Lie a Little (Gambit/X-23) - Mature - Part 2
Title: Lie a Little
Characters: Remy LeBeau, Laura Kinney, Julian Keller, Logan, Rogue
Pairing: Remy/Laura
Rating: Mature
Author's Notes/Warnings: Underage
Summary: When Remy goes to visit Laura, he makes a mistake that threatens to transform the nature of their friendship.
previous
Remy wakes up hours before dawn, takes a shower and brushes his teeth. It’s such a long drive to the airport, and so early, that he didn’t bother asking anyone to drive him. He’s leaving his car in long-term parking.
Outside the air is cold and still, stagnant and hibernating. He hates winter and wishes it would end already. When he gets into his car, he doesn’t bother to turn the heat on yet because he knows the vents will blow nothing but cold air. As he turns onto the two-lane highway that will take him away from the Westchester County countryside, he flips on his radio and then switches over to his tape deck.
The cassette in his tape deck is labeled Rogue, and when he listens to it he feels queasy, excited, nostalgic, and a little bit sick. He has some private rituals-the need to torture himself with better, brighter memories. He wonders why. Does he want to be punished? Or does he secretly believe he can summon good times back to him?
That had been a good summer. A good Westchester County summer. Not much had happened, and it had finally seemed like all that Sinister bullshit was behind him. The weather was beautiful and calm, and every weekend he and some of the others went down to Long Island Sound.
He remembers what it was like to be in love with Rogue.
In the evenings, when fireflies started to puncture the landscape, he and Rogue would sit on the hammock together and listen to music and laugh and talk. She’d swat him when he got a little too close, but she wasn’t ever really angry with him. Not then. “Let’s go to California,” he said to her while “California Stars” played from the stereo.
“I’ve been,” she said. “It’s not that great.”
“Hell, I been too. But not with you. C’mon, chère, let’s go. Right now.”
But neither of them went anywhere. Summer in Westchester was too good to pass up.
He made her the tape near the end of the summer. Four weeks later she gave it back to him, along with a shoebox of his personal effects. Standing in his doorway, eyes shining and angry, she thrust the box into his arms. The box held a book and a tee-shirt and some letters he’d written her-all of them smudged with tears. “I didn’t mean it, chère,” he said.
She inhaled a few times and didn’t speak. Remy saw that she was trying not to sob. “I know,” she said finally, her voice flat. “You never mean it. It’s just who you are.” And then she turned away.
It was that moment-that moment of turning-away-that Remy has remembered for the rest of his life. No matter what else happened between him and Rogue, he’d always picture her moving away from him, her shoulders hunched, her body shaking with tears. They’ve had a hundred fights. All of them have felt like an echo of that one.
Finally he arrives at the airport. It’s just becoming light outside. He leaves his car and waits for the shuttle that will take him to the terminal. In California it’s three hours earlier-the middle of the night. Laura should be sleeping, so he can’t call her. He wishes he could, or that he could text someone. He’s in such a good mood about being able to leave New York that he can hardly contain himself.
Once inside the airport, he prints his boarding pass and moves quickly through security. He gets a cup of coffee at a Starbucks, and after drinking it his hands shake. He thinks about Julian’s letter-in his coat pocket-and wonders if he shouldn’t open it. He decides not to. Still, he can’t shake the excited, half-sick feeling of getting away with something.
***
When the plane lands in California, he reaches for his phone and turns it on. He’s not yet off the plane yet when it vibrates. It’s Laura.
“You have landed.”
“How did you know?”
“I tracked your flight online. Now I’m downstairs in the baggage claim.”
Laura wasn’t supposed to meet him at the airport; he was going to rent a car and drive to the Avengers Academy. This is a surprise, a pleasant surprise.
He picks up the pace and leaves the gate, passing the security guards. Locating the escalator, he takes the steps two at a time. And then he sees her standing next to the conveyor belt. She’s just the same as he remembered her: hair down her back, blue top and dark pants, black shoes.
He reaches for her. “Petite,” he says.
“Gambit.” She turns and walks into his arms.
“Didn’t think you’d be here,” he says, squeezing her and touching her hair. “Your hair’s longer.”
She pulls away and looks up at him. Her gaze is intense, evaluative. “It is the same length as when you last saw me.”
“You look fantastic. Los Angeles is good for you.”
“It is as Jubilee said it would be. Gambit-” she gestures to the woman standing next to her-“this is Tigra. She is my teacher at the academy. Tigra, Gambit. My friend from the X-Men.”
“Of course,” Tigra says, and Remy says “Oh” at the same time. He’s surprised. He hadn’t noticed Tigra there before. He’d assumed that Laura had come alone. (But why did he assume this? Of course she didn’t come alone-she’s a student at a boarding school. A kid. The Avengers probably don’t let the kids wander around Los Angeles by themselves. Unlike the X-Men, whose students regularly roam the streets of Manhattan.)
“Nice to see you,” he says. He holds out his hand and tries to ignore the fact that in his other hand he’s holding a copy of Us magazine with the guy from The Bachelor on the cover. He’d picked it up in the airplane. If he’d known that Laura had brought a grown-up with her, he would have tossed it before he got to the baggage claim.
“Did you have a good flight?” Tigra asks, shaking his hand. She smiles politely.
“No bumps, no complaints.”
“Do you have a suitcase you need to pick up?”
“Oh no. I didn’t check any bags.” He points to the duffel bag slung over his shoulder as if proud of his minimalism.
They stand there smiling at each other, having run out of pleasantries.
This awkwardness is precisely why Remy doesn’t mingle with other superheroes. He never has anything valuable to say and he always feels like he’s being judged. People on other teams-the Avengers, the FF-they have an air of legitimacy about them. They’re dead serious about this saving-the-world thing while he’s just moonlighting. Being a hero is not really a calling for him. If the X-Men hadn’t taken him in, he’d probably be counting cards in Vegas.
“Has the weather been good here?” he says finally.
“Yes, it’s wonderful.”
“Well, that’s what’s important.” Remy sets himself in the direction of the exit, hoping to ease everything along. “I was, um,” he starts to say.
At the same time, Tigra says, “I’m parked in the garage on the other side of ground transportation. Short-term parking. We’ll give you a lift.”
“Oh, thanks,” he says, trying to sound genuinely appreciative. “But I’d been plannin’ on renting a car. I mean, I thought that would make it easier to get around? Southern California and all.” He glances at Laura. He’d been hoping they could drive into the city. See Hollywood. Go to the beach. He hadn’t been planning on staying at the Academy but at a hotel nearby. The last thing he wants out of this vacation is a room at another boarding school and a place at the breakfast table with a bunch of superheroes.
“Oh, sure,” Tigra says, so easily that it seems like she’d known his plan. “But we can give you a lift to the car rental place.”
“Maybe we should drive you to a car rental place outside the airport limits so that the taxes and fees won’t be so exorbitant,” Laura adds.
“That’s alright,” Remy says. “Gotta get back to the airport in a few days anyway. You pay for the convenience of that.” He doesn’t want to spend anymore time in a car with Tigra than he has to. It’s nothing personal-just how he rolls.
“Then we’ll drop you up the road,” she says.
The short drive isn’t as awkward as Remy thought it would be. Laura sits in the back and looks out the window, and Tigra chats over the sound of the pop music on the radio. Remy marvels at the fact that earlier that morning he’d been listening to his favorite nineties songs, a far cry from the non-dynamic shit Tigra’s playing.
At last they reach the car rental place. Remy grabs his bag and opens the car door, leaning down to thank Tigra. Laura also unbuckles her seatbelt and exits the car. “I am coming with you,” she tells him.
“You want to join us for lunch?” Remy asks, leaning through the open window.
“That’s alright,” she says. “I have to get back. Enjoy yourselves. Be good, Laura.”
After Tigra drives off, they look at each other. He smiles at her. It’s the first time he’s seen her-really seen her-in almost three months. “You do look different,” he says. “Tan.”
“I do not tan.”
“Well, your hair is different. Did you color it?”
“Gambit, I do not think my hair is capable of absorbing color. It is too dark.” She stares at him for a moment, and her face softens. “I have decided to part it on the other side.”
“That’s what’s different about you.” He pulls his cards from his pocket and shuffles. “Pick one.”
***
In southern California the Mexican food is, as always, better than it is on the East coast. It’s got more of a kick to it, but it’s not just spicy for the sake of being spicy. He and Laura eat outside on a sidewalk, an umbrella shading them from the noonday sun. He’s got his cards spread out on the table in front of him.
“I do not believe in divination,” Laura says, “but I am always curious to hear how you interpret your cards.” She leans forward, her elbows on the table. “Your interpretation says more about you than it says about me.”
“Oh no,” he says, glancing down. “There’s magic in these cards. Real magic, petite.”
“Judgments always say more about the person doing the judging than the one being judged.”
He looks up at her and wonders if Logan told her that. He doubts it. Logan would never be so self-reflexive. Maybe she’s quoting an Avenger.
“The cards tell me you’re happy.” He lingers over the ace of hearts. The recent change of residence, the happy home. He taps the queen of clubs. “You’ve seen Jubilee.”
Laura doesn’t move.
“Has she asked about me?”
For a moment Laura looks thoughtful. “No, not-sometimes.”
He’ll take that as a no.
“She and I are not supposed to correspond,” Laura says.
“Ah.” Yes, the divorce. “Well, ignore that little decree. Don’t let some other guy’s bullshit come between you and your friends.” That’s advice he wishes he’d taken more often. “You’ve also seen-” he passes his hand over the cards-“the Kardashians. In person.”
She hunches over the table. “How did you know?”
“It’s all right here.” He points at the spread.
“Which Kardashians?”
“How the hell I am s’posed to know? The cards don’t know one Kardashian from another.”
Laura studies him. She almost smiles. “You are bluffing.”
“I am,” he admits. “But I’m not bluffing about this, honey child.” He points to the eight of hearts. “This is the party card. It’s telling you to live it up, and hell, I’m going to. I’m gonna have another drink.” It’s only noon, but he’s already killed one beer. He holds up his glass for the waitress to see. “You want one?”
“Gambit, I have not yet reached the legal drinking age.”
“We can fudge. Didn’t the Avenger kids set you up with a fake ID?”
“We do not do things like that here. It’s not like with the X-Men.”
That statement almost gets him to put his glass down. Almost, but not quite. The X-Men have a bit of a reputation for being the team that parties the hardest. And from what Remy’s observed, the reputation is deserved. Between him and Wolverine and Piotr Rasputin-hell, even Scott Summers-they’ve closed quite a few bars. They’ve always been like that, though it used to be worse. There’s just something about being an X-Man that fuels one’s most self-destructive impulses. Perhaps it’s the feeling of immortality that comes with having an x-gene. Perhaps it’s because they feel like they’re living in the end times. Or perhaps it’s the not-so-paranoid suspicion that the world wants to rub them out.
Without meaning to, he’s thinking back to that perfect summer in Westchester County. They partied all the time then, all of them. They went to the local bars. They went to concerts. They had outdoor barbecues. They went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Madison Square Garden, and even Scott got trashed as they waited for the band to take the stage. He loved the band, knew all their songs. Every so often, regardless of what was going on around them, he’d raise his beer in the air and sing, “How long, how long will I slide.” And he’d get Remy to sing it with him. And everyone would laugh. Jean was there, and she got him to shut up with a kiss.
And as Remy looked at Scott and Jean, he thought about Rogue and what he would say to her that night when they left the concert. No one’s ever made me feel the way you do. Chère, I can’t imagine a future without you. Children? Let’s have a baseball team. Mutation? Fuck it.
Even after Jean Grey died, they all still drank. Shit, they drank more after she died. They started at noon. They drank wherever and whenever they felt like it-in the school, in their rooms, whenever they were trying to get their work done. They knocked back vodkas and double scotches during the day. They got very Mad Men about it. Charles told them to cut it out-said workplace drinking was unbecoming of a superhero team, made them look like alcoholics. “C’mon Professor, I’ve done some of my best work soused,” Remy said, and Logan said, “He has. It’s terrifying.” But Charles was not amused. The point was taken. The drinking became less visible. Even so, Remy knows that Emma and Scott got serious over some three-martini lunch.
“Gambit,” Laura says, “Gambit, I must tell you something.”
He’s still holding his glass up when Laura says this. He takes his eyes off the waitress, who has just acknowledged him. “What’s up, petite?”
“Gambit, I-”
The waitress materializes next to their table. “Another one?” she says.
“Please,” Remy says, handing over his glass. He tries to shake off the slight prickle of her judgment. (But why would she judge him? It’s Los Angeles for god’s sake-the city that keeps rehab in business. She stands to make a killing from alcoholics’ tips.)
“Sorry,” Remy says, turning his attention back to Laura. “What were you saying?”
Laura presses her hands against the edge of the table. She looks at him, uncharacteristically tense. “Gambit, I have missed you.”
“Oh, I’ve missed you too.” He’s a little surprised by her declaration-Laura’s never so forward. He wanted to tell first thing that he missed her but worried that she would be wary of his sentimentality. “Looked forward to this trip a lot. Kept thinkin’ about all the times we had last year.”
“Me too,” she admits. “I have few fond memories of my life. The time I spent with you . . . those are good memories. I miss you greatly.”
He eases his arm onto the table and stretches toward her. “You wanna come home?”
“This is my home now.”
“I know, but-you’ll always have a home with us. If you ain’t happy here-”
“I am,” she says. “That’s why this is difficult. I am content here, but I am occasionally homesick. My feelings about my situation are highly complex. I am not used to feeling pulled in two different directions.” Without looking at him, she reaches for his arm. Then she slides her hand along the inside of his forearm and keeps it there.
“The kids out here in California any better than the ones in Westchester?”
“They are fine. They are kids.”
“Julian wrote you a letter,” he blurts out, and then hates himself a little bit for what he’s just said. Why has he chosen to ruin this precise moment with Julian’s letter? Now he’ll have to give it to her, and it might just destroy her mood. As he retrieves it from his pocket, he wishes he’d read it first.
She takes her hand away.
“You don’t have to read it if you don’t want, petite,” he says, setting it on the table.
“No, it is okay.” She takes it from underneath his fingertips. Quietly she tears open the envelope, removes the letter, and unfolds it.
Mercifully, his beer arrives. As she reads the letter, he tries not to watch her too closely. He takes a few long gulps.
She puts the letter down but doesn’t look up at him. Folding it, she slips it back into the envelope and then sets it on the table.
“Anything important?” Remy says.
“Not really.”
He plays with his coaster and takes another sip.
“He says he is sorry for the things he said to me. That’s all.”
“He ought to be sorry.” He wonders if he should ask her what Julian said to make her so upset. But he gets the sense that she doesn’t want to talk about it. “Well.”
She tucks her hands under her lap and shrugs at him.
“I’ll get her to bring over the check,” he says. “Anything particular you wanna do?”
“I have tickets to see a comedian. A comedian you like.” She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out two tickets.
“No shit,” he says, gathering up his cards. “You shouldn’t have.” He studies her. “You like this guy? He make you laugh?”
“I do not watch him. I don’t watch TV at the Academy. But I remember that you used to watch him last year, and I did find his observations somewhat amusing.”
When they get up from the table, he squeezes her shoulders. She leads him out of the patio.
***
The show isn’t for hours, so they have time to kill. They ride up the Los Angeles freeway system with the windows down, the wind blowing their hair. Remy stays in the carpool lane and goes fast. “You wanna show me the Academy?” he says.
“We can do that later. Today I am grateful to be away from school.”
“I hear ya.” He’s glad he doesn’t have to make nice with any Avengers right now. With Laura he feels comfortable-like himself. Like he can finally relax again. He doesn’t have to be the good teacher or the dutiful X-Man. He can toss back two beers at lunch and speed down the freeway in the carpool lane.
“I have volleyball practice tomorrow morning, so I must be there for that.”
“Volleyball? You any good?”
“I am the best.”
He smiles. It’s not that Laura is immodest. It’s that she’s honest. “You ever play it on the beach?”
“At Utopia.”
“That was no beach,” he says. Encouraged, he changes lanes and heads in the direction of the water.
***
Laura trounces him at beach volleyball. She is, of course, more serious about competitive sports than he is, but even so it’s comical.
“I can’t keep up with you,” he says, trotting in front of his side of the net. The sun beats down on them, but it’s not hot. It’s still just March and the weather is perfect, cool ocean breeze and all.
Laura shields her eyes. “You are not trying.”
“I am.”
“Volleyball is about strategy, Gambit. Same as anything. Same as chess. Same as cards. It’s logic and opportunity.”
“Serve her up again.”
Laura hesitates. She walks toward the net and hooks her fingers through the mesh. “I think . . . I think we have played enough for now.”
“Sure,” he says. “Something on your mind, petite?”
Laura shakes her head and runs her fingers through her hair. The sun shines off her hair; contrary to her belief, it does reflect color. He sees deep reds and dark browns.
“You okay?” he says, coming closer, dropping his voice.
She shrugs, impassive. Something’s bothering her, he can tell. Laura is usually not expressive; she’s serene. But right now she seems troubled.
“What is it?” He wonders if it was Julian’s letter. He quietly curses himself for having given it to her.
“I want-to take a walk.” She pulls her hand from the net and turns to face the water. Without another word, she sets off in that direction.
Remy follows her. He stays a few steps behind her, curbing his impulse to ask her once more what’s wrong.
When she gets to the edge of the water, she stops and stares.
He sidles up to her. “Pretty, ain’t it.”
She turns sharply and gives him a look. “Do you like teaching?”
“Yeah, it’s great,” he says, trying to make his voice sound as upbeat as possible. He pauses. “It’s, you know, important work.”
She continues to stare at him.
“It’s alright,” he admits, this time more quietly. “Feels like something I just fell into.”
She nods and looks away.
“Maybe I’m not the best guy for the job. Maybe I let Wolverine talk me into it before I knew what I was gettin’ myself into.” He looks out at the water. “I don’t exactly set a shining example for the mutant youth of America.”
“Move here,” Laura says. “Move to California. Live here instead.”
“Oh hon, I’d like to, but-I’m part of Wolverine’s crew, and I got responsibilities to the school-”
Laura turns to face him. “You are always asking me if I am happy here. Well, I am. But you ask me to move back to New York anyway, where I was never happy.”
There’s a moment of silence. Then Remy says, “You don’t seem all that happy now.”
“You are the one who is not happy. So I ask you to move here, and you act as though it is out of the question. But when it comes to me and where I live, it’s a different story. Why I am the one who is expected to move to satisfy everyone else? Why am I the one who’s always expected to do what everyone else wants?”
“Laura.” He wants to reach for her. “I would never ask you to go somewhere you don’t want to go. If you’re happy here, then fine. But you seem so homesick.”
She stands in front of him. “I want you to move here, Gambit. You are the one who seems unsatisfied with your current situation, not me.” Her voice gets quiet. It’s almost swallowed up by the sound of the waves. “I want you to live here. Close to me.” Her eyes catch the steep plunge of a gull into the water, and then she turns her attention back to him. “I have few wishes, few fantasies for how I want my life to go. But when I think of how I want things to be, I think of you out here. And both of us together.”
His mind races. At this point, he’s not quite ready to acknowledge the full implications of what Laura is saying. He decides to address the practical. “Laura. It’s not as if I don’t want to move here. It’s that I can’t.”
“Yes you can. You could if you wanted to.”
“The team, the X-Men-I have to live where they are.”
“You could work with the Avengers.”
“No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Why not? Wolverine is an Avenger.”
Well good for Wolverine, he wants to say. He also wants to say that his questionable past puts him out of the running for a spot on any other superhero team. (Hell, he’s lucky the X-Men are as accepting as they are-though he suspects it’s because they all have their skeletons.) But beyond that, he knows he could never cut it with the Avengers because, well, he can’t stand them. He can’t imagine hanging around with Steve Rogers. Or working with Clint Barton. What a shit show that would be!
But he can’t tell that to Laura. She wouldn’t understand. “Petite,” he says. “You’re young. When you’re young you can uproot yourself as many times as you want. But when you get to be my age, and you got all these responsibilities . . . a job . . . it gets harder.”
She puts her hands on her hips and looks down. “Hard but not impossible.”
“What about you? Is this whole superhero-in-training thing really what you want to be doing? With your life?”
“Do not change the subject. We are talking about you.”
“Bear with me, this is related.” He fixes his gaze on her. “You want to do this? Let me put it this way. If you could do anything, what would you do?”
She opens her mouth. Then closes it.
He can’t tell her what he really wants to say because it would be depressing. All at once he can feel the weight of his age, all those years gone by. He’s not old-he knows he’s not old. But he’s not young either. He can’t wake up tomorrow and start new, shove his belongings into a trunk and just drive. Or he could, but eventually he would have to turn the car around and come home. And he’d have to answer to people.
He can’t tell her that life goes by quickly because she wouldn’t understand. He would not have understood if someone had told him that during that perfect Westchester summer. He was not able to see back then that life trickled by when you weren’t even paying attention; that twelve years felt like nothing until you looked back and realized-oh, shit. That was it.
“You could go to college,” he says to her. “That’s what you should do. Take time off. Get some schooling. College would help you figure all this shit out.”
“I do not have anything to figure out. College is not for me.” She gives him a pointed glance. “You did not go either.”
“Yeah, petite. And now I teach sex.” He raises his eyebrows. “Point taken, non?” He stares at her. Gives her a goofy grin for effect.
Her face relaxes. She looks like she’s trying not to smile.
And just like that, he has her back.
***
Late in the afternoon they head to his hotel so he can check in. He takes a shower to wash off all the microbes he picked up on the plane. When he emerges from the bathroom, fully clothed, he finds Laura sitting at the desk reading. She’s reading the Us magazine he picked up that morning on the plane. And she’s so serious about it. Like Logan, she reads whatever’s around. He smiles.
“See anyone you know in there?” he says.
She glances over her shoulder at him.
“You’re a California girl now,” he says. “Soon you’ll know all kinds of celebrities.”
She gives him the once-over. “You look nice.”
“I clean up well. You need to check in with the school?”
“They know I am with you,” she says, turning back around. “Gambit?” She pauses. “Can I stay here for the night? I already asked when I was signing out at school, and they said it was okay.”
“Sure. But what about your volleyball practice?”
“It is not until ten.”
“Okay,” he says. He imagines they’ll grab breakfast together. It'll be like last year. She might as well stay-they should wring out every last moment of their time together. Soon it will be Monday and he’ll be heading home. Back to the drab East coast. Back to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Back to penises posted to his door and office hours and faculty meetings and rooms full of vindictive teenagers. Back to seeing Rogue every day without being able to talk to her. (Jesus, when did he get so pessimistic?)
He adjusts his jacket and grins at Laura. “Ready to go?”
***
The comedian puts him in a better mood. The guy is funny, and he pokes fun of members of the audience without being cruel or distasteful. Remy and Laura sit in the middle of the club, so they’re safe. Remy works on two whiskey sours and Laura eats a basket of chicken wings.
He leans toward Laura and touches her arm. “You like this guy, huh? He’s funny.”
Laura just looks at him. She’s not frowning-just intense. She covers his hand with hers.
At the time, he’s not paying close enough attention. Or he’s paying attention to all the wrong things. He can’t yet see how this will end, how it will play out. And how he’s a part of it.
By the time they head back to the hotel, he’s loose and relaxed from the booze and from the comedy routine. He feels like telling Laura about some of the goings-on at the school-just as long as they don’t involve his own humiliations. “So that ‘Good Feeling’ song is currently everyone’s favorite,” he says as they pull into the hotel parking lot. “They play it morning and night. You can’t get away from it. It’s like a plague. The girls even made a dance to it. Don’t ask me to show it to you.”
“I won’t,” Laura says. She grins.
“Oh, she smiled,” Remy whispers.
“I smiled because children are funny. They are the same everywhere. No matter what school or what city. They enjoy themselves. They can forget.”
“You sound like an anthropologist,” he says, wanting to ignore the crux of what she just said. She’s a child too. But she doesn’t see herself that way. “Maybe that’s what you should study when you go to college.”
They make their way into the hotel and get on the elevator and ride to his floor. They get out and walk down the hall. No one else is around. When they were traveling together last year, they checked into a lot of hotels together. Sometimes he wondered what people thought-if they took him for a young-looking father or a much-older brother. Or something else entirely. In any case, no one asked.
Once inside the room, Remy removes his jacket and sets it on the chair. Laura moves past him and sits on the edge of the bed. She starts to kick off her shoes.
“You want anything?” he asks. “Room service? Mini-bar?” He bends over and opens the mini-bar, scanning the contents for the brand of booze he likes best.
Laura shakes her head. “Too expensive.”
“Too expensive” is his middle name. He’s never been thrifty. He twists off the cap and hums “Good Feeling” and empties the contents of a little bottle into a plastic hotel cup.
Laura rises from the bed. For a second she looks like she’s getting ready to head to the bathroom. Then she takes a step closer to him. She reaches for him. Snakes her arms around his waist and presses her face into his chest.
He almost loses his balance. He sets his cup down on the desk, nearly spills it.
Laura hangs on. Takes a deep breath. Remy closes his eyes and inhales her scent. Something he’s wanted to do since he got here.
She moves one of her hands up his back and he feels things shift right away. Things are changing. Life is spinning out.
“Petite,” he murmurs. He whispers this into her ear. It’s not too late-if he pulls away, they’ll remember this only as a moment of unpremeditated awkwardness, a too-long good-night hug gone slightly awry.
Laura pulls back slightly, looks up at him. Slides her hand tentatively up his shoulder.
He cups her elbow with his hand. Trembles now, nervous. He can’t help it. She answers his anxiety by intertwining her fingers with his and holding him tighter. As if anything would keep him from shaking. And when she presses her mouth against his, he feels as though they’ve been kissing all along. Everything seems to fall into place.
He feels as though he’s watching himself, hovering somewhere nearby, having an out-of-body experience. But no. This is him, all him. He’s the one pressing one hand to the base of her neck, tracing her hairline, rubbing his thumb against her throat. He’s the one reaching up the back of her shirt. He whispers her name, hoping that this will get them both to stop.
Her mouth is beginning to feel as familiar as his own when Laura reaches for his belt buckle. She too is shaking, trembling a little, but this doesn’t make him want to stop. It makes him want to keep going as if to reassure her-as if to comfort her in the only way he knows how. It’s okay, he wants to say. He holds onto her waist with one hand, reaches up the back of her shirt with his other hand and starts to unfasten her bra.
She breaks off their kiss, but only to pull her shirt over her head. After pulling her bra off and tossing it on the floor, she stands in front of him for a moment, naked from the waist up, and then closes the space between them, pressing herself against his shirt. As he holds her, he’s reminded once more of how young she is. She’s too young. “Laura,” he says. “I want-”
She reaches for his belt buckle again, undoing the front of his pants. He touches the crescent of skin beneath one of her breasts and is surprised when her stomach muscles jump. She’s ticklish.
He embraces her again, holding her head against his shoulder. It’s still not too late to put a stop to this. He’s hard now, and she’s moving her hand against him, and it’s still not too late. He knows she used to be a prostitute because she told him this, and he works hard to put the thought out of his mind. He can’t stand to think of her like that, can’t stand to think of himself in league with the other men who hurt her. No. The thought rises to meet him and he forces it down. He’s not like that, this isn’t like that . . .
He kneels in front of her. Unfastens her pants and slowly undoes the zipper.
Minutes later they’ve shed the rest of their clothes. On the bed, she reaches for him and he settles on top of her. Again he gets the feeling that’s he’s both himself and not himself; he enters her and then pulls back to see her face. She’s okay, they’re both okay. But they’re not. Things are shifting, changing into something else. He’s picking up speed, hurtling toward another place and away from the life he built with her.
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