At last Bee peered around the door of the plane. The corners of my mouth twitched as my face began to break out its welcome to her and then my nostrils flared as I took in just how little clothing she was wearing. I ran my eyes up and down her to find a pair of white shorts that only just about covered up her backside, a cherry red, off-the-shoulder top and a large floppy hat which she was holding to her head with one hand as the wind that blew down the runway threatened to blow it away.
I shouldn’t have come. The unease that rushed through me was overwhelming. I was completely out of my comfort zone, struggling between wanting to sweep her up into my arms to hold her to me one second and the next balling my hands into fists inside my pockets as the urge came over me to smack her ass at the amount of flesh she was exposing to the world.
I swallowed hard, feeling my Adams apple move in my throat. Who the fuck are you kidding? You’re here because you couldn’t keep away if you tried.
I watched with jealousy uncurling itself in my gut as the co-pilot offered her his hand to walk down the steps to the ground and I waited for her to find me with her beautiful eyes. Unable to wait any longer, I wrenched a hand from out of my pocket, and pulled my Aviators off my face, feeling them contract and spring in my fingers. Then trying to act naturally in a situation that was fucking alien to me, I calmly tucked them inside the top pocket of my suit jacket.
At last her eyes found mine and, in that split second, I couldn’t have cared if CNN had a hundred cameras pointed on us. I pulled my other hand out of my pocket and on instinct I held both of my arms out wide for her.
Nothing could have prepared me for her reaction to what I was offering.
Dropping her purse to the floor and no longer caring if her hat stayed on her head, she started running towards me, as fast as her red chucks would carry her. Knowing that I no longer had any control over my feelings when it came her, and also understanding that I would give anything to feel her in my arms, I gave in and started to walk forward to meet her.
Just before our bodies collided, at the very last second, she put her hands on my shoulders and jumped into my arms, wrapping her legs tightly around my hips and then folding her arms around my neck. I clasped her to me and stood motionless, reeling inside at the way I now felt complete with her back in my arms. With one of my hands cradling the back of her head and the other on the bare skin I found high up on one of her thighs, I absorbed everything about her and committed the moment to memory. Fleetingly, I ran my index finger over the round swell of her ass at the tattered edge of her shorts. Knowing just how much others could see of my beautiful wife made my nostrils flare in anger and I retracted the finger fast, but my jealousy dispersed the second her hands found either side of my face and she caressed the stubble she knew I sported especially for her. As she felt the stubble under her fingertips, she smiled a brief knowing smile at me before pulling at either side of my face to demand that my mouth found hers.
As our lips connected for the first time in days, I felt I could breathe easier and my whole body relaxed.
‘Bee,’ I whispered in the small fissure I’d created between us. Then I breathed in the smell of my wife as a sense of just how much she was beginning to mean to me travelled rapidly around my body.
I knew at that moment how much I wanted the session with her therapist in Vegas to work, because I couldn’t play at this marriage anymore, I needed her by my side always.
With her mouth once again pressed chastely to mine, I caught the shit eating grin on Trip’s face as he picked up Bruce into his arms and grabbed Kendall’s hand as they started to walk away from the plane. I’d hated that my wife had been kept away from me for an extra few hours, while he’d stopped in Florida to pick them both up, but as I looked at my friend and his small family unit, I finally understood just how much they meant to him.
Maybe you’re not dead inside after all.
Without saying a word to her or even thinking about what I was doing, I inhaled her again like a man on death row trying to store away the very scent of life itself and with my angel now in my arms where she belonged, I walked us as one back to the car.
Bee
‘I must say, Barbara… the Mediterranean air suits you. You look so well,’ Mrs. Davison commented.
I cast my eyes around the large office the three of us were confined in. The decoration was light in colour and the furniture was wooden, but a soft silver in colour. Subsequently, the atmosphere of the well thought out space was light and relaxing. However, with it being my first visit to her office, I was struggling. I knew just how much was riding on my therapy sessions with her working. In order for me to share Nico’s life with him, I realised how much I needed to understand my own compulsions in order to control them.
Feeling my hands starting to wring together, I decided to curb my own fidgeting by crossing my right leg over my left as I tried hard to relax.
Nico placed his hand onto my lap and gently took hold of one of my hands in his own. I looked up from my lap and turned my head sideways to look at him.
‘We’ve got this, angel,’ he whispered to me and squeezed my hand at the same time. I stared deep into his eyes, absorbing the strength he was willing to offer me and managed to give him a small smile in return.
‘Can I offer either of you a water?’ Mrs. Davison interrupted our silence.
‘Yes please.’
‘Not for me thanks,’ Nico replied.
A cold, purple glass was handed to me as she walked around the side of my chair and took her place in front of us both. Without picking anything up to refer to, she started speaking and I couldn’t believe how brilliant either her memory was or how in tune she felt with her patients.
‘How is Crete?’
‘Wonderful,’ I replied immediately feeling a smile stretch over my face.
‘And I can see married life agrees with you both.’
‘It does,’ Nico put in, and raising my hand to his mouth he kissed the back of it.
‘And the photography, Barbara?’
‘I’m really enjoying it. I love taking the pictures and… well it sounds silly, but giving birth to those beautiful pictures in my dark room is compelling.’
‘That’s not at all silly.’ She smiled over to me. ‘It’s wonderful to see you looking so well and talking about something with so much passion. You see, most addicts who want to recover, just need the situation they’re in to change. Yours has definitely done that, Barbara and I am so very optimistic about your future.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Now that’s the pleasantries over with … Let’s get down to the nitty gritty. How have you been feeling about coming back here today?’
‘Nervous, anxious… you know.’
‘I do, but I like to hear it in your words.’ She smiled back at me.
‘Well, here… this place… it’s where I think the catalyst of all my troubles is situated,’ I offered.
‘I agree, Barbara, but it is also where you met your husband.’ She held her hands out in front of her, with her palms facing upwards as she gesticulated the balance that life needed.
‘Yes,’ I agreed and although I didn’t feel thirsty, I placed the glass to my lips to take a sip of the cool water inside.
‘Coming back here today meant you were reunited earlier than normal, is that correct?’