Page 58 of Plus One

Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue…

The line came unbidden, as scripture sometimes did, recalled like literature or a dope verse when your own words were insufficient. Song of Songs, chapter four, verse eleven. In all the years of SCI Bible study, that book made the brothers the most uncomfortable. It was too vibrant, too lush and physical for a place made of steel and concrete. Debates over whether it was divine love wrapped in a romantic metaphor or a raw, visceral account of love and desire were sometimes too powerful for the study room doors to contain. In the yard, metaphor was the safest. Metaphor kept the body from the spiritual and the heart at a manageable distance.

Maurice had always agreed.

Until now.

Watching her, there was no posturing, no defense. He was simply a man observing the woman he desired, trying to put into words how the simple act of watching her eat had altered him.

“You sure you’re okay?” Monique asked, quieter this time.

Heat crawled up his neck. He looked around. They all had been watching him. Laughter, full of knowing warmth and affection, rippled around the table.

“I’m good,” he said. “Just…” He toyed with his silverware. “A lot to process.”

Her mouth quirked. “Yeah. I get that.”

Did she know that he’d been replaying their kiss in his mind on a loop? That he could still feel the ghost of her hands on him? That every cell in his body wanted to lean closer, to close the small distance between them, to find out if her mouth still tasted like salt and sweetness?

He forced his attention to his plate and put food into his mouth. Food that he couldn’t taste.

“Give him some time,” Auntie Don said from down the table, voice louder than her tone might have intended. Maurice looked up and met her eyes.

Time.That was something he didn’t have a lot of. The day after tomorrow, Monique would go back to Chicago, and he would go back to Newark. And everything they’d shared would join the realm of memory. Beautiful but bygone.

Under the table, Monique’s hand brushed his. Her fingers passed over his, hidden from the others. Their secret.

Mr. Turner was telling a story now about USO dances of the late fifties and how he’d stepped on his then dance partner’s feet so much that he was blacklisted. The table erupted in laughter. Mrs. Turner said, “Their loss, my gain.” Her face was soft with love despite the boasting.

Maurice watched them. Sixty years, and she still leaned in when he talked. Still was the first to laugh at his jokes. Still looked at him like he was hers. Maurice’s chest tightened. That’s what loving looked like. Easy affection. A comfortable intimacy of two people who’d chosen each other and kept choosing each other.

He’d never thought anything like that could be his. He never let himself want it, because wanting was dangerous. Want led to disappointment. Want meant giving someone the power to leave. But Monique’s hand was still on his, and he was starting to think that maybewantwasn’t the enemy he’d made it out to be.

The meal continued. Plates cleared. Someone mentioned dancing, and the energy shifted. People pushed back from the table and moved toward the center of the restaurant, where the floor in front of a small band had been left open.

Monique stood. Maurice followed, because his body had apparently decided her gravity was the only one that mattered.

As the dance floor filled, the band shifted from the bright, up-tempo tunes that had played under their meal to something slow and sweet, guitar-forward with an unmistakable pulsing beat that was more felt than heard. The string lights that crisscrossed the restaurant swayed in the breeze coming through the open windows, bringing the bay up to them.

The dance floor had sections of glass cut out in the floorboards, and Maurice watched the water splashing against the posts in blue-green blasts.

Cassie and Taurion swayed, holding onto each other like if they let go, they’d fall. Between their laughter and stolen kisses, they looked like a young couple discovering they were in love. The Turners were in a similar pose; the moment, the location, the occasion, seemed to turn back time.

Tommie and Lanie too. His hands on her waist. Her arms around his neck.

Aunt Deb kissed Don’s hand as they passed and joined the others.

Maurice stood at the edge of it all with Monique beside him. The small space between them electrified with that foretelling of a seismic change.

“You wanna?” he asked, soft, testing, nodding his head toward the others.

Turning to him, she took his hand. This was becoming his new, most favorite thing—holding Monique’s hand. The soft smile on her lips and in her eyes told him she liked it too.

“When I clod all over your feet, remember that you asked for this,” she said, allowing him to lead her to the dance floor and into the sea of bodies warmed by the music.

He placed his hands on her waist. She was solid and real under his palms. Closer. He needed to be closer but couldn’t move.

She laughed, sliding her hands up to his shoulders and pulling him nearer, close enough that he could feel her chest rise and fall as she breathed. “This isn’t a Sadie Hawkins dance, my guy.”