury hotel room in only his pinstriped boxers, I notice he has a long torso just like his sister, and this makes me smile. It’s oddly adorable that although his shaggy blonde haircut and Ray Ban sunglasses are independent style choices made by this boyishly attractive yet confident grown man, his long torso is a dead giveaway that he indeed came from humbler roots.
I know that long torso, because all the Maxwells have it. Susie Maxwell, his mother, has been shaking that long torso to Diana Ross around her closet-sized kitchen, while making Monkey Bread, since we were kids. And Morgan Maxwell, his sister, has stood in front of the mirror in their family's only bathroom with me, complaining about that long torso for hours, while I whined about my freckles or the fact that I’m only 5’1” on a good day.
And now there's Will, who wears that familiar torso with such masculinity that it's somehow dreadfully appealing. Last Christmas when he came back to Baltimore to visit his Mom and sister, I would have never predicted that in six months, I’d know every intimate facet of his body.
I was still 17 then, and over at Morgan's house for Christmas Eve dinner. The used BMW I'd just bought with the money from my part time job at Bertucci's was parked out front next to Susie's Hatchback. This made me feel pretty adult at the time, despite the fact that I'd only been menstruating for a year and still had marks on my teeth from the braces I'd gotten off two months before.
“Will’s coming from LA,” Morgan told me, while we sipped Eggnog in the basement on the sly. I was excited about that—not because I had the standard crush on my best friend’s older brother, but instead because I got a rush out of shocking strangers with my disturbingly grown-up crudeness in conversation. My innocent speckled face and puny stature always made an off-color quip or two seem extra wicked. It was sort of a secret talent, like double-jointed elbows, which sometimes went over smashingly, but sometimes did not. Occasionally, an adult would interpret such cheeky humor emerging from my innocent lips as indecent; but Will, the successful editor from Los Angeles, was famous in the Maxwell clan for his own devastating wit. He would be an exceptional challenge, I thought.
"Why did you even notice me?" I ask Will, lying supine and clad in only a tank top amid the tussled sheets of the Hotel Monaco in Baltimore. "I was drunk from all the Eggnog Morgan and I were swiping from your Mom that night; I don't even remember what I said." I roll over onto my side, knowingly posing because I don't want him to see that I'm not effortlessly perfect like he seems to be.
He stops what I perceive as gallivanting but what is really just looking for his cigarettes, and says, "You were telling such adult jokes. It caught me off guard." I've asked him this question and heard this answer once already, before our flirtation ever began; but I want him to say it again out loud, mostly so he'll remind himself, and won't come to his senses, thinking, What am I doing with this girl?
"You intimidated me," the editor from exotic Los Angeles tells me, as he reaches into the pockets of his jeans splayed out on the floor. He locates his cigarettes, and walks out onto the balcony of our room. He drinks in a refreshing drag and turns around. I stalk his every motion with my eyes. He is a mesmerizing creature, blonde and strapping, yet graceful, like a steed. Such brazen maleness seems almost cinematic. "You told a dick joke and a race joke all wrapped in one. It was so inappropriate. I was fascinated by you." I feel one of my eyebrows coyly rise. This is an effect I practiced endlessly in front of Morgan a few summers ago, and now comes as organically as blinking. He wipes a bead of perspiration from his golden brow, and, as though there is a magnet in my chest, I need to go to him. I unearth from the pile of sheets the black bikini-cut underwear I picked out especially for today to seem sexy, but not like I was trying to be sexy. I was going for a statement more along the lines of, "Of course I don't own underwear with cartoon frogs on it anymore."
I fumble out of bed, hoping he doesn't see me trip over the remote like an overexcited toddler. Once upright, I attempt a saunter of sorts out onto the balcony, where I pluck a cigarette out of my own pack of Marlboro lights. I'm not a smoker. In fact, with each inhale, I feel tingly and a little afraid I'll get so buzzed that I'll tumble right off the balcony to my death. But it's a risk I take for the same reason I pose and wear stringy underwear—that being my need to show him only the best of me: the part of me that says phrases like "it was a real Catch-22" and "what a clusterfuck;" the part of me that watches "Madmen" and knows about wine; the part that gives stellar fellatio and can blow-dry her hair so fast he won't even wonder when I'll be ready; the part that I wish could be all of me, all the time.
"Well, I hope the fascination hasn't wavered," I reply, leaning up against the sliding glass door. "I can't always guarantee that what exits this mouth is going to be quality." He shakes his head and exhales through a smile.
"I don't think there's anything you could say or do that I wouldn't love." I feel myself blush at this. The sincerity in his voice is unmistakable. But still, I don't drop my coquettish pose against the door.
"Who's ready for Christmas cookies?" Susie Maxwell chimed, already flushed in the face from her half-glass of Eggnog. I remember Will was sucking down Jack Daniels like hot cocoa, an act I would come to know was not just special to holidays, and I wondered if I would build up such an impressive tolerance when I grew up.
"Not me," he said. "I'm going out to walk Pepper." Morgan and I glanced at one another, feeling smug that we both knew he was actually going out to smoke. I imagined what Will looked like with a cigarette in his mouth. This was a tantalizing thought, because not too long after, I was picturing Morgan and me, older, sneaking out to escape the stresses of family reunions, having a cigarette with him. I expected Morgan was picturing the same thing, because although he was her brother, he seemed just as mysterious as any other cool adult, since they hadn't lived under the same roof in ten years. We liked knowing that someone as together as Will had a vice, one he couldn't even hide from us.
A breeze pierces the thick atmosphere of summer in Baltimore and combs back his whiskey-colored hair. The sun is sinking quickly behind the distant city skyline.
"I forgot what summer evenings on the East Coast felt like," he says, leaning into the cool draft. "The heat," he breathes. "It's oppressive." He puts out his cigarette on the railing and leaves the butt on the plastic outdoor chair with the rest, to throw away later. It astounds me how fast he can suck down a cigarette.
"What does a nicotine craving feel like?" I'd asked him earlier this morning, after picking him up from the airport. We were driving to our hotel. "I've never had an addiction."
I saw him exhale in my periphery, and say, "Like feeling hungry in your brain."
Only halfway through my Marlboro Light, I'm happy to extinguish it, and I tell him, "Well, let's get you the hell inside, you spoiled California boy."
"Spoiled?" he grins. "Look where you are! Last night, you were sleeping in a twin size bed in your parents' house, and today you're in the most expensive hotel suite in Baltimore!" In response to his indication of my embarrassing circumstances, I slowly and specifically uncurl my right middle finger and shoot him a playful glare. He gasps in teasing offense and suddenly wraps one of his brawny hands around that very middle finger and the other, along with his whole arm, around my waist. He hoists me up in the air, and I am helpless at his mercy. As I kick and scream in delight, he carries me inside and slams me down, hard, on the cushiony white expanse of our room's king size bed. My body bounces up and down from the force. I shriek with gleeful rage, and from the bed, grab him by the waistband of his boxers, and pull him so he topples onto the bed with me.
The childishness of the encounter is comforting. In that moment, I feel like he sees me as old enough to handle him, and I see him as young enough to let me misbehave a little. He rolls over on his stomach and looks at my face. Apparently, this interaction has synced our thoughts, because he asks me, "Do you think our age difference is very obvious to other people?"
I look into his eyes, and catch my freckled, wide-eyed reflection in his pupils. Morgan, when standing before the mirror with me, would often say that if it someone were to spot me walking my Golden Retriever down the street in pajama pants and no makeup, I could be mistaken for a little kid; but if someone were to catch me in my trench coat and share in a conversation that wouldn't last long enough for them to notice my childlike features, I could be mistaken for 35.
I quickly review this assessment of my image and admit, "Well, I definitely don't look older than 18." Then I scan his face. His skin looks smooth and glowing, and it's dusted in 5 o'clock shadow. His lips are full and pink, his chin strong, with a dimple in the center. But it is his pool-water blue eyes that are the most appealing, as they lock with my green ones, and flicker with a youth that seems even newer than mine. "But you could be 23," I declare. "You definitely don't look almost 30. I wouldn't see us and think there were a big difference in age." He smiles and lies back down, looking up at the ceiling.
"Will never does anything he doesn't absolutely want to do," Morgan told me after Christmas Eve dinner. We were sitting on the sofa bed, where Will would be sleeping later. "He never does anything just to make someone feel good; he's never fake. So, if he says something, you know it's true."
I believed her completely, because even though Will was older and lived far away, you could tell there was an unspoken understanding between the two siblings. If you watched how each of them acted—their reactions to certain jokes or events, how they identically furrowed their brows in thought—you could see how Morgan would grow up to be just like Will; and that meant when he was 17, Will must have been just like Morgan. This notion twinged me with jealousy. I envied such a blatant indication of what my best friend would be like when she was older. It seemed like a leg up in some way, like by having a connection to this remarkable older person she was somehow guaranteed to be just as noteworthy, and soon. Will was so unlike anyone I knew; he was quick and self-assured, and if Morgan, with whom I shared such an intimate link, could have a bond with someone like that, then I wanted one, too. I knew, however, that it would not come easy.
We heard footsteps thumping down the stairs, and looked up to see that it was Will, fresh from outside. He peeled off his plaid Woolrich coat and tossed it onto the sofa bed. Morgan and I shivered as the fabric flew through the air, radiating a chill onto our skin.
"Hey ladies, mind if I use the computer down here?"
"Go for it," Morgan said. Will slid into the creaky wooden chair, and pressed the spacebar, illuminating Susie's 2007 Desktop Mac. He seemed even to click the spacebar with a crispness that recreational computer users lacked.
"Can't avoid the computer even on Christmas, Mr. LA Editor?" I teased. "How do you function with so many addictions?" Still a little buzzed from the Eggnog and holiday cheer, I was feeling bold.
"I have no idea," he smirked, maneuvering the mouse expertly through his Gmail. I peeked at him as he deleted several messages from a "Maddie4ever@hotmail.com."
"Exchanging flirtations with a fourth grader, are you?" I pried, nosily examining his inbox.
"Ugh, hardly," he said. "It's this chick I took out on one date. She won't leave me alone. I didn't give her my number, so she just keeps emailing me. Nightmare." Morgan snickered. He was inviting us into a little bit of his enigmatic personal life. Whether it was from the bottle of Jack or not, we didn't care. We were gripped.
"You must have really rocked her world," I remarked, inserting facetiousness into my tone, but desperately hoping he'd elaborate.
"Probably," he answered, dryly. "I took her to this wine bar in Hollywood that had some ridiculous mood lighting. I had no idea it'd be that fancy. One drink, and now she won't stop sending me nude photos."
Morgan gasped. I stifled a similar reaction, and tried to keep my cool.
"Oh, that's right. I know Maddie4ever@hotmail.com," I played along. "Those nudes are circulating nationwide, actually. I have some on my phone right now. Did she send you the one with the hose? Pretty cheesy." Will shot me a half-grin from his station at the computer.
"You are too quick for me, Ms. Morrell," he said. I felt myself bite the inside of my bottom lip. He knew my last name.
The late June sky is a glowing Cobalt color now. Will is lying on his back. I'm on my stomach next to him, instead of modeling on my side like before. His eyes are closed, as I circle my right forefinger over the scruffy dimple in his chin.
"Why do you keep touching that spot?" he asks, tensing his jaw.
"I don't know." He pats down his chin like he's setting it back in place, and rolls over to look at me.
"You have so many freckles," he observes, running his eyes up and down my cheeks.
"Yeah, I'm deformed." I bury my face in the sheets.
"Yep, completely deformed," he agrees, jokingly.
"Not all of us can be perfect Hollywood specimens," I mock, snapping my head up. "Why do I even waste my time with someone so beautiful and yet so cruel?" He smirks.
"I don't know. You're the one who stole my number out of Morgan's phone."
"True," I admit. The right side of my mouth upturns; this ability to banter back and forth so gracefully with him is one thing I'm never concerned will go wrong.
He yawns, and my heart rate quickens. Every time he does something I've never seen him do before, I feel like I know him better.
"Wanna take a pre-dinner nap with me?" he asks. We've had an active day, and I feel myself tiring as well.
"Yes," I whisper. Will slips out of bed, and with me curled up at the headboard, he smoothes out the sheets and comforter until the whole thing looks like a giant marshmallow. I've never slept in a king size bed before.
"Crawl in there, babe," he says, and I do. I lie sideways, facing the painting of Baltimore's Inner Harbor on the wall, and am surprised when I feel Will's burly figure cuddle up behind me. The idea of sleeping in the same bed as him is so foreign and thrilling, I am nervous I won't be able to fall asleep. My blood pumps quickly as the sunlight in the room darkens one more shade. Then, I feel an itch crawl into my lower back, but dare not reach back to scratch it, because I don't want him thinking I'm a restless sleeper. I become anxious lying in bed with Will, realizing that once I'm asleep, I won't have any control over my poses and phrasings anymore. I'm just scared that in the middle of the night, if he wakes up and sees me in the only position I know how to sleep in—a tiny ball with a pillow between my legs and my hands gripped around the sheets like a teddy bear—I'll be helpless to looking like the little girl I want so badly not to be.
Then I hear him whisper, "Now this is what I've been looking forward to for so long—just to sleep next to you, Amanda." At the sound of my name leaving his lips, not "babe" or "Ms. Morrell," but my real first name, my body fills up with this visceral warmth. This sensation seems somehow to settle the absurdly rapid pulse in my body; after a few quiet minutes, my breath falls into the rhythm of his, and I relax. I tuck myself into the curve of him; and my tiny frame, of which I'm used to being so self-conscious, seems to lock perfectly into the safe, warm wall of his distinctive torso.
"We fit," he says softly, as if again our thoughts have synced. I close my eyes.
As I lay there beneath the comforter, so snug and at ease, my mouth unexpectedly opens to say something. I don't know what's going to come out, but my mouth is open. I feel a sudden rush, as if I were about to jump out of a plane with a parachute that may or may not open. I feel this desire to tell him something, right now; a secret, I don't know what. Maybe lying next to him under the covers, I want to tell him that I've always thought he looked like Kurt Cobain; or that I stole a baby picture of him from his Mom's house the day he called to tell me I was the smartest person he'd ever known; or that I pretended not to hear him ask me to open the champagne today because I don't know how to operate a corkscrew; or that I wrote a song about him and it sounds like a real country tune; or that I tried on my mother's wedding dress last night and cried.
But I don't. I want to. He's breathing into my back and he's warm and I want to trust him, right now, in this moment. I should trust him; he trusts me, and I should tell him a secret. But before I know it, my mouth closes; and I don't.
A few minutes later, on the edge of sleep, I wonder to myself if anyone's ever told him he snores, as I take the pillow from under my head and tuck it between our legs.
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