While the place has obviously been scrubbed clean of both use and the personality of the owners, my poking around reveals traces of a previous life. A case of some kind of nutrition drink sits unopened under the kitchen table. A maroon Bible stands lonely in a little magazine nook built into the end of the couch. I run my finger over the smooth gold crown of the pages, coating my finger with a film of dust, which I wipe on my shorts. The bathroom still has toilet paper on the roll and a stack of white towels?—?thin, like tea towels or hospital towels?—?folded in the cabinet under the sink. I slide them aside, knocking them into something, which falls sideways with a rattling sound.
It’s a prescription bottle, totally full of morphine. That’s some heavy-duty pain stuff. I wonder why it’s full. Why was it left here? The urge to swipe the pills comes over me like a drive-by devil before I put them back and head down the narrow hallway and slide the door into its pocket. A queen bed fills the middle of the room and is surrounded by honey-colored cabinets. Blankets, sheets, and pillows are stacked on the mattress. I glance over my shoulder at Dom.
There’s want in his eyes.
It’s a certain look I’ve come to recognize: chin lowered a bit, eyes focused and penetrating. I love that look. But instead of coming toward me like I expect, he leans a shoulder against the wall and stares at me with his arms crossed.
Dom holds his ground when I think he’ll advance. Surprises when I think he has no more mysteries. Six months ago, when I pegged him for another hotshot adrenaline junkie, he showed me poetry and tender pencil drawings of hawks, my profile, and his dead mother’s strong hands making tortillas.
People don’t always like Dom on first impression. For instance, my best friend, Joe. Well, Joe doesn’t like him after many impressions. I don’t know why. But to me, Dom is like the art he loves so much: complicated and nuanced. The more I look, the more beautiful he is. My heart inflates each day, expanding and rising up, up, and he holds the rope that tethers me when I feel like I’ll float away. In turn, I do the same for him. We urge each other into wild explorations, then belay each other to reality.
Needing to kiss his lips right this second, I take the length of the hallway in two strides and grab his chin. Our lips melt together?—?powerful, moist fire. His mouth, his jaw, his tongue . . . he is everything hard and soft at once. I reach under his T-shirt and run my hand down his stomach toward the snap of his jeans. He stops my advances with a gentle hand on my collarbone.
He turns me around so I’m facing the full-length hall mirror and stands behind me. “Look at yourself,” he whispers into my curls. His hand caresses my jaw with the sensitivity of a sculptor, and his thumb runs over my lips. “You’re beautiful.”
I’m not sure why I feel a foreign shyness when Dom says this. When he looks at me adoringly, I feel like a lone sunflower in a field, and he’s the sun I arch toward. I feel truly seen. I’m not going to be falsely modest and say I don’t know I’m attractive. Guys look. Hell, even girls look. But I think it’s more because I’m interesting, with one foot in each parent’s race.
Before she lost her sight, my grandmother said I was the combination of the smooth, dark rum of her beloved Caribbean and the imperious determination of a bank of white clouds marching over the land.
Gran has poetry in her.
I look in the mirror every day, but it’s different when someone’s with you. I look now to see what Dom sees. It’s like meeting me for the first time. My reflection watches back. Stops me cold. I look different to myself. Slightly off. A shiver passes over my skin, raising the fine hairs on my arms. I stare hard into my own eyes. They look strange, intense, as if they are studying me—?as if this reflection has been here in this motor home all along, waiting for me to look?—?and I’m unsettled enough to close my eyes.
Dom kisses my neck, and I shut the eerie image out, concentrating on the sensation of his lips soft against my skin, my earlobe. He nips my shoulder. “Don’t close your eyes, Ry. Watch.”
His hands grasp my hips?—?a possessive move that gives me chills?—?and then slide down the outside of my thighs. He brings them up again slowly, and we watch together as he runs them over my breasts, his fingers peeling my T-shirt up to expose my stomach. I love the contrast in browns when his olive Mexican hand slides over my darker island skin.
My breath comes faster as he undoes the button of my shorts. I look down at his tapered fingers brushing along the waistband, but he gently raises my chin back to our image. He inches my zipper down and slides his hand lower. I whisper, “Yes,” because I want his hand in my pants more than anything at that moment.
I reach my arm back, seize his black hair, and tug. Dom growls softly and stares hard into my eyes in the mirror. He’s right about this game. There’s something about watching ourselves that heightens the experience. We are witnesses to our own beautiful, raging lives. I’m loving watching us until I catch my eyes again in the mirror, and a chilling thought hits me like a cold wind:
These eyes aren’t mine.
Three
MY EYES ARE dark, moist earth.