Chapter 2 – Ashe

“Heard you guys finally got a guest over at the inn?”

“Yep.”

“This late in the season? That’s odd.”

“Yep.”

“Real talkative tonight huh?”

“Well what do you want me to say, Oliver?” I bark, already tiring of his questions. Taking a long, and much needed drag of my cigarette, I allow my eyes to drop in frustration and try to gather some calm from the rush of nicotine. Calm doesn’t come. Only agitation remains. 

She’s been here two days, and I have only gotten a slight glimpse of her a few times. Once as she ambled slowly, her round bottom and hips rhythmically swaying her form down the hallway to her room, as I was heading out for the day. Not even noticing me coming up from behind her, she was on the phone, her voice lowered. Standing in front of her room door, I could glimpse her profile, her pretty features distorted into a frown, seemingly concentrated on the frenetic cadence of her words. She appeared to be having a tense conversation with someone whose bass heavy voice I could sort of hear coming through the phone as I approached. I wanted to stop her before she offered up the briefest of smiles and ushered her way into her room. I wanted to say... something. Everything about her rigid posturing in that short moment warned me off of interrupting her though. 

I saw her once more this morning, a colorful scarf twisted into some sort of elegant knot atop her head. One of my mother’s knitted blankets swaddling her thick form as she typed away on her laptop, perched in one of the wingback chairs by the large picture window in the front room. Nose balancing a pair of cat-eyed black glasses, head bent towards the screen, fingers flying across the keys, she definitely didn’t notice me standing on the stairs watching her. Observing the way the sun’s beams framed her face in a halo of light, and kissed her dark skin with a glow that made her seem like she wasn’t, couldn’t be real. Shouldn’t be sitting here in the front room of this small inn, a place too mild, too tame for her brilliance. 

It’s what I realized about her the moment I saw her at the hospital. She doesn’t fit in here. Not in a bad way. Just in a very real way. The same way Melanie didn’t, and made sure to constantly remind me, that this isn’t the life she ever saw for herself. I suppose she was right. Luxurious trappings of that past life that I lived with Melanie, that I see mark Raven’s as well, the Macbooks and thousand-dollar purses, simply don’t mesh with this. With who I really am. Where in the end, I find myself. 

When my mother called over to my office and asked me to retrieve a guest, the only guest we’ve had in months, from the hospital, I was not only reluctant, I was pissed. The whole idea to keep the inn open for the full year to try and get more customers, was my mother’s. At first, I went along with it, thinking maybe she needed the distraction, something to pull her away from the grief we’d experienced this year. But, then as I discovered that keeping the inn open for as long as we could was more of a necessity, I was even more frustrated and agitated. Again, not really at my mother, just at the circumstance of things. My legal practice is small, the brewery stuff is minimal, and my nest egg left over from my time in the league is just enough for me.  Those things are not really sufficient to keep an entire inn going for who knows how long. Or to pay off the mountain of hospital bills 2020 has delivered. We needed the money that guests would bring in. 

So, as I pulled on my hat and coat, and stomped out to my truck to retrieve this guest, who for some reason had been in the hospital, I attempted to swallow my agitation at bringing in strangers, potential virus spreaders, and followed my mother’s orders. I was not on board with this plan, regardless of the necessity of it, and that disgruntlement carried itself in my bones right up until I saw her in that hospital bed. Wide dark eyes. Angelic round face. Sexy full lips. Even with tubes in her arms, and bandages on her forehead, she was breathtaking. In that moment, that very first glimpse of her, all I wanted to do was to get her out of there. Not to the inn. I wanted to regift her back to whatever world a beauty like her belonged in. Which fairly or not, made me even more upset that this beautiful woman would come into my life like this. At a time when my family and I are experiencing such hardship. When our lives are covered by the remnants of heartache and mourning. Weak. 

Because of this realization, I had to admit to myself, that the sourness of our first meeting rested solely on my shoulders, weighted by a melancholy series of memories and things. Things that have driven me back to smoking. A habit that I quit my first year playing hockey in college, but with the stress of the last two years, I find myself back under the thrall of the bad vice. 

Even my own mother, the woman who literally loves everyone was somewhat caught off guard by Raven. Yet, despite all of her initial curiosity, they seem to have surmounted that in one short lunch. My mother has commented more than once at how sweet our guest is. Me on the other hand? I haven’t quite had a chance to work through her being here. Perhaps she hasn’t quite settled on me either, and that’s why I have seen so little of her. 

Sucking the cancerous toxins of my cigarette deep into my lungs again, I squeeze my eyes shut against the image of her that seems to materialize in the curves of the smoke. Rubbing at my chin, I make a silent promise to myself to rectify my position with our pretty guest. She may feel familiar, but she isn’t. Ms. Baines is a dream that feels real but isn’t. Just like most of my life has been up until last year. And that fact, her coming and her eventual going, are not a harbinger of things to come. This is just like everything else for me. Things come. Things definitely go. 

Laying his palm on the glass carboy used in the fermentation phase of our small brewery, Oliver turns his head to give me a look over his shoulder. “I’m just asking questions, Murph. It’s the only news around here lately. Other than whose got the ‘Rona, and no one wants to talk about that anymore.” He complains, using the nickname that most of my friends call me by.

 “Yeah well,” I add, blowing smoke from my lips again, watching it billow up past my eyes. “It’s not news.”

“Not news? Black lady, car takes a dive off of Vaughn into a ditch, staying at the inn? Right before Thanksgiving? During a pandemic? How is that not news?”

“Cause it’s not. Tourists come and go. Nothing special about this one.”

“If you say so. But, my sister said she was her nurse when they brought her in, and she was pretty banged up. Said her car is totaled. And the lady, her head bloody. But, she also said she’s pretty. Total smoke show!”

Cutting my eyes his way, I take a moment to consider his words. Pretty. It’s the same word I used when she gave me her name. When she stood at the top of the steps of the inn, in front of the room Melanie and I used to stay in. Her thick, curvaceous body donning the too small, gray sweats from the hospital. Short and tight black curls framing her face like a baby doll. Pretty. The word isn’t even enough, but in all honesty, I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her what I really thought of her. Of her name, the same name of one of my favorite short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. It suited this beautiful, mysterious woman perfectly. Her out of nowhere presence striking a desire that hadn’t been inspired in me in quite some time. Her smooth dark skin and eyes the color of espresso. A body that seemed to belong in the possession of my large hands that saved her from clumsily taking a spill onto the floor that first day of her arrival.  

“How could your sister tell she was hot if her head was bloody?” I protest, ready to be done with this conversation. 

“Well, I don’t know. But, I mean...that’s what Sarah said.”

“Right.”

“She’s staying at the inn, what do you think?” Oliver asks, doing an about face. Arms crossed, he tilts his head and squints, focusing his green eyes in question. “She pretty?”

“Is who pretty? Your sister?”

“No, dipshit, not my sister. The Black lady.”

“She’s alright.”

“Alright period? Alright for a Black chick? What?”

“She’s...alright.”

“That’s it? Alright?”

Alright. That’s the only word I allow myself to use with my best friend. None of these words are enough. They’re not even close. But there is a niggling, an itch in my chest at Oliver asking about her. Questioning me about her out of nowhere presence here. Inquiring about her looks. With a hard fist, I grind out a rub against my sweatered chest, cough a little, an attempt to dispatch with whatever it is that has me irritated at Oliver’s usual nosiness, and me wanting to retreat back upstairs to my office, and away from this discussion of Raven. 

We’ve been friends for over 20 years, Oliver and I, and I know he’s not going to let this go until he finds out what he wants to know. It’s who he is. In a town that numbers barely four thousand, you find your friends, and stick with them. As such, Oliver and I have been friends since kindergarten. Since he and I got in a fight because I accidentally knocked down his twin sister Sarah at recess while playing football. After he pushed me, and I pushed him back, the teacher stuck us both in time out and from there, a grudging friendship between the three of us bloomed. Which actually made a lot of sense because Oliver and Sarah’s parents had been friendly acquaintances of my own, often running ads for the inn in the newspaper they ran. 

Over time, our friendship maintained, even while I went off to Boston College on a hockey scholarship, that led to a very short stint playing for the Bruins, terminating after a career ending knee injury. A hit to my fledgling sports career that instead of sending me to the stratosphere of famous hockey defensemen, sent me to law school. On the other side of that was Oliver, heading into the Navy, and Sarah going off to Standish, Maine enrolling in Saint Joseph’s College of Maine to study in their nursing program. 

And even after that, when our fates inconceivably brought us all back to our little town. 

Oliver returned after years in the Navy, yearning for the quiet life he said the larger world simply wouldn’t give a man like him. A man whose curiosity wanted to find whatever else was out there. But who mentioned that what he found in the Navy was not at all what he was looking for, nor what he expected. Little more than a pacifist at heart, the truth about my best friend is that under all of the curiosity and adventure, is a man in love with the possibility of things, and not so much with the reality of it. The Navy was a practice in being constantly at the ready for war. Not adventure. I suppose it was the juxtaposition of the calm of Oliver, against the battle minded world of the military that eventually didn’t equal a long-term career for him. He came home and eventually settled on something that was a better fit. Now he has his own company as a fisherman, finally finding what his heart always wanted anyway. The adventure of the sea. The quiet of familiarity. 

Sarah only recently returned earlier this year, recruited by Dr. Dennis to help out at the hospital in the early days of Covid, back in the Spring when the first wave was so bad in places like New York, that even our small town experienced our share of death of and disease. Though our hospital is small, the addition of Sarah and a few other medical professionals has done a lot to keep resources from hitting the precipice of chaos. Imminent danger has stayed just outside of our reach, and I suppose if a lack of tourism has done anything positive for us, it just might be that. It hasn’t totally insulated us though, and Sarah’s presence here has been invaluable to my mother and I especially, as she was the last and only person allowed to be with my father until the end.

Then there’s me. After a few years working in a large Boston law firm, living a faster life than small town me could imagine, but not quite that of an NHL superstar, a stroke stealing my father’s mobility on his left side, brought me back home periodically throughout last year. It was only supposed to be temporary, my back and forth. Boston’s not far from here, and it was simply to keep tabs on my father while he was in physical therapy, trying to regain some mobility. But of course, nothing works like we expect. We make plans and the world laughs. 

I unexpectedly lost my job in April when the firm was challenged with cutting costs, and finding employment making the same salary I was accustomed to was proving difficult. Add to that, my father passed away shortly thereafter in late May, contracting Covid while he was in the nursing facility that helped with his rehabilitation care. 

It was big news for a while, small town New England inn keeper succumbs to killer virus. But as the surprise died down over the summer, and life with the virus remained constantly looming, a dark specter watching over our lives, the pain of a difficult 2020 has lessened. Somewhat.

Though we had all tried to purposefully move away, get on with our lives, this little nook of Maine eventually pulled us all back into the fray of small-town life. And maybe even into small town habits. Habits that cause you to find most of your entertainment in the drama to be found in other peoples’ business. And Oliver, like a lot of the residents here, loves to gossip about other peoples’ business. Hence why I shouldn’t have been surprised that his nosy ass was going to ask a million questions about Raven. And even though she’s not my business, I do feel responsible for her, I guess. Protective? None of which makes any sense but...

Inching my shoulders up in a dismissive shrug, I try for some unexplainable reason to get my friend to move away from his digging into the story of Raven. Again, I don’t know why. Can’t quite put my finger on the reason that his questions and prodding about her, his interest in her, makes me uncomfortable. It just does, I accept, as my mind’s eye catches a flash of her perfect face staring up at me questioningly from her hospital bed. Nervously, as she clung to the door of my truck as though I was the virus itself. 

“She’s alright.” I add again, shuffling from one foot to the other, cracking my neck on each side. Dusting off the frustration of a situation that just doesn’t add up.

“I’m gonna stop over for dinner and see for myself then. Ain’t shit else going on. Your ma make dinner?”

“She always makes dinner.”

“Then let’s head over.”

“Wait, what about this batch?”

“Oh yeah, it’s gonna be good. Best blueberry beer around.”

“Nice. That’s what I needed to hear. The brewery shipments and my work are what’s keeping the inn afloat right now. So...yeah.”

“I hear ya. I guess even in a pandemic folks wanna get drunk.”

“Damn right about that.” Stubbing out my cigarette in the ashtray that only I use because according to Oliver, no one in their right mind smokes anymore, I say a quiet prayer of thanks that the brewery is still successful. What started as a side hobby for Oliver and I, a little something to do when I wasn’t helping my mother at the inn, or taking small cases on the side, has turned into the last thing in the midst of everything to keep me sane. To keep things afloat. To keep me alive.

Zipping up his plaid, wool coat, and pulling his beanie down on top of his mop of wild red curls, Oliver pats me on the back as he walks towards the door. “Let’s go. I wanna see this pretty guest, who’s just alright, for myself.”

XXXXX

“Oh yes, I did a little bit of modeling in my day. Just a little something before I had Ashe.”

“I knew it. I could tell.”

“How’s that?” I hear my mother ask as Oliver and I come around from the front door of the inn, following the voices to the café. 

A beat passes, then the breathy twinkle of Raven’s voice answers, and I immediately sense my feet moving me more quickly towards her. I want to see her full lips form her words. 

“You have these graceful movements. And the bone structure of your face is just...really striking.” She pauses momentarily, as though she’s giving her next few words serious thought before she speaks them. “Your son, has the same kind of face.” Nervous laughter follows, as she cuts off her words. Did she just say my face is striking? Is that what she meant?

I’m unable to figure it out before Oliver outpaces me, striding into the café, and immediately dropping down into one of the barstools just a few seats away from Raven. With a rap of his knuckles to the bar top, he catches the attention of both Raven and my mother. From the shadows of the doorway I watch her face, the way her features animate as they rise and fall at catching sight of Oliver seated near her. There is an interest there, a warming flicker and a flutter of her long eyelashes, a sign of what I assume is attraction. 

Oliver removes his coat and knit hat and begins with very little fanfare to engage her and my mother in conversation. Introducing himself to Raven. Complimenting my mother on the smell of whatever she’s baking. He’s been thinking of her cooking all day. But then, his focus is back on her. With relative ease he begins talking to her. To Raven. Asking her all of the questions I wanted to ask her myself. Where is she from? New York. What does she do? She’s a writer. What is she doing here? Taking a break from the city to finish her most recent novel. In between his questions she laughs at his easy candor, her fingers often teasing with her lips, skimming delicately down the column of her swanlike neck. Not in a fidgety way. A flirty way.

What is it that allows him to approach her, arrest her with such affability? Where has my own relaxed quietude retreated to? I’m a good-looking man. I know this, and I don’t admit it in a conceited way at all. My mother was a model. I inherited her patrician features, her hair once so dark it almost seemed blue. Her stark blue gaze, never quite as ocean clear as what my father’s were. Always bordering more on a near violet azure. 

As I growl and frustratedly yank my wool hat off my head, and tangle my fingers in the mass of hair I’ve allowed to grow overly long, I struggle with the admission that I guess I don’t feel the same about a lot of things anymore. About myself perhaps. The urges of a man pursuing, sensing the hunger to go after something he wants. There was a time that felt innate. That certain romantic ease with women. Like when I first met and fell in love with Melanie. Reluctantly, I confess to myself, even if only in quiet, introspective moments alone, my divorce stole much of that from me. Scribbled blue ink that carried my signature, and finalized the demise of my marriage, also absconded with more of me than the simple legal agreement would suggest. Love was dead.

My own parents’ love story was nothing like mine. Their’s, though it ended tragically, was the story of a beautiful woman who wanted the life of a world-renowned supermodel but fell in love with a roughneck working as a logger, just like her father. He brought the young guy home for dinner one night after a long day of work, and as both of my parents told it, my mother took one look at the tall, burly man, four years her senior, and decided right then and there, he was for her. 

My mother is charismatic that way. It’s what makes her a perfect innkeeper. Loquacious and kind in personality, attractive and engaging in personage. It’s what persuaded my lovesick father to take his wife and only child, leave the small coastal town of their birth, purchase a run-down mill that had been closed for years, and use their life savings to open an inn. Eva’s ability to persuade and convince, to put others at ease, and overall optimism no longer genetically extends to me. 

It’s probably for that reason that though I’m clearly attracted to Raven, I’m watching her and Oliver joke and banter together, instead of engaging her myself. Why I have been stuck in second gear, while he’s tossing his head back and pushing his coppery red curls back from his face, grinning at her. “So, tell me, Raven. Wait, I can call you Raven right? You like that?”

As I move, ambling around the kitchen, gathering a plate, stacking it high with food, I take note from a sideways glance, of her giggling at his question and rolling her eyes playfully. 

“Of course, I like it. It’s my name. Please, call me Raven.”

“Raven.” He winks, her name rolling off his tongue, the last syllable drawn out, lingering into a sly grin. “What are you writing about? Tell me. I love a good story.”

A sudden rush of excitement seems to enliven her as her spine stiffens at his request. “Are you a writer also, Oliver?”

“Not really. My parents do run the local newspaper so I’m familiar with the power of words.” He leans closer to her, not too close as to lessen their six feet of distance, but just enough that she can probably make out the devilish gleam of his green eyes as his red hair tumbles over his brow. “But, I’ve got plenty of good ones of my own to tell. I’m happy to share any time, Raven.”

Scoffing, not even slightly amused by their interplay, I thank my mother for the food and retreat with my plate. Settling in at one of the tables on the opposite side of the bar, closer to the fireplace, I watch their back and forth like a romantic comedy. A stage play performed for my pleasure. Or my displeasure, I grouse to myself as I tear through the roast my mother has prepared for dinner. It stings that they have taken to each other. That over the last two days of going back and forth in my mind on how to approach her, or even if I should, I may have missed out on something. 

Strategically, I focus my concern elsewhere. Thumbing through my phone, feigning interest in checking my emails as I eat. 

“What about you, Ashe? You got any good stories?” Raven asks, purposefully swiveling my way on her stool, her raised tone addressing me, instantly snatching my attention from my phone. I raise my gaze to witness her tilting her head just a tad, a tiny, almost impish smile curves her full lips, seemingly growing with interest as she awaits my answer. 

Clearing my throat, I’m trying to swallow the chewy mouthful of roast so I can answer her, but immediately I’m interrupted by Oliver. 

“Ashe isn’t a storyteller, Raven.” Angling his form even closer to hers as he moves out of his seat, he puts his hand up to cup his mouth as though hiding his words from me, and whispers near the arch of her ear. “He’s a bit of a grouch. You’re not gonna get much out of him.” Chuckling he drops down on a bar stool that is one seat closer to her then raises his voice to address me, but maintains his focus on Raven. “Right, Ashe?”

Only briefly dashing her eyes over to scrutinize Oliver’s closer proximity to her, Raven centers her sights on me again. “You’re not really a grouch are you, Ashe? Even if you are, everyone has a story to tell. Even a grouch. Right?” She asks, crossing one leg over the other, pushing her thick hips and bottom to one side of her stool. She’s wearing black leggings, and a gray t-shirt that hugs the inward curve of her waist and seems to lift her heavy breasts in a way that steals my focus away from every single one of her words. 

“Ashe?”  

Shaking my head, blinking, I wipe my hand over my lips with my napkin. “I don’t know. Nothing to say I guess.” Raising my eyes to hers, hoping she completely, somehow missed my lustful stare, I muster a slightly embarrassed smile. I’m sure I’m blushing though, especially when she tortures me by tugging at her tiny t-shirt, pulling it to snugly hug at her frame, and I can’t not look. I can’t not feel some unexpected thrill at her including me in what seemed to be a conversation that Oliver was intent to keep between just the two of them. 

“Raven, honey, Ashe used to be a hockey player. Professional for a while. Now he’s a lawyer.” My mother interjects over her shoulder, as though she is not really involved, but was paying attention just enough to save me from my own lascivious thoughts. 

Hopping off of her stool, bottle of beer in hand, Raven walks over to my table, easily gliding into the seat in front of me. Making me jealous of that lucky ass chair. Taking a sip of the cool liquid, she focuses her eyes on me, her lips forming a perfectly full cupid’s bow. “That’s what I thought. Everyone’s got a story in them.”

“Not me.” I rebut, leaning back in my chair, intent on taking her in. She’s so fucking cute. I know some guys like long hair but... she doesn’t need the busy distraction of it. I like how easy it is to see her without it.

Again, my mother interjects, this time her tone carries a hint of surprise and censure at my response. “Ashe! That’s not true. Tell Raven-”

“Not me.”

Turning her attention back to me from my mother, Raven’s shaking her head. Sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, she kisses her tongue to her teeth. She’s killing me. I suspect she knows it. 

“Oh...I don’t believe that, Ashe. Maybe you just don’t trust me enough to share it yet?”

“Well, we’re strangers so.” My shoulders inch up towards my ears in a shrug. I’m not trying to be dismissive but despite my mother’s insistence, my life of failure is not something I want to discuss with this woman who seems to ooze confidence. “Nothing to share.”

“We’ll see about that. Maybe we won’t be strangers for long?”

Silence hangs in the air for a moment. Raven studies me, her sexy dark eyes never halting their focus. It should make me unnerved, her seeming fascination with me, my story. But instead, her persistence secretly shivers through me. From my head to my fucking toes, my senses enliven with a creeping shiver. Shit.

Clearing her throat my mother comes from behind the bar. “Well, I’m gonna leave y’all young people to it then. I’m going to bed. Your aunt Angela and I are going to try and get over to talk to someone at the bank tomorrow. Probably gonna be a long day. You all have a good night.” She offers, bidding us all a waving farewell as she turns towards the front of the inn to probably lock up on her way to bed. 

“Good night, Mrs. Murphy.” Oliver nods her way, then helps himself to a plate of food and a beer in the refrigerator. Joining Raven and I at the table, he begins to dig into his food. “What are we getting ourselves into tonight, young people?” 

Stretching, her arms long and lean over her head, her back arched, Raven tosses her head back and rolls her neck, drawing the attention of both Oliver and I. “I should probably head to bed as well.” Releasing a long, satisfied breath, almost a moan, she continues, “Getting kinda tired. I’ve been chatting your mother up all day. Trying to get some inspiration to write. She’s a very funny lady.”

Around a mouthful of food, Oliver mumbles, “Oh yeah, Mrs. Murphy has a sharp wit for sure. Now Mr. Murphy though? Ashe’s dad was one for like uh, dry humor. He was always the straight man to her funny man.”

“I could imagine that. She’s got a way of seeing things that is quite comical even though it’s very unexpected coming from her. I can only imagine what your father was like.” Raven unexpectedly eases her hand across the table, her fingers lightly glancing my own as she mentions my father. “I’m sorry to hear you lost him to Covid this year. Your mother told me.”

Her mention of my loss hits me a little. The sincerity in this stranger’s voice for some reason striking me as genuine. Swallowing down the thick lump that forms in my throat, I inch out a response to her kind words. “Hm. Thank you.” 

It’s quiet again, the three of us awkwardly at a standstill at the mention of my father’s passing, until Raven begins to rise from her chair. 

“I’m gonna go.”

“You don’t have to.” I mutter.

“I don’t want to intrude. You two probably have guy stuff to do.”

Reaching out towards her, his fingers gripping the very tips of hers, Oliver shakes his head and pleads, “No! Stick around. You play cards?”

“Uh... yeah...” Raven answers, dropping slowly back down into her seat. “What you have in mind?”

“Little poker. Little beer. What else is there to do?” he shrugs, offering her the reasoning to stay that I hadn’t quite gathered yet.

“Sure. I play poker. We’ve got three here, we can get a game of Texas Hold ‘em going. Where are the cards?”

“Drawer in the sofa table in the front room. Behind the couch.” I point my finger towards the front room, directing her already moving form. As she leaves the room, her little t-shirt continues to torture me and has now bunched around her waist, and both Oliver and I can’t help but to crane our necks to follow and witness her swinging hips and ass, hypnotically carrying her thick body away from us. 

“Daaaamn! You fucking liar!” Oliver whispers, punching me in the arm.

“What the fuck?”

“You said she’s just alright? Just alright? Do you have fucking eyes or what?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You know she’s fucking hot. You didn’t want me to see her. Did you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I deny his accusations, sitting back in my chair, crossing my arms defensively across my chest. Hell no I didn’t want him to see her. Oliver has slept with almost all of the single women in town, why would I want him sniffing around Raven too?

“Well I don’t care. I’m gonna fuck.”

“What?”

“She likes me, dude. I’m gonna fuck.” Oliver announces with finality and all of the confidence of a man who has made good on that kind of promise before. “Never been with a Black chick before.”

I’m unnerved by his declaration, but it’s not a part of the man code to cock block. Instead I simply toss out a dismissive grunt, “Whatever.”

Returning with a deck of cards in her hands, Raven edges back into her chair, and begins shuffling the cards. “Let’s play!”

XXXXX

“Damn, you’re cute and you’re good at cards? What can’t you do?” Oliver asks, his words holding a hint of a slurring quality. He’s drunk. We’re all probably a little drunk after about four or five beers and three shots of tequila a piece. I’m feeling unsteady, my face getting that numb thing going on that lets me know I’m definitely going to feel this in the morning. 

“Can’t you read my shirt, man? It says ‘Phenomenal Woman’. That means I can do everything.” Raven adds, a smirk twisting her full lips as she gathers the cards and deposits them back into their box. 

“I see that.” Oliver mumbles, his body sluggishly angling to his left where she’s seated primly, no signs of intoxication slumping her body or her pleasant features. “What’s next?”

“For who?”

“For us.”

“Oh, I think you’re probably gonna need to head home and sleep this little poker ass whipping I just gave you off.” Patting his shoulder, Raven instantly rises from her chair, her movements only a little less graceful than before. The woman can hold her liquor. “I had a great time, guys. Thanks for letting me join you.” 

Just as she’s about to walk away, Oliver grabs at her hand like he did earlier, but this time drunkenly jerking her towards him with what I’m sure is more force than he actually intended. He’s clearly inebriated, so I’m not going to hold it against him, and it seems she doesn’t either. Her eyes drop to where he’s holding her hand, and with ease, she removes it from his grip.

“I’m sorry-”

“Oliver, why don’t you go ahead and get going? I’ll walk you over to your house.” Immediately I’m helping his tall lanky form up from his chair, grabbing his elbow to steady him on his departure. 

Waiting on Raven to safely make it upstairs first, I grab Oliver’s hat and coat, help him with them, then begin the quick walk a block over, to his house. 

Head swaying a bit, jutted forward, Oliver slurs, “I fucked it up, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Fuuuuck! Imma havta...havta talk to her tomorrow.”

“Yep, you do that.”

“Her lips man...”

“I know.”

“Fucking lips... Like- like...”

“Here’s your house, Ol.”

“Youse a good dude, Murph.”

“Yep.” I agree, helping him with key to unlock his front door. Easing his long arms out of his coat, I decide that he’s too heavy and I’m too drunk to assist with much more, and I simply deposit him on the couch for him to sleep it off. “Take it easy, man. Get some rest.” I order, then close his front door behind me, steeling myself for the short walk back home.

XXXXX

Making the rounds, I click off the lights in the kitchen, and throw away the last of the beer bottles and shot glasses we left on the table in the café. In the dampened darkness, I catch a glimpse of her curvy form entering the kitchen, feet skipping across the floor, the dramatic hem of her robe dancing behind her like the train of a wedding dress. 

“Oh!”

“Hey! I didn’t mean to startle you. Cleaning up.”

Palm flat to her chest, Raven is breathing heavily, chest heaving, probably caught off guard by my presence. Her robe is a silky material, a subtle rose color, that even under the muted light of the dark kitchen, kisses and clings to her dusky skin perfectly. Flitting open across her chest, the fabric leaves nothing to the imagination as she drops her hand to her side, leaving apparent full supple cleavage. The shock of running into me has enlivened her. Her thick nipples poke against the robe, firm and turgid atop the round heaviness of her large breasts.

Sucking at her lips in that way that I have come to notice during our night of drinking and card playing is her thinking face, she haltingly breaks the silence. “I wanted a drink.”

Chuckling, I grin at her, incredulous by her admission. “You want another drink? Of tequila?”

“Ah! No! I meant water. You gotta hydrate if you’re gonna drink, dude.” She laughs, the sound music to my ears. 

I’m intoxicated. Not just from the beers and shots. From her. For the last four hours, I’ve learned quite a bit more about Raven than that she’s a romance writer from New York. She’s twenty-eight. One sister. Parents still married and living in Brooklyn. No kids. No pets. Allergic to dogs. Never mentioned a boyfriend or a husband. She’s funny. She’s nosy.  Quick to ask a question, but easy to follow it up with a qualifier that it’s just her nature as a writer. She likes to know what makes people tick, I think. It makes her characters more realistic she says, which is probably true because in every single story she told of getting into trouble during her college days, or growing up in Brooklyn, her words drew a vivid picture that made it seem like I was watching these people and their adventures unfold right in front of me. 

And, last but not least, she’s a flirt. Not as an artificial affectation. It’s her nature. The glittery softness of her voice that holds a certain husky melody to it, in that way many New Yorkers, or as she corrected, Brooklynites have. Her tongue and lips rolling the word water into ‘watta’ and river into ‘rivaa’ as she tells a story about how she and her friends got stuck on the Verrazano Bridge coming from a concert in Pennsylvania on a Fourth of July weekend. Raven is direct, but not sharp. Quick with a smile, a delicate twist of those fucking lips more than anything. Expressive with her hands, flying in the air when she’s excited. Body fully engaged, joining with the interplay of her hands and her face, a dramatic symphony to accompany every articulate word.

All of it is arousing, and what catches me, captures me under her spell more than anything is that she doesn’t seem to have a clue that she’s doing it. Or maybe she does?

Like right now. Standing in front of me. Presented in the dark, her loveliness almost fanciful, illusory, she doesn’t seem to realize that my fingers twitch against themselves, electrified with the need to touch her. Sweeping over her with my eyes, I lean against the bar and try to grasp through the fog of lust, beer and tequila to control myself, find restraint. 

“Yeah, water will help with that.” I agree, running my hands over my face, dragging my nails against my skin to clutch at sobriety. Regain myself. 

“Don’t do that! Don’t touch your face!” Reaching out, Raven uses both of her hands to pull mine away from my face. “The virus.” She reminds me, still not letting go of my hands, but maintaining her hold of them. Her fingers tightly clasp mine, the nearly electric jolt of chemistry they stir at their joining, drawing my attention. 

Almost instantly, as though she’s been zapped by our kinetic connection, she drops them, drawing herself away from me, mumbling something about hand sanitizer and walking a few paces backwards. 

But, now that we’ve touched, that I’ve gotten just a hint of the velvety softness of Raven, I can’t stop wanting more of it. It’s the same energizing jolt that hit me when I caught her in my arms the other day and prevented her from falling. She fits so perfectly in my hands, how could I not want her there?

Balancing her weight in a fluid shift from one hip to the other, seemingly uncertain about what to do next, she asks, “Do you think your mother will mind if I grab a few bottled waters? Take them to my room?”

Shaking my head, I walk closer towards her, my steps slow, measured. My destination certain. “No. She won’t mind.” I don’t get too close, keep a few steps between us. I don’t want to startle her with our proximity. We have had too many encounters already that began that way. Me startling her. My brusque questions freezing her. That Raven, the startled little bird isn’t the one I want right now. It’s the fast-talking, energetic Raven. The confident card playing woman, with the pretty round face, and sexy lips who made my acquittance this evening that draws entices me. 

“Cool. Um, I’m gonna-”

“You wanna sit for a sec?”

Smiling, that tiny moue pouts her lips as she asks with a slight tilt of her head, “What?”

Dragging in a slow-paced breath, in through my nose, I calm the racing of blood through my veins, and grin right back. “Sit with me for a second, Raven?” Turning my palm upwards, extended to her, I offer her direction to close the space between us. 

Without another word, she willingly takes my hand. Thin, long fingers are swallowed by my larger and even longer ones, as I grasp her palm lightly, guiding her. Our movement together creates a billowy whisper of her perfumed scent to hit my nose. A powder soft fragrance of something faint but alluring. I noticed it earlier, but with her so much closer to me now, it’s overwhelming my senses. Raven permits me to lead her to a table against the wall of the wide windows, gracefully taking the chair I pull out for her. 

With any agility I can muster, I turn back around and weave through the tables and chairs to head back into the kitchen where I gather a few bottles of water and take my time to make her a cup of tea. Coming back to the table I set the bottles down, then more gently place the hot mug of tea in front of Raven. 

Retreating from where she had set her sights on the snow-covered world outside of the windows, Raven drops her eyes to take stock of the items I’ve laid before her. 

“Tea?”

“Thought you might like it.”

“You have honey?”

“And lemon if you want it.” I nod, already raising from my seat across from her to gather the items. 

Draping her palm fully over mine, halting my escape, she rushes towards the kitchen before I can, and digs around until she finds what she’s looking for. As well as another mug of tea that she places in front of me. Which automatically makes me smile at the thoughtful gesture. 

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. I actually love tea, and this smells amazing. What kind is this?”

“Lavender. It’s my mother’s. Mel- My mother got it as a gift for her migraines.” I answer, adding two teaspoons of honey to my mug, wincing at almost unwittingly dropping my ex-wife’s name into our conversation. 

“I’m sure this mixed with the alcohol is gonna knock me out. That’s good though cause I have had a little trouble sleeping since I got here. It’s too quiet, ya know? I’m used to the city. To the sounds of cars and people, and the world being alive around me. Here it’s like...nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yeah.” Stopping to take a short sip of her tea, and dropping her lashes to her cheeks as she moans in satisfaction, she gestures towards the window. “Look out there. Not a thing moving. No energy. No life. Nothing, Ashe.”

I was stirring my tea when she moaned and said my name, and well... it abruptly stops me. My movement. My heart. There is something about the breathy, exasperated, lilt of playfulness in how she said it. In how she expresses her satisfaction. My face grows warm. My pants grow tighter in the groin. Shit.

Turning away from her I stare out of the window for a bit, gathering myself and considering her observation. “Maybe you just don’t know how to find comfort in the quiet of life?”

“What do you mean?”

“When I left here and moved to Boston, it was hard to sleep. I felt crowded by the noise and bustle. By how many people there always seemed to be...just around. When I came back, I felt at ease again. Like...I had space to breathe.”

“To exist?”

“You’re a writer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You feel alone in the quiet. That’s your perspective. I feel welcomed to know that under the stillness of the snow are mice and smaller mammals burrowed in for the winter, still alive. Surviving. Making lemons of lemonade. There are some birds that are still here, flocked up together to wait out the winter. They don’t need hustle and noise to still be alive. Summer will come and they will be different. But even though they retreat right now, there is still life. But their lives don’t crowd into my survival.”

“Surviving. Ok. There is life in survival.”

“Survival is life. Sometimes it’s all we have left when everything we thought we had just...leaves.” I mutter, sensing a particular sting at that truth. 

“Is that what you’re doing here, Ashe? Surviving?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I mean right now. Is that what your mother is doing?”

“Probably.”

“You don’t talk a lot. I noticed that tonight with your friend Oliver. You watch. Wait.”

“He likes to talk. Mostly about himself.”

Laughing, Raven nods her head in agreement. “Yes he does. But not you.”

“Not me.”

“You know what I think?”

“Tell me.”

“I think you don’t trust, and that’s why you don’t give of yourself. Life has hurt you. That’s why you watch.”

Hitting a little too close with the honesty of her observation, I immediately try to change the subject. “Maybe I watch because I like what I see.”

Dipping her head, and quirking one eyebrow, Raven allows the redirection. “Is that right?” Possibly intrigued by this new avenue of discussion, she begins toying with a thin gold necklace that delicately rests in the hollow of her throat with fingernails painted a glittery silver. “What do you see, Ashe?”

“A beautiful woman who seemingly dropped out of the sky. And I wonder...what is she doing in a place like this?”

“You think I’m beautiful?”

Sweeping her with my gaze, greedily consuming her silhouette against the frosty window, I answer her question with nothing but truth. “I know you are.”

“You know? You’re much more charming tonight than you were the first day I met you.”

“I am? Hm.” Leaning back in my chair, I cross my arms over my chest, and ease my legs out in front of me. Carefully, I’m plucking through my words to come up with the right ones to explain myself. “Like I said, you kind of came out of nowhere. We haven’t had a guest in nearly 6 weeks. Thanksgiving is in two weeks, and boom. This Black girl from New York just shows up.”

“What’s so strange about that? Let me guess, it’s the Black part?”

“Somewhat. I don’t think we’ve ever had a Black guest.”

“That’s...that’s a shame.”

“Population of Maine is probably less than 5% Black. So...yeah. And like I said, no one’s been here in a while. Covid pretty much cut us off from the rest of the world.”

We seem to have come to an impasse now, a clearing of the awkwardness of our first meeting. She’s back to staring out of the window, something about the vast openness of the world on the other side of the glass seeming to continually capture her attention. 

On the other hand, she’s all I see. The sepia tone of the room, a romantic hue created by the lone kitchen light battling against the glow of the moon, casts her as the main attraction of my eye. One side of her robe has slouched over her shoulder, revealing a series of dark tattoos. Tiny birds that seem to take flight from their perch at her collarbone, then disappear over shoulder. Her leg is lifted in her chair, foot resting flat on the seat. Absentmindedly her palm drags rhythmically up and down over her shin, and the glimmer of gold rings that adorn her fingers constantly rubbing catches my attention. Lulls me into quiet focus on the plump roundness of her fleshy thighs. I want to replace her hand with my own. I want my palm to divide the folds of her robe and explore the warmth of her winsome form. To ride the rise and fall of each full curve. 

In the dark stillness this woman stokes my arousal with the simplest of gestures. It’s a sensation that I’m not sure what to do with. Habitually, I have never found a thicker woman as alluring and distracting as Raven is to me. I’ve never been with a Black woman. I suppose up until now I would say I have a type. Thin, short, brunette. Perhaps that is why this uncompromising attraction to Raven is so surprising for me. And intoxicating.

As though she can hear my thoughts, Raven finally returns her eyes to mine. “My head hurts a little. I think it’s time for bed.” She announces, and just as she lifts from her chair, she sways a bit. Unsteadily grabbing to the edge of the table for stability. “See? It’s definitely bedtime.” She grimaces and tries to laugh away what is clearly discomfort that is distorting her features. 

“I’m going to bed, too. Hop on, I’ll take you up.” I declare, gesturing for her to climb atop my back without really thinking. 

“You’re gonna give me a piggyback ride upstairs?”

“Yeah come on. I got you.”

A short-lived moment of indecision keeps her from immediately following my suggestion, but in the end, Raven can’t resist and as I kneel down in front of her, she hops right on. Instantly the press of her full breasts crushed to my back, her legs around my waist, and her thighs in my palms creates a rush of blood straight to my cock. In this thin robe, every inch of her full body is apparent. Rounded hips and womanly curves. Nightgown hiked around her waist. Probably no panties on. Shit.

The delicate weight of her body against mine is exquisite torture, and pushes me to take my sweet time climbing up the steps with her. My lips may be telling her that I’m taking it easy given her condition, but the raging need building in my groin knows that it’s really to prolong this moment. Especially when she appears to be growing even more tired halfway up the stairs, and inches her face to rest along the back of my neck. Lips brushing against my sensitive flesh as a soft whispered ‘thank you’ kisses my skin. I drop my eyes in a bit of appreciation of my own.

Reaching her room door, I once again kneel low to the ground, and she hops down. Turning, I see Raven in the muted darkness of the still hallway, her silhouette outlined in the door. 

With her palm brushing the bandage still protecting her forehead, she looks up at me, blinking those long, sooty lashes of hers, and offers in that soft, husky tone of hers, “Thank you, Ashe.”

It’s a no-no to touch her face with my hands, but I can’t stop myself from framing her angelic countenance with one hand, as I place the other against the door and lean down to place a kiss on her temple, right over the bandage. 

“Good night, Raven.”

Her cheeks rise slightly, pulling the corner of her lips into a soft smile as she turns and opens her room door. She doesn’t immediately enter though. Instead, she halts, and seems to swallow whatever words are dancing on her tongue, head swiveled slightly to the right. There is some indecision in her unwillingness to enter her room and leave me behind. Maybe, like myself, she doesn’t know what to do with the unexpected energy arching and crackling between us. 

Wanting to ease her mind, I lean in once more, and over her shoulder settle my lips in a gentle press on hers. Her lips are warm, sweetened with the taste of honey and lavender. 

Fire builds in my chest, and in my cock. A serious fight between want, desire and reason, wars in my body. One hand holds me steady pressed to the frame above her head on the doorframe, the other fists and clenches, curling my fingers into my palms instead of clutching at the sleek robe that dances over her skin. I want to gather it in my palms, bunch it as I grip and squeeze the plush flesh of her hips and ass.

Raven smells divine, her honeyed lips like flowers and candy. Like every dulcet and decadent thing I’ve ever wanted in my life, all tucked under the silk of her thin robe, the only thing keeping me from her. Restraint flashes in my brain, a faint charge as I unwittingly moan against her lips as she grazes her lithe fingers against my bearded cheek. Pushing my face into the palm of her hand, I groan at the gentleness in her touch.

Moments pass. Seconds. Minutes. I don’t know. I don’t care. I want this. I miss this feeling. Need it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. But I know I can’t follow her into her that room. Three days ago I didn’t even know she existed, and the memories of a marriage that abandoned me in that very room, is too heavy a burden to succumb. It’s the albatross around my neck that roots me to atonement for a marriage gone bad. A sincere commitment to loneliness.  

Reluctantly, I’m coming to my senses and pulling away from her. Slow and unwilling, the drunken numbness in my face from before has been replaced with a buzzing tingle from where our lips were joined. Where her hand embraced my face. Stuck, rooted to the floor, I can’t move any further away from her. I can’t speak. I can do nothing until she makes a choice for both of us and releases me from her spell. 

Breathing deeply, body shivering with almost visible arousal, Raven gulps down whatever emotion rides her. Without another glance, she crosses the threshold into room 202. 

“Goodnight, Ashe.”