Hello Adventure

Chapter 32

I waited until the shoot was over to tell Dale. I don't know why I waited; maybe I was delaying my gratification, or maybe I was enjoying the build up, the joy floating up like fine bubbles in a flute of champagne. But the moment the shoot was over, I ran downstairs to the kitchens to where Dale was prepping for tomorrow. I crept up behind him and pounced on his back, piggyback style.

"Hey!" He exclaimed, his body folding forward from my weight.

I hugged my arms around his neck. "Dale! He messed up! He doesn't have anything on me!"

"Huh?" Dale backed me in the direction of the silver kitchen island, then reaching behind with his hands, he cupped the sides of my thighs and leaned backward to sit me down onto the cold surface.

He turned around and put his hands back on my thighs, which I couldn't not notice. I told him everything in a big spurt, all the while feeling the weight and heat of his big hands on my splayed legs. I didn't even dare shift them closed; I didn't want to risk him taking his hands off me.

He stared into my face, rapt by the story. "What a straight-up moron!" He finally said, and then his hands rode higher onto my hips and Sebastian receded into the past. Dale was kissing me hard, mouth open, eyes closed. I arched my back and shifted forward atop the table so that I could clasp my thighs around his waist.

I tasted the smile on his mouth, but when I shifted forward and pressed against him like that, it disappeared and his mouth went serious, determined, and single-focused. The flats of his palms moved up my body and I was writhing under them, unable to keep still. I felt his hardness against my stomach. God, I wanted him so badly. Sharp gasps escaped from my mouth, and I almost couldn't bear it. I needed him then and there, and when I pulled away to examine his face, I knew he felt the same.

"Damn!" He breathed out hard.

I nodded. "Uh huh," and then tilted my body backward, pulling him down on top of me by the collar of his t-shirt. He hovered above me on the tabletop, leaning on one palm beside my head and with his knee bent between my inner thighs, keeping them open, pressing against where I was hottest. My nipple stiffened as he rounded my ribcage with his other hand.

Shit, we can't do it right here on the kitchen table?

Dale suddenly craned his neck. "Shit, we can't do it right here on the kitchen table!" he said as if reading my mind. "I mean, unless..."

I heaved myself up onto my palms to sit upright, shifting him off me. "My room?" I said, my brain not quite able to use full sentences. And he just nodded vigorously and turned his back to me.

And I so I jumped back onto his back and let him piggyback me through the kitchens, through the fancy lobby, and all the way upstairs to my room where there was nothing else to stop us.

*

The next morning, I woke up with my head against Dale's clavicle and I could feel his heartbeat under his breastbone, still thrumming fast and deep. We were watching the sun move and his hand rested on the small of my back. We both knew the other was awake, but we were wordless and still for a long time that dawn. It was the good kind of quiet.

Just then, my phone rang. I made a move to get out of bed, but Dale had me by the waist. By the time he let me go, and I reached my phone from the bedside table, the ringing stopped.

"Shit. I just missed a phone call from Stasia." I crawled back into bed with my phone. "I better call her back." I did one of those cartoony exaggerated gulps: "I missed a shoot in Venice, and I was supposed to call her when I got to Switzerland. Listen, why don't you head back to your room? It's probably best if you don't want anyone to see you coming out of my room."

He frowned at me. "Sloane, I don't give a flying fuck about who sees me coming out of your room."

This was so unashamedly romantic that I twitched when I heard it. Well, this is new, I thought.

"Dale?"

"Mmm?"

"What are we going to do?" I put my phone down and pulled the covers up, feeling very naked just then (not just because I was).

"Well, you're going to call Stasia back, and then we're going to eat breakfast, and then, remember that thing I did to you last night? Well, I'm going to do that to you again." He rolled on top of me and his hands circled my wrists. "And again."

My whole body flushed. "Umm, yes please. But I mean, what are we going to do when it's time to leave? To go home?"

He rolled back over to his side of the bed, sighing. "Well, I think both of us have been around long enough to know that this..." he shrugged, "this is good. So, we do what we have to. Don't you think?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but so, like, long-distance?" I smoothed the sheets with my hands.

"Well, I have to go back to Sweden for a little bit, but I told you I'm going back to New York soon. I'm going to call that friend of mine and see if he still wants to open a restaurant with me."

"But New York is still far from Boston."

"Oh, come on, it's not that far, kid!"

I fiddled with a lock of hair. "I spent so much time in Boston thinking about someone who was not in Boston..."

"Please tell me you didn't just compare me to Sebastian," he scoffed, sticking out his tongue.

"I guess I'm just concerned I'm going to fall into old habits. I don't want to go back to who I was. I don't want to stop living now. It just got good, you know?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I do know." He stroked my palm. "Listen, I know you're worried, but we now have this week to work out a plan and get you comfortable. Just don't get scared on me. Okay?"

I wanted to tell him I wouldn't get scared. I really did. But I was already scared. I guess what I couldn't say to him that morning was I wanted a sign, some reassurance. I had only known him a short amount of time...

"Tell me what you're worried about," Dale said.

"Nothing," I insisted. My phone beeped. "Dale, I really have to call Stasia back."

"I'll give you some privacy." He leaned down to kiss me once, and I pressed my hands against his chest.

"Lemme make you breakfast? Meet me in the kitchen in an hour? We can finish what we started yesterday." He winked: "No one will be awake yet to interrupt us."

My face went hot and I nodded.

"God, I love it when you blush," he told me. He threw on his clothes as I called Stasia.

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

Dale paused at the door with his hand lifted. He stared for a moment too long, eyes glistening like wet ice in the morning light that was bleeding through the windows whose curtains we didn't even have time to pull shut.

I grinned at him, but then turned away to focus on the call.

But I shouldn't have.

I should have given the moment more, more weight, more due. But I didn't because I didn't know. I didn't know it was the last time I was going to see him.