Page 52 of Anchored

His fingers stroke my hair absently as we lie there in our own thoughts. When he finally breaks the silence, his voice is barely more than a rumble under my ear. “I can’t stop thinking about crossed wires, wrong timing, things that could have been.”

I run my finger down the center of his abs. I love how his muscles flex and twitch whenever I touch him. “I know. I guess that’s why I’m obsessed with them seeing each other. I want to right a wrong. Not that Grandma’s life was wrong. She was happily married for decades and had two kids, and now grandkids. It’s just…”

“First love,” Holt adds helpfully.

“Yeah.”

There’s silence again. Holt’s fingers slide through the strands of my hair. Over and over. It’s hypnotizing, dropping me slowly into a state of relaxation I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before with another person.

“You know, if Gracie and Harold had actually gotten together, we could have been brother and sister. No wait. That’s not right. Cousins? Related somehow?”

I think about it and crack up. My finger drills into his ribs and he yelps. Mookie huffs air through her nostrils from her carrier in the corner, as if she’s done with our inane chatter.

Suddenly Holt rolls me to my back and settles above me, his heavy weight supported on his elbows bracketing my head. His face is suddenly serious. “I don’t want us to become a product of wrong timing. Crossed wires. I don’t want to spend my life thinking about what could have been, Maple.”

My arms come up and wrap around his neck. My fingers play with his hair. I soak in the way he’s looking at me. Like I’m precious. Not weird.Wanted.

“You don’t?”

He shakes his head slowly, light eyes burning into me. “Fate brought us together twenty years ago and then this summer. I don’t want to lose you again. Not at the end of summer. Not ever, moonbeam.”

“No breakup?” I can’t believe my ears. Can’t begin to contain the excitement that courses through my veins as he bares his soul and I find it mirrors mine.

“No. Not if I can help it.” He dips his head and brushes his lips across mine. “Say you’ll think about it.”

My fingers tighten in his hair, and I struggle to keep my eyes open. “I don’t need to think about it. No breakup.”

His grin is quickly blotted out when he kisses me, rolling us so that I’m on top and he’s hard and long between my thighs. Clothes shuffle in a desperate attempt to be closer. Soon he’s inside me and we both breathe a sigh of relief. Our moans are soft, melting into the night to seal our promise. I move faster, rocking up and down, feeling like I might fall apart on this man and never be put back together the same. The way Holt holds me afterward tells me he doesn’t want to change a thing about this version of me either.

Maple’s Journal

(2 years ago)

What use is a journal if you can’t record both the best and the worst days of your life? Maybe one day I’ll read this entry and laugh. Shake my head at the woman I was and smile proudly at who I’ve become. I hope so. I really fucking hope so. Brace yourself, diary. Yesterday’s event was a doozy.

“Maple, is that you?”

A familiar voice pulled me from my phone, where I was texting Dexter and receiving no response.

“Angel? Hi!” My first yoga teacher ever was standing in front of me, her tie-dye pants and strappy sports bra so similar to what I remembered about her. Time hadn’t changed her one bit.

She threw her arms around me and hugged me so hard I lost my lungful of air. She pulled back and put her hands on my shoulders, looking me up and down.

“Oh, sweetie. What’s going on?” Her smile drained from her face.

“What do you mean?” I looked down at my outfit, feeling like I fit in just fine with the instructor training I was attending today, along with quite a few other yogis. I hadn’t actually wanted to come, but Dexter insisted, saying some of my transitions were disjointed lately. I disagreed, but to stave off another fight, I’d acquiesced.

Angel tilted her head, her eyes becoming overly round and sympathetic. “You were always like a lightbulb in every class. You’d shine brighter than everyone else. Who dimmed you?”

I huffed out a laugh I didn’t feel. She’d always been a bit dramatic. “No one dimmed me, Angel. Just tired, maybe.”

She shook her head, finally releasing my shoulders. “No. I don’t believe that. Your chakras are all off. You’re like a boat, adrift at sea and on the verge of sinking.”

Well, that was a terrible thing to say. “Again, I’m just tired. Been working a lot.”

Angel spun me around and gave me a shove. “Go home. Get rest. Remember what I always say? Pushing harder is the wrong move.Restharder, sweetie.”

I walked out into the sunshine in a daze. I spun around and saw Angel still looking at me through the glass doors of the convention center. She waved me off, yet another person in my life telling me what to do. She had a good point though. I didn’t even want to be here. If it weren’t for Dexter pushing me to attend, I would have spent the weekend catching up on sleep and maybe hitting up the local farmers market and an overpriced cup of tea.

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