~*Chapter Twenty*~
AJ held Leesa’s hand and guided her out to the balcony extending from his bedroom. AJ arranged two chairs close together, and as they had no table between them, he set their drinks and the bottle of Scotch on the floor.
"Do you want more ice?" he asked.
"This is fine."
He had turned off lamps inside the room, and beyond them the barely discernible shapes of tress began to move in concert the longer Leesa stared at them. Headlights were small and sporadic along the distant highway.
"On a scale of one to ten, how awful would you rank these last two weeks?" he spoke quietly in the dark.
Leesa hesistated, for she had known many awful days in her short life. "I suppose I’d give it a nine."
"Assuming ten’s the worst."
"I have yet to have a ten."
"What would be?" Leesa felt him looking at her.
"I’m not sure," she said, superstitious that naming the worst might somehow manifest it.
He fell silent, and Leesa wondered if he was thinking about the nightmare that had fallen upon them in the last month or so. Or perhaps he was thinking about the man who had been her lover and his best friend. When Leesa and Howie had broken up, she had believed there could be no pain worse than that. Now she feared she was wrong. The silence that entombed their conversation made Leesa’s heart pound.
AJ poured more Scotch into their glasses, his arm brushing against hers.
"What are you thinking about, Xander?" asked Leesa quietly.
Still, AJ offered no opinion, ice cubes softly rattling as he sipped his drink. They both know very well what this night would lead to, but it was not due to something that they had done. Rather, it was something they sensed.
"It’s my opinion that we need to discuss what’s happening here Leesa. Something’s changed, do you feel it too?"
"I believe that you’re telling the truth. And I think that I know what the problem might be. I don’t think that we’ve ever really got past my relationship with Howard. It’s all stored up. Waiting to be ignited by something unrelated."
"I’ve worried about that. I’ve worried about that that something unrelated might be."
"He still misses me," Leesa said, and the hour and the alcohol made her feel sad for Howie.
AJ shifted his position in his chair. "I guess that would be a ten. At least for me."
"To have me leave you?" Leesa looked over at him.
"To lose someone you’re in love with. To lose a child you’re at war with. To not have closure." He stared straight ahead, his sharp profile softly backlit by the moon. "Maybe I’m kidding myself, but I think I could take almost anything as long as there’s resolution, an ending, so I can be free of the past."
"We are never free of that."
"I agree that we aren’t entirely." He continued staring ahead when he next said, "D has feelings for you that he can’t handle, Leesa. I think he always has, ever since he met you."
"They’re best left unacknowledged at the moment."
"That sounds somewhat cold."
"I don’t mean it coldly," Leesa said. "I would never want him to feel rejected."
"What makes you assume that he doesn’t already feel that way?’
"I’m not assuming he doesn’t." Leesa sighed. "In fact, I’m fairly certain he’s feeling pretty frustrated these days."
"Actually jealous is the word that comes to mind."
"Of you."
"Has he ever tried to ask you out again, after you guys broke up?"
"He took me out to ice cream once."
"Ummm, that’s pretty serious."
"Xander, let’s not joke about him."
"I wasn’t joking," he said gently. "I care very much about his feelings and I know you do." He paused. "In fact, I understand his feelings very well."
"I understand them, too."
AJ set down his drink.
"I guess I should go in and try to get at least a couple hours’ sleep," Leesa decided without moving.
He reached over and placed his hand on her wrist, his fingers cool from holding his glass. "You’ll have to fly out of here when the sun is up. Tour starts again in two days."
Leesa wanted to take his hand in hers. She wanted to touch his face.
"I’m sorry to leave you. But it’s only for two weeks."
"All I need is a car," he said as his heart beat faster.
"I wonder where you can rent one around here. The airport maybe?"
"I guess that’s why they call you Alexander the Great. You can figure things like that out."
His fingers worked their way down to her hand and he began to stroke it with his thumb. AJ had always known their path one day would lead to this.
"Are you in much pain?" Leesa asked him.
"I will be in the morning, because I’m going to have a hangover."
"It is the morning."
Leesa leaned back and shut her eyes as he touched her hair. She felt his face move closer as he traced the contours of Leesa’s throat with his fingers, then his lips. AJ touched her as if he had always wanted to, while darkness swept in from the far reaches of her brain and light danced across her blood. Their kisses were stolen like fire. She knew she had found the unforgivable sin she had never been able to name, but did not care.
Leesa touched her fingertips to his belly, felt the muscles quiver beneath the tight bandage that bound his ribs.
"Will this be all right?" she asked. "You won’t hurt--?"
"That’s not where I hurt," he whispered. Curling his fingers around her wrist, he raised her hand and pressed it over his heart.
The honesty of the gesture surprised her. She spread her fingers and felt his heartbeat. He was just a man and he hurt and he wanted this time with her to escape that pain. She hurt in her own way, for her own reasons. She wanted the same escape. It was as simple and as complicated as that.
They left their clothes where they landed and went to bed. AJ and Leesa were tender with his wounds but not deterred by them, and made love until dawn began to catch around the horizon’s edge. Afterward Leesa sat on the porch watching the sun spill over the mountains, colouring the leaves.
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty-one
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