All Was Golden in the Sky

Brendon wouldn’t tell me what happened between him and Dad when they were golfing. By the time I got upstairs he had already moved his suitcase into the Lounge. He smiled and folded out the couch, wrinkling his nose slightly but trying to hide it by scratching it. I leaned against the doorframe, watching him check out his new room.

That night was somewhat lonely. It was the first time Brendon and I hadn’t shared a bed since we became serious, and I shivered into my covers without the warmth of his touch. Several times I considered sneaking across the hall to the Lounge to lay with him on the couch, but there were two problems with that.

One, my door squeaked. Loudly. And even if I managed to get past my room, the door to the Lounge squeaked too.

Which led to the second problem: The Lounge was right next to my parents’ room. I didn’t want to ruin Brendon’s chances of ever using the bathroom at night by sneaking into his room repetitively when my dad could hear it. Being a cop, he had a tendency to be a light sleeper.

The next morning everyone was somewhat tense. Brendon was avoiding eye contact with everyone and was staring at the puzzle as my mom worked on it. Dad was watching TV in the family room, eating a bagel, and Sawyer sat with his head on his paws, watching Dad’s every move and hoping for a crumb.

Mom offered Brendon a puzzle piece and he smiled warily, shaking his head and politely declining. When I walked in she noticed me. “Hi Annie!” she smiled, sipping her Heavenly Delight happily. “How are you?” Bless Mom. She was always so irritatingly unaware of everyone’s discomfort.

“Fine.” I turned to Brendon. “Bren, you want to drive around town with me? I can show you around.”

Dad sat up and dropped a quarter of his bagel; Sawyer lapped it up. Brendon noticed and hesitated in responding. I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I grabbed the car keys.

“C’mon,” I demanded, slipping on my flip-flops and leaving to go through the garage. He trudged along behind me, noticeably relaxing once he was out of my father’s sight. I smiled reassuringly at him as I buckled in, and once I was sure he was as well, I pulled out onto the street and headed west to begin the tour.

“What do you want to see?” I asked casually, smiling as we passed the pond across from my house and all the geese trotting along through the grass. Those little guys used to make me so happy. The babies were always adorable, little puffs of hair waddling around after their parents, and every time they flew over the house their V was like the doll equivalent to a smile like mine.

Brendon shrugged and glanced out the window as we pulled up to the stop sign signaling the end of the neighborhood. “Anywhere you want sweets,” he yawned, lazily covering his mouth with his hand.

“You tired?” I asked, turning off to go down the road, driving past the Wal-Mart and Superfresh on either side.

He nodded sleepily. “You weren’t with me,” he mumbled. “I can’t sleep when you aren’t next to me.” I paused at the red-light we had approached and looked over at him, looking deep into the dark eyes staring back at me. I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off by a loud honk directly behind me.

“It’s a green light, dumbass!” the driver behind me yelled, shaking his fist out his window. I rolled my eyes and pushed down on the gas, shoving a middle finger out of my window before speeding away.

I didn’t expect Brendon to be too fascinated looking at all my old schools. They weren’t that amazing. But he listened to all the stories I had to share about each school as we passed it.

About how on the first day of school every year in elementary school I missed the bus on the way home because my parents told me they were picking me up, when they never did and they only meant they were dropping me off every morning.

Or the time in middle school when I fell down the hill on the “playground” and ran straight into the pole of the basketball net.

Or how I had learned at that point to never be outside for longer than I had to in high school for fear of harming myself and how I diligently pushed my way through the crowds every day to hurry to the bus until I got my car senior year.

We didn’t really go anywhere where we had to get out of the car because this city was known for its Panic lovers, so we drove past the Town Mall and my old church on Main Street, which Brendon told me he wanted to go down again because “it looks so quaint!” By the time my tour was over it was getting somewhat dark and Brendon insisted on stopping at a gas station for a Twinkie or something, and I knew that the time for my original plan to take action.

When we were both in the car and on the road I pushed my foot harder on the gas. Brendon’s eyes glanced at the speedometer.

“Jesus! What the fuck, Anne, slow down!” he exclaimed. I ignored him and within twenty minutes we were where I wanted us to be. “Where are we?” he asked worriedly, glancing around the abandoned parking lot of an old warehouse nobody owned anymore. I shut off the engine and grinned over at him and he narrowed his eyes, scooting away and pressing his back against the window, his Twinkie clenched in his hand.

I hit the red button and my seat belt flew back into the door, zipping past me and enabling me to scoot closer. When I did the same to Brendon’s, he gulped, “Are you seriously—“

He stopped as I brought my face up to his, lingering millimeters away from his lips and letting my cool breath brush against his mouth. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, smiling as he closed his eyes, “I’m a day late for your reward.”

His lips twitched into a small smile as he caught on. “That’s okay,” he breathed, his chest heaving as he struggled to contain himself. “Things come up, understandable.”

I traced his cheek with my nose and moved my lips to his ear, caressing it gently before whispering, “Lean your chair back.” I pulled away and started unzipping my jacket, watching him as his eyes flew open. He looked quickly to my hands as I discarded my jacket to the back seat and moved down to start unbuttoning my jeans. It took him only a second longer to frantically reach for the side of his seat, searching for the lever and squealing as his fingers touched it and his seat flew back.

I sat up and shimmied out of my jeans, throwing them back with my jacket before worming my way onto his seat, sitting on his lap after he desperately removed his pants. He was breathing heavily as I leaned down to his face, kissing the corner of his mouth and working my way across his cheek to his ear.

When his gasp of delight reached my ears, a sudden thought came to my mind before I lost myself in the ecstasy only Brendon could bring me to.

This was the man I loved more than anything in the world. This was the man who I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I couldn’t even spend a few hours away from him in the darkness of night when there wasn’t even anything to be said, just sleep to be had.

I wondered if Brendon felt the same about me, and as I heard him whisper my name and kiss me with delicate lips lathered with passion, I had a pretty good idea.