I called him at eleven. I had intended to wait until midnight when it was actually his birthday but I was barely able to keep my eyes open.
"Hey Jane" He always did that when he answered the phone. "What are you still doing up?"
I suppressed the urge to yawn, "Oh, just finished getting some stuff done around the house. I wanted to be the first to wish you a happy birthday. I was going to wait until midnight but I don't think I will make it that long." I yawned then, turning my face from the phone so he wouldn't hear me.
He didn't say anything for a few seconds and I suddenly had a chill run through me. Like maybe he was one of those people who didn't acknowledge his birthday or it was the very day that his grandmother had died or something equally awful. And I wanted to take it back. I wanted to withdraw my wishes and pretend I'd never called him. I couldn't of course but I wanted to say something because the silence was stretching.
I was to my cracking point. A full twenty or thirty seconds had passed since I'd spoken and I was to the point of saying something - anything - to break it and move past my apparent faux pas.
"You want to go somewhere Jane?" Go somewhere? At eleven on a Tuesday?
"Now?"
"Yeah. You want to meet me somewhere? Like, the river? You want to meet me at the river in like twenty minutes?"
"Ok." It was out before I had even really thought about it. That was the problem with him, he made me unable to think.
"Ok, I'll see you there... oh and Jane?"
"Uh huh?"
"Dress warm. It's cold as shit outside."
And with that, he hung up.
I didn't even move the phone from my ear. I just sat there listening to the dial tone and wondering what the hell had just happened. And what was going to happen in twenty minutes.
The dial tone stopped and became that awful loud beeping sound that snapped me back into reality.
I got up off of my bed and started looking around trying to decide what I should wear. It was cold outside, at least twenty degrees. There was no wind, but it didn't matter because I froze at forty degrees. I threw on an undershirt, a long sleeved shirt and then a short sleeved shirt over it all, then added thermal pants and some jeans and two pairs of socks. Finally, a sweater, jacket, gloves, scarf and hat.
I was amazingly calm considering that I was about to go meet him and I had no idea why. And it was eleven and cold and I had to be up in seven hours for work. But I set all of that aside and went out to the car and started it. He and I were equally distanced from Laurel River. Although on opposite side of it, I knew it was a ten minute drive for either of us. I also knew where he wanted to meet. I knew because every time we had barbecues at Laurel River, we always met at the same place.
I drove in silence, concentrating on breathing slowly and keeping the butterflies in my stomach at bay.
I wanted so very badly to take this as a good thing. But with him, I felt like a toy on the end of a string that a cat bats around. I pushed him and this night as far out of my thoughts as possible just watching the road instead. I could think about it all tomorrow when it was over. I could analyze and consider later. For now, I was just going to drive and see what happened.
I turned left down the road that led to the river and realized then how perfectly beautiful a night it was. The moon was full and shining brightly on the water ahead of me and the stars dotted the sky, their various constellations twinkling.
I saw the huge oak tree ahead of me where we always met and parked my car next to his truck. I could see his silhouette near the water about twenty yards in front of my car. I turned my engine off and killed the head lights and then stepped out into the icy air.
I stood still for a moment allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It didn't take long. Even parked under the massive tree, the moon light managed to make it's way through the leaves and branches and I could see very clearly.
I walked down and stood next to him, looking at the water. It was like a black mirror. Not a ripple on the water to speak of. I glanced at him and noticed that it wasn't the water that he was looking at, he was staring at the sky. I looked up and saw a star shoot across the sky. I gasped as I watched it trail from one side to the other and then a second later, another went. A meteor shower. We stood there with our breath coming out in small clouds of white mist for five full minutes, neither of us saying a word. The bursts of light were coming in groups now, ten at a time. I didn't want to blink and miss a second of it.
"You're shaking."
I was. I took a second to try and decide if it was the thrilling sight I was taking in or the cold but decided I didn't care. I'd never seen anything like this before and I wasn't moving no matter how cold it was.
He turned and walked back to his truck and came back a few minutes later with two sleeping bags. He laid one out on the grass and then took my hand and pulled me down onto it next to him and threw the second one over us.
We lay there in the grass and watched the shots fly across the sky. My shaking slowed to a trembling and I felt the warmth start to return to my toes. He slid his arm under my neck and pulled me closer to him so that we could share body heat. I have no idea how much time passed before we saw the mad flurry abate back into a few random flashes across the sky.
As the streaks became fewer and further between, I became more and more aware of the fact that I was laying on a blanket in his arms. This wasn't the first time I'd been in his arms, but it was certainly the first time in a very long time. The last time I had laid this close to him I had attempted to give him my heart and he had declined to keep it and instead had given it back to me slightly bruised. The memory of that night ran through me like ice water and I shivered involuntarily. He pulled me closer, my head now resting his chest.
I wasn't sure what to say or if I should even move. This was so perfect and I knew in a matter of minutes it would be over and I would go home. I didn't want to be the one to break the spell. And as it turned out, I wasn't. His watch let out a singular beep signifying that midnight had arrived and broke our perfect silence.
"Happy birthday." I said again.
He reached down with his left hand and stroked my cheek, trailing off into the hair that was coming out from underneath my hat. I shivered again and we both new this time it wasn't from the cold. He turned from his back to his side, propping himself up on his right elbow, pushing me in the process onto my back, his arm still under my neck. I held my breath. His face was directly over mine, his eyes looking into my own. He brushed my cheek again with his hand and I swallowed hard and took a slow and careful breath as he followed the line of my cheek down to my neck and left his warm fingers there on my skin. I tried not to give away the fact that my heart was racing but his hand rested on the very part where my pulse was beating.
Then he leaned down and so very softly brushed his lips across my own. No more than the wings of a butterfly delicately fluttering across my lips. I wanted to grab him and pull him closer, but I held still. He trailed the same kiss onto my cheek and my chin and then my neck, all barely touching before coming back and kissing my mouth once more, this time harder. He took his hand and ran it through my hair pushing the knit hat off of my head and into the grass. And then he kissed me again, this time not so softly. This time, deeply and long. I had never been kissed like that. I was suddenly aware of nothing but him and I. Nothing but his mouth on mine and his hand in my hair, and his body laying next to mine. The kiss could have lasted a million years and never stopped and I wouldn't have known. But it did stop and he rolled back onto his back gathering me up to him as I tried to find my breath.
I can only assume it was the sheer exhaustion mixed with the utter joy of being with him that allowed me to fall asleep. The next thing I was aware of was that my nose was very cold. I went to reach up to try and cover it with the blanket, thinking I was in my bed, and found my hand entwined with his. Snapping my eyes open, I saw that dawn was beginning to break.
There was a moment. A moment where I tried to decide if I wanted to move, wanted to leave this blanket on the ground by the river, leave him. For a split second I thought about just closing my eyes and going back to sleep. But the fact of the matter was that we would eventually have to get up and the responsible grown up part of me thought it should probably be with enough to time to get to work.
I lifted my head from his chest and propped it up on my hand. He smiled at me and wrapped his arm around me tighter, never opening his eyes.
"It's morning." I said to him. He peeked open one eye enough to confirm what I had just said and then closed it a again and nodded, again pulling me closer to him. "I have to go."
"I know. Just come here, for one more minute."
I laid my head on his chest again and listened to his heart beat.
"I want to see you tonight," he said. "Can I pick you up at six?"
"Yes."
I heard his watch beep again and knew from the light in the sky that it was now six. He knew too and released me enough to let me know he knew I was leaving.
I sat up and looked at him again. He met my eyes and smiled and then pulled me to him for one more of his butterfly kisses and I got up and drove home.