Page 78 of The Beachgoers
“Seems like something’s on your mind, Shane,” Celia cautiously says. “What’s the matter?”
Shane sits back. “Nothing,” he tells her. “And everything.”
“Everything?”
He talks quietly. “Everything. Because lately? That’s what you are to me. Everything.”
“Shane,” she whispers, sitting there at the old cottage table.
“I’m serious. You mean that much to me.”
“And I feel the same way.” Celia turns in her chair and faces him so that their knees touch. Leaning over, she rests her hand on his face and kisses him. “But that doesn’t change how I feel right now.”
Shane kisses her back before pulling away. He reaches up and touches the silky gold scarf tied around her topknot. His fingers drop to her gold bar earrings, to the gold chain of her necklace. “How you feel right now?”
She only nods.
“And howdoyou feel?” he presses, his fingers stroking the skin of her neck.
“Like Iwantto talk, butlater.” Again, she kisses him, whispering into his lips, “Not now.”
* * *
So they don’t talk.
Not much, anyway. Not whatneedsto be said in the darkness of his cottage bedroom. Shane feels that new quiet between them when he slides Celia’s white-rose corsage off her wrist and sets it on the nightstand. Feels it when he unclips her three-strand gold belt from her waist. Feels it when he unzips her black dress and trails a kiss on her shoulder when the dress falls to the floor. He feels that quiet when her fingers slip off his black vest and unbutton his chambray shirt. Feels it when his hands cradle her face before lifting to her hair. Slowly, he unties that scarf around her topknot first, then lets her hair fall loose.
Still that quiet is there when he nuzzles her neck and unhooks her bra. It’s there when she unzips his jeans and presses her hands beneath them to get them off. Quiet, more quiet when they’re on the bed; when her fingers trace along his inked skin; when her touch surprises in the dark; when he moves over her almost impatiently then; when he lifts himself with his arms and no, there is no talk. There is only sex—breathing and perspiring; gasps and murmurs.
Just like on those pitch-black nights out at sea when there is only movement, but no sight. When the night feels as freeing as it does frightening.
* * *
When Shane wakes up an hour or so later, the room is still. So still, he hears the whisper of waves lapping at the tiny beach behind the cottage. Celia is next to him in the bed. She’s on her side, with her back to him. Her regular breathing gives away that she’s sleeping. He reaches over and strokes her hair. It’s silky beneath his touch as his fingers gently run through it. He kisses her shoulder, too. Just lightly. Just enough for her to feel him close.
But he doesn’t stay there.
Instead he sits up, finds his jeans and a tee in the darkness and slips them on before walking out of the room. He quietly closes the door behind him, too, so that Celia can rest after the long day she’s had. While she sleeps, Shane heads to the kitchen and grabs a can of beer from the fridge. Lifting a sweatshirt off a chair then, he ends up on the back porch. On dark nights like this, he can do the same contemplating there as he does dark nights at sea. He can just listen to the water and his thoughts.
So Shane puts a match to the candlewicks in two lanterns. They cast a faint light on the porch—enough to make out the old white bench, and the antique milk can filled with dune grasses, and the other lanterns scattered about, unlit. He sees it all as he goes to the half-wall and looks out into the night itself.
* * *
In a while, the screen door squeaks behind him. Celia walks barefoot across the porch floor and puts her arms around his waist from behind. When she kisses the side of his face, she pulls back and slightly turns him.
“What’s wrong?” she whispers, touching a tear streaking his cheek.
“It’s nothing,” he says with a quick shake of his head. “I was just thinking out here, you know?”
“About what?”
Shane swipes at his eyes. “Ah, shit. Missing an old friend tonight.”
“An old friend?”
“Neil.”
Celia walks around him and hoists herself on the half-wall. She’s wearing Shane’s chambray shirt—which is huge on her. So she turns back the cuffs while asking, “You were close?”
