Page 43 of Love Unlocked

Al turns his attention to her and his gaze softens, a stray curl hangs over his eye. A beautiful gaze with his strong jaw, and bright blue eyes, and she melts again. To her own surprise she moves closer to him, body reacting without listening to her mind. She leans over and gives him a kiss, a kiss that’s slow and long and sensual. She runs her fingertips over his toned stomach, her nails pirouetting over his muscles.

He moans in response. He gently tugs at her towel and it falls at her feet. He pulls her down onto him then flips her so that she’s beneath him.

The intercom buzzes.

‘No,’ he fake cries, and continues to kiss her, her mouth, her neck. ‘I’m not hungry anymore,’ he mumbles into her skin. ‘I have everything I need right here.’

She grins as he moves down her chest, kissing her breasts, paying them extra special attention, then runs his tongue down her stomach.

The intercom buzzes again.

He looks up at her from between her legs, his pupils dilated, hair ruffled.

‘You were right. I was being polite. I didn’t want pizza. I want to eat what I want to eat.’

She grins, then sighs, her fingers gripping the sheets as she arches her back.

15

AL

Al doesn’t want to go to sleep. And he doesn’t want the night to end. He hasn’t felt so unburdened for six weeks, and possibly even before that. He thought for so long that he couldn’t do this life thing alone without Tara as his wife, without Walter as his friend, but here he is, doing it. Not as the Al he has been for the past five years, but as this Al, the Al he has never been. Thinking of them makes him wonder about the dead mice that he deposited under their couch. His couch. Not his couch anymore – he can start to let go of that. He can buy a new couch. Couches are replaceable, as it seems are other things.

He checks his watch.

Melody is looking at him. ‘Should I go?’

‘Absolutely not, no way.’ He slides down into the bed, where she’s lying, and turns on his side. He runs his finger over her face. Her cheekbone, to her lips. She takes his finger, holds it like a child. Her entire hand wraps around his finger. They silently marvel at this. She is smaller and more delicate than she seems, puffing herself out like a porcupinefish to scare off admirers. Why doesn’t she want to be loved, he wonders. ‘I was just checking the

time.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ she says.

‘Can you read minds?’

‘I wish, but I can somehow read yours. You don’t have to tell me but you don’t have to lie. There’s a difference.’

She lets go of his finger and holds her hand up against his. Again, tiny, the tips of her fingers only reaching to the backs of his knuckles.

He’s fascinated at the understanding she has of him and how it was instant from the moment they met. Tara wouldn’t be able to point him out in an emotional line-up.

‘Okay, the truth,’ he says with a sigh. ‘I was wondering about the mice.’

She grins, and looks relieved.

‘It was supposed to take up to forty-five minutes for them to defrost but I was wondering how long it would take for them to start smelling.’

‘It depends on how warm it is. Is your house warm?’

He didn’t imagine she would entertain these thoughts but he appreciates it.

‘No. The house is old and needs a new heating system that I can’t afford.’

‘Not your problem now.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, realising, another problem off his list. He’d been worried about it for when they had a baby. The future expense had stressed him. ‘But Tara was always cold. Is. Was. Do I speak about her in the present or past?’

‘Is she dead to you now?’