Tell Me Something

We had turned the movie off and were laying in the dark. The room was hot and I had most of my body out of the blankets. Luce was buried in them. I had thought I was tired when I killed the t.v., but there we were, listening to each other breath, her arm across my chest, my arm around her back and fingers running slow through her hair.

"Are you tired?" she asked.

"I thought I was."

"Me too." She sighed deep. 

"You all right?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Just asking."

Her hair didn't smell like shampoo, or perfume, or a sales pitch. It was her, and I thought that maybe I had never had that experience before and that maybe I had been robbed of it somehow and I was thankful for having it. I kissed the top of her head. 

"Tell me something," she said.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. About you. Something I don't know."

I thought for a moment and ran my fingers down her side and enjoyed quietly her soft and smooth skin and she pulled tighter against me. "Anything," she said. "Then I will."

"My favorite constellation is Orion," I said.

"Oh?" She moved her fingers through the hair on my chest. "I don't know enough about constellations to have a favorite."

"Now you," I said.

"Tell you something?" 

"Yeah."

"Umm... I love rom coms."

"Luce... I mean..." I laughed a little.

"What?"

"As far as things women surprise you with go,"

She laughed and lightly punched my chest. "Shut up. Your turn."

I turned on my side, facing her and kissed her forehead and pulled her tight against me and ran my hand slow down her back and to the backs of her thighs and up again. "I can only think of weird negative things. I don't think there's much else to me."

"That's not true. Maybe that's just all you're seeing."

"Okay. Well... I was on an all star baseball team for two years when I was a kid."

"Shut up." She laughed. "You can't just make shit up."

"I'm not. I swear to god."

"What in high school?" 

"Mostly middle school. By high school I couldn't even drag my ass to gym."

"Jesus. James. Playing baseball." She laughed again. "You would have been adorable."

"Shut up." I smiled but she couldn't see. "Your turn."

I gripped at her hip and pressed my fingers into her, slid my hand up the side of her as she thought of something to say and moved her chin upward and I kissed her. She kissed like I kissed. In short bursts and with passion and quick and with purpose.  Her mouth was sweet and her tongue small and complimenting. Her breath neutral. Unassuming. I took every opportunity to kiss her. 

We parted.

"What was that for?" she asked quiet.

"I wanted to."

"I did too."

"Still your turn."

"Okay, okay." She gripped at my back. "I...  I have never played sports."

"You can't just take mine and spin it."

"I can't think of anything though."

"This is your game."

"I know." 

"I am kind of surprised though."

"About?"

"You look like you've got about two weeks of field hockey in you, and then you decided it was more fun to sleep on Saturdays."

She laughed. "Nope. Nothing." She kissed my shoulder. "I do like sleeping on Saturday though." She paused. "The other days also. Your turn."

"I don't know if I have much more. Nothing you want to hear."

"I want to know about you. I don't care."

"You might."

"Yeah, well, you might feel the same way about me." 

"Point taken. Okay. Well, let's jump into it then, I guess."

"Okay. I don't know what that means, but I'm excited."

I took a breath and kissed her forehead again. Her chest filled and emptied within my arms and I breathed her in.

I told her about the angry dogs and the rotting cow. I told her about the endless woods in the middle of Maine. I told her about being sent to the center. Twice. I told her about the stolen car when I was fourteen, things I couldn't understand when I was a child and that frighten me to this day and a million other things that could have been a crash course in Me 101. 

When I was finished I drank from a bottle of water near the bed and she rested herself on one elbow and by the dim light through the curtains I could almost see her face. I assumed it was calm, and eased, and accepting, and she bent close to me and kissed me. 

"You've got some dark shit in there."

"None of it matters."

She kissed me again and I rolled onto my back and she laid on my chest. "You're just... you're not who I thought you were."

"I'm sorry about that."

"No, I..."

"You're wonderful," I said.

"You."

There was nothing left to ask and in the dark, in the heat, in my bed, I fell asleep next to one of the very few people who knew a goddamned thing about me, and I wanted her to know more and I wanted to know more. Who gives a shit about rom coms?