Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [83]
Sixty-five “ALMOST DIDN’T RECOGNIZE you two without a bike between your legs,” the lady innkeeper said as we walked through the front door. I glanced at her, startled. I don’t think she meant it to sound the way it did because she clammed right up. Michael and I laughed, then walked up to our room, holding hands, but quietly, not a word spoken between us for a change. I didn’t even have a question I wanted to ask him right now. Inside the bedroom we started kissing again. The kisses were hard, and then soft, soft and then hard, soft, brushing our lips against each other’s, listening to each other breathe. How far will this go? I wondered. How far can it go? “Your place or mine?” I finally managed a few words. “I . . . I,” Michael muttered, and he had a concerned look on his face. “I’ll take that as an ‘aye, aye,’ ” I said, and grinned. He looked solemnly into my eyes. “Michael, c’mon,” I said as I gently stroked the back of his neck and pressed myself against him. “This is good. This w
Sixty-six I WAS BOTH EAGER AND NERVOUS. Mostly eager, but . . . “This is always the worst part,” I said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “What is?” “Taking my clothes off.” “Maybe for you,” Michael said teasingly. “For me, seeing you take your clothes off will definitely be the highlight of the last several years.” I started fiddling with the buttons on my blouse, and I suddenly had one of those weird, inconsequential concerns that always seemed to strike when I desperately needed to be focusing on something else. But here was a question for any ministers, priests, or rabbis out there: Is it all right to make love with your imaginary friend? Surely something filled with this much love couldn’t be a sin. But if it inexplicably was a sin, was it major or minor? Mortal or venial? What if your friend is an angel, or might be, but doesn’t know for sure himself? Whatever it was, Michael saw my hesitation and took matters, and my blouse, into his own hands. He was pretty skillful at unho
Sixty-seven THEY WERE TOGETHER for a long time that night, and Jane slept like a baby afterward, but Michael couldn’t. He lay in bed with his face inches from hers, and stroked her hair for what must have been an hour or more. Looking at her lying there so peacefully made him want to . . . break all the windows in the room. Life was unfair, he understood that, for the first time, really. Was that why he was here, so that he could learn to be more compassionate? If so, this sucked big-time, because he was already pretty damn compassionate. Anyone who was an imaginary friend to a child would have to be. So now who was he supposed to be in this little melodrama? An angel? An ordinary person? An imaginary friend? He had as many questions as Jane did, and no one was giving answers to either of them. He quietly swung around, sitting up on the side of the bed. He walked into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. You’ve got to tell Jane what’s going on, what’s going to happen to her. But he
Sixty-eight AND HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. They made love again, then slept again. In the morning they woke up with smiles on their faces, and a newfound, joyous sense of wonder and contentment. After breakfast, they went on a chartered whale-watching trip. Michael loved Jane’s excited amazement when they actually saw a humpback breech, impossibly close to the boat. After lunch, they went to the Brant Point Lighthouse. That was followed by a long walk on the beach, hand in hand, talking and not talking. Michael told Jane how long he’d been a “friend,” and he told her as much as he could remember. He could recall only the past few assignments; he had a sense that there had been others, but the memories had faded, like dreams. Seeing Jane now, as a grown-up, his memory of their earlier years came back. He honestly didn’t know if every