Free Me and Mom Fall for Spencer by Diane Munier Page B

the sadness in his eyes even if it doesn’t obliterate it.
    I have to look away.
    He lies back down. I put my arm over my
eyes so he’ll know I am done talking.
    “Tell me about Frieda’s murder,” he
says.
    “You know you’ve Googled it,” I say back. I’m mad he just leapt there.
    “I haven’t.” He’s on his elbow again. “Sarah
I haven’t.”
    I lick my lips like I taste the words
that I won’t speak.
    He taps my nose, and it’s barely visible
because I haven’t taken down my arm.
    “A week ago I didn’t know you,” I say.
    A crow calls and I imagine it gliding
over the water.
    “I don’t know how I stood it…not knowing
you.” Then he lies back down, and I can breathe.
    I go into that state that is almost
sleeping but you can still hear. And the whole time I feel him beside me.
    Many times in my bed at night I’ve tried
to imagine sharing that space with a lover. I am so deeply practicing this
feeling of someone…it just seems impossible…yet here I am…I can feel him, the
weight of him, the mass of him, so close.

 
    The sound of people talking wakens me,
and I look and see Spencer is not disturbed. I can look at him for just a
minute, and I do, his face turned toward me, his body rolled my way, and he is
not touching me, but we are close.
    Why? Why does he seek me out? He said he
wanted to be with me all the time. He said he was joking.
    He is beautiful, too thin, the bones in
his face so visible, his cheeks go in, his jaw is prominent his brows and
lashes are so heavy, and I know when he’s awake his eyes, so framed are even
more expressive.
    Then those same eyes open, and there I
am looking, and as soon as he sees me I’m just stuck, and what’s funny is I
don’t look into eyes without concentration, determination. It just feels so personal.
But with him, I can’t not look .
    “Spencer… are we
friends?” I want to groan, but I control it. Is this the dumbest question?
    He smiles, rolls his face into the arm
that cushions his head, then quickly rolls back and smiles at me. “Sarah, could
I sleep this close to you without a weapon if we weren’t friends?”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer
    Chapter Twelve

 
    “I’ve seen Spencer enough today,” I say,
already in my beater and knit shorts cause I’m working
my ass off on the computer then going to bed.
    Mom is holding a pan of my vegetable
soup she’s taking to Spencer. “I need you to run my ideas past.”
    Like I’m going to hang out at Frieda’s
and discuss paint chips? Um, no. I’m not going to
force myself on Spencer yet again. And I have Spencer saturation. That means I
have to let this go through the strainer. I’m on overflow. Add the inside of Frieda’s
house to that and I’m psychotic.
    We’ve been together constantly, and if I
show up over there it’s embarrassing. And I can’t take anymore. I can’t even
look at him right now. I’m ready to pop.
    His words, his skin, his jaw, his lips,
his earlobes, his sideburns, his stubble, his teeth, his eye lashes, his
nostrils, his smell and the skin scrunched on his cheek, and the way his tongue
helps him form words…my name…that look in his eyes, unspoken something…and back
to those words. It’s coming at me like rapid fire clips in a Technicolor movie,
sound bites too. Crap!
    I have to work. And there’s still
patrol! And church in the morning.
    “No, Mom. It’s n…o.” I take my bowl of
soup, my third and two bottles of water and my dishtowel in case I spill and
laptop under my arm I go out of the kitchen. My hair is all over the place, wet
from my shower even though I prefer baths, and I’m tired and sun-burnt, and
cranky and hungry and overwhelmed and…not myself.
    All I can think about is Spencer Gundry.
He is holding my brain hostage. How am I going to live with those words in my
head, those feelings lying beside him got going in me. I am preoccupied. So
much so I trip on the stairs and my soup slops onto my