It was the only thing that made sense.
There was something absolutely freeing about not having to answer to anyone.
Never in my entire life had I been able to do what I wanted, when I wanted, without thinking of how it affected someone else. First my parents, then my roommates in college, and for the last seven years since we’d married and moved in together, Keith.
But tonight? Tonight, I had nowhere to be, no one to tell me how I should be spending my night, and maybe that’s why I was dancing by the fire, dressed ridiculously in my favorite mesh lingerie one-piece from Free People with the most expensive high heels I owned strapped on my feet.
I’d tried being productive, tried sitting on the back balcony with my sketch book to work, but the truth was I didn’t feel inspired. I didn’t exactly feel uninspired, rather I sort of just existed in this liquid place between the two. I was living—breathing—and listening to what my soul told me, what it wanted from me in that moment.
Apparently, what my soul needed was a little 90’s R&B and an entire bottle of wine.
Boyz II Men blasted at an ungodly volume from my portable speaker, and I crooned along, one hand gripping my glass of wine while the other ran the length of my body, up into my hair, and back down again. I had a petite build, small waist with a barely-B cup that I was extremely proud of, seeing as how my mother was more flat-chested than my father. But the asset I loved most? My legs. Years of dancing when I was younger had toned them to perfection, and maybe that’s why I loved seeing them strapped into a very high pair of Louboutin’s. Not for Keith, not for any other man, but just for me.
When End of the Road cut off and Color of Love took its place, I plopped down onto the couch, panting, my fingers working to quickly tie my hair up and off my neck. Rev sat curled up on the arm, and he simply blinked his lazy eyes at me before laying his head back down again.
“Well, that was fun,” I said, peeling my heels off and letting them fall with a thud to the floor. Was I speaking to the cat or my nearly empty glass? I wasn’t sure. “Now what?”
I sipped from my glass, looking around the cabin, taking inventory. I could try to sketch again—I did have two full glasses of merlot on my side now. Or I could call Adrian, ease his worry over me a little. I knew where Momma Von lived now, she told me to stop by anytime...
Or...
“Yep, that thought wins,” I announced to Rev.
He didn’t even open his eyes this time as I bounded up the stairs. I grabbed a clean towel from the bathroom and jogged over to the dresser, fishing out a simple black triangle swimsuit top before pausing.
I was completely alone. Why did I need a bathing suit?
The answer was simple: I didn’t.
I laughed, a little too loudly and a little too high-pitched, but I didn’t care. I finished the last of the wine in my glass and flew back downstairs with my towel draped over my arm, hopping down each stair as I stripped out of my clothes. There was just enough wine left for one last glass, so I topped my glass off before skipping past a dozing Rev to the back balcony.
I left the door open, speaker still blasting, now it was SVW singing about weak knees. And I sang right along, feeling weak myself as I trembled in the cool Washington night. My smile was immovable, even when I flicked on the back porch light and nothing happened, even when the same was true of the light inside the hot tub. I decided then that the moon and stars were enough, and I flipped the cover off the tub, steadied my glass on the edge, and sank down into the water inch by blissful inch.
I moaned, the steaming hot water releasing tension in my back and shoulders as I slid all the way under. For a moment I existed under the water with the world morphed, eyes blinded and ears plugged. When I emerged, the cool air kissed my cheeks and I smiled, retying my hair and reaching for my wine.
Even with the music playing from inside, the quiet of the night surrounded me, and I cradled my head against the back of the tub as I relaxed. The stars shone through the opening in the pine trees, and I stared at them unapologetically.
When I was younger, my grandparents used to take me camping, and though I hated sleeping in a tent and cooking food from a can over a campfire, I absolutely loved looking up at the stars. They had once been something I wished on, and over the years had grown into thousands of shining points of perspective. No matter how big my problems felt, they were small. I was small. And in the same way their promises of wishes fulfilled brought me comfort as a child, their reminder of my size did the same now.
Closing my eyes, I let the wine burn through my veins, working with the water to submerge me in peace. I had just started slipping away when something slimy crawled across my chest.
My eyes flew open, and though it felt like slow motion, everything that happened next took place in thirty seconds or less, and all at once.
I shrieked, loud, and continued to scream as my arms flailed back behind me, searching for traction on the edge of the hot tub. One hand sent my wine glass over the edge, shattering the glass, none of which I could see when I’d finally squirmed out of the hot tub. A sharp wedge sliced through my heel, and I wailed even louder as I hobbled for the door, but before I could reach it, my uninjured foot broke through one of the rotten boards on the balcony.
And that was the moment I was blinded by the brightest flashlight known to man.
“What the—” a very deep, very male voice said.
“Ack!” I yelled back, my forearm flying up to shield my eyes. That’s when I remembered I wasn’t wearing any clothes.
I jerked my arm back down to cover my breasts as my other hand moved between my legs. My eyes were squeezed tight against the light, one foot was bleeding, the other was stuck in the hole I’d kicked through the balcony, and my entire body was shivering in the freezing cold. I tried to keep my balance and pull my foot free, but that only pressed the glass farther into the other, which made me shriek again and stumble. I fell against the side of the cabin and slid to the ground.
The light dropped from my face, and when my eyes adjusted, clearing through the fog of the wine and the flashlight, heat flooded my cheeks.
It was the guy I’d seen earlier, and if possible his frown was even deeper than when he’d stood at the edge of my driveway.
And then there was me.
Naked. Wet. And bleeding.
Awesome.
“Jesus Christ,” I murmured under my breath, cutting the flashlight away from her face and letting it fall to the ground next to me as I kneeled down.
I kept my eyes trained on her foot, which was just about the only safe place to look. She was a mess of wet skin and long, pale legs; it’d been impossible not to admire her slight frame moments before, soft pink nipples puckered and water dripping from her hair as steam from the hot tub swirled around her.
But she was injured, and that was what I tried to focus on as I reached for her.
“Hey,” she said, wiping the wet, loose strands of her hair from her face. When I was level with her, she pointed a finger into my chest. “I saw you earlier.” Her words slurred a bit, a smile playing at the edges of her plump lips.
I scowled, my fingertips finding the slick skin of her ankle as I inspected the large shard of glass lodged in her heel. Chills raced up her leg at the touch, and my eyes followed their trail as far as her knee before I zeroed in on her foot again. I lowered it a bit, bringing the wound into the flashlight’s beam from where it lay on the deck. Slowly, and as carefully as I could manage with large fingers that felt too rough to touch her, I pulled the glass free as she cringed. Tightening the grip on her ankle to hold her in place, I examined the area for smaller pieces before gently setting her heel back on the deck.