“I missed you too,” she says, her voice breaking.

Harley

It feels like the last time. At least, for me. Because I fully expect him to run when I tell him, and so I want this—one last time. One last moment. One last connection. I want to hold onto him, to never let him go.

So I grab him tighter, harder, tugging him as close as close can be. Then even more. I am lost in him, and I don’t want to be found. I don’t want anyone to discover that I’m hiding out with him right now, under the covers, in the dark, the drone of the air conditioner the soundtrack that mingles with my sighs and his groans as he buries himself in me.

“Deeper,” I whisper, and grab his ass, pulling him into me, needing the feel of him like I need air and breath and sun. He rolls his hips and pumps into me, filling me so completely that I gasp loudly at the sharp, sweet ache of this sensation. He’s all the way in me, fucking me hard and slow at the same time.

I want to cry, I want to sob, I want to hold him close and never let him go. I am in heaven with him, and I have one foot in the hell of my own fear, so I need to lose myself in sex, in love, in connection. Maybe this is the druggie in me, the junkie that doesn’t know how to deal without her fix.

I loop my hands around his neck, bring his face close to mine, his chest damp with perspiration as he slides into me, rocking deeper. I kiss his lips, his cheeks, his scar, his earlobe, and then I wrap my legs tighter around his hips, my body inviting him to sink in.

There is a slow urgency tonight, a mournful desperation in both of us as we grasp at each other, needing to hold on to skin, to muscle, to flesh.

“So fucking good,” he moans in my ear.

“Make me come, Trey. Make me come,” I say, because I want to see stars. I want to black out with pleasure. I want to be awash in the exquisite agony of an orgasm, one so intense it can make me forget all the words I don’t want to say.

“Always, Harley. I will always make you come. I fucking promise,” he says, and drives deeper, and I cry out as my belly clenches and my climax hits me hard and furiously, like a wave slamming the shore, drowning the sandcastles that were built, then washing all the grains of sand out to sea. And I am tugged under, sinking, the water blotting out the sounds of my frantic heart, immersing me in its warm, wet embrace until I can’t surface—I only float underneath the edge of the ocean, drifting away from him.

Trey

The plastic edge of the Bed, Bath and Beyond card digs into the back pocket of my jeans.

Like it’s laughing at me, poking me. I must have lost my mind when I stopped at that store this morning to buy her a “let’s move in together” gift. Because that’s all I could come up with, and I’m sure it’ll make her eyes glaze over when I hand her the white $100 gift card.

“Hi Harley. Want to go shop for towels, like a bunch of domestic assholes?”

I want to ask her to live with me and give her something that shows we’re together, but not that we’re a bunch of home-decorating yuppies, who fight in the aisles over the thread count of sheets. I don’t give a shit what the thread count of sheets is. I’m not even sure what a thread count is.

When she steps out of the bathroom at the Starbucks, I make a vow to buy her something right now that says I know her. I understand her. Maybe a leather jacket, badass and cool, like her.

She looks pale, her eyes dark.

“You okay?”

She nods.

I grasp her hand, slide my fingers through hers, and we leave. “Can I take you shopping?”

She arches an eyebrow. “Since when do you like shopping?”

“I don’t. But I want to buy you something.”

“Trey, my birthday is over.”

“I know. But it’s for something else,” I say as we hit the sidewalk, and are instantly covered in a blanket of wet heat, knitted by August’s fireball hands. “Let me take you to that store you like that has the awesome T-shirts and combat boots.”

“Now?”

“C’mon. It’s just a few blocks away. I want to get you a gift.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. Just let me, okay?”

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

I squeeze her hand. “You haven’t been yourself since your birthday. Is it seeing your mom yesterday that upset you?”

Harley’s mom is pretty much the human equivalent of a downer.

“No. But when I was there I found a birthday card from my grandparents,” she says, and her voice is bright again.

“Whoa. I thought you never heard from them,” I say as we cross the crowded avenue when the light turns green.

“Yeah. Me too. I thought they cut me from their lives when my parents split. But I found a birthday card hidden under her laptop when I was sending in my registration form, and it had a strange message on it,” she says, and roots around in her big purse for it.

“Like a cryptic?”

“Not Da Vinci Code style stuff, Trey,” she says and rolls her eyes, and that small gesture makes me feel like she’s returning to herself.

She hands the card to me, and then wipes the sweat off her brow. “I hate New York summers. I wish I were anyplace but here,” she mutters.

“Music to my ears. You know I want to get out of here,” I say, and then run a thumb over the raised lettering of the aardvark in the sand as we walk past a dry cleaner on the way to the shop. “To our Harley.” I look at her. “They really did send you a birthday card?” I say but it’s more like a question of wonder. “I thought you hadn’t talked to them since you were six and spent the summer there.”

“I haven’t. Haven’t seen them, haven’t been there. And now, this. Is it out of the blue, or do you think she’s hiding other cards from me?”

“This is your mom we’re talking about. Anything’s possible. You should look for them at her house.”

“Snoop?”

“Uh, it’s not snooping when she’s been hiding it from you. It’s hunting down what’s yours,” I say, as we reach the store. It’s all black and punk on the outside, and has racks and racks of cool T-shirts with funky sayings. Maybe it’s not the typical “Will you move in with me” gift, but I don’t even know if you give gifts when you ask someone to move in with you. And I don’t care. We’re kind of making up the rules as we go along, new ones that fit us.

She hunts through the racks, and when she finds a shirt she likes she tells me she’s going to try it on. She opens the curtain to the dressing room that is probably half the size of an airplane bathroom, and I wander around the store, listening to the music that’s playing overhead. The dude behind the counter nods at me as he flicks through a magazine.

“Need anything?” he asks, barely glancing up from the pages. He has huge plugs in his ears, and a spike in his nose.

“I’m good.”

I check out some leather jackets Harley might like as the music shifts to Arcade Fire. Our favorite band. We always seem to hear them when the moment is right and meaningful. Like the night we met, then the night we finally admitted how we felt for each other, and hell, this feels like another moment, another crossroads, maybe because we’re back on solid ground. She’s opening up, talking to me about things that matter after the last two days of disconnects. This feels like the moment to ask her to move in. I walk straight to the dressing room. “Best. Band. Ever.”

She peeks around the curtain. “No. Questions. Asked,” she says with a sexy smile, and it’s our saying, it’s our words, it’s us. “Come in.”

I walk in and close the curtain as she pulls on the shirt. I catch a glimpse of her flat stomach that I want to press my lips against.

I can’t resist. I am so drawn to her it’s ridiculous. I brush my thumb across her flesh, tracing a line along the waistband of her jean skirt. “You have such a sexy stomach.”