Free Running Northwest by Michael Melville Page B

the spare room talking. It was pretty late and he got up to go out to the couch , I asked him to sleep in there with me. I wasn’t planning on saying it, it just sort of came out.”
    “Mmm hmm, and what happened then?” Karen asked with an insinuating smile on her face.
    “Absolutely nothing, we didn’t have sex, we didn’t even kiss and he didn’t try. As I said, Thomas was always a gentleman. We changed clothes and kept talking for, I don’t know, another hour and then we started to fall asleep,” Stephanie said as she paused to think, trying to remember more.
    “I remember I was lying on my stomach and he was rubbing my back and I kind of turned and curled up against him. He put his arm around me and over my stomach and I remember reaching down and holding his hand,” she said with a small smile on her face.
    “And I think that may have been the first time we ever did that on purpose, but I can’t be sure. Then he kissed the back of my shoulder just once, but it was so slow and so sweet.”
    Stephanie stopped and did not say anything else for a minute. She just closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip slightly and without even realizing she was doing it, she rubbed the back of her shoulder in the exact spot Thomas had kissed years before as if she could still feel his lips and warm breath on her skin.
    “So what happened next, you shit?” Karen said as she hit Stephanie with a pillow.
    Stephanie smiled and continued to talk with her eyes still closed, then sighed.
    “You know what? I can still remember the way his lips felt, I remember a tingle going up my spine. Then he quietly said ‘Stephanie, I love you.’ I just smiled and said ‘I know Thomas and curled against him tighter. We didn’t say anything else. I can still remember the way his breath felt on my neck and ears…the sound of his breathing. Then we fell asleep. I fell asleep in his arms, woke up with my head on his chest and my arms over his stomach. We were still holding hands. I never slept so well with someone else in my life. It was so peaceful. It was better than sex…so much better.”
    Stephanie stopped talking, opened her eyes, and looked over at Karen who was sitting there practically dumbstruck with her mouth wide open.
    “Wow, you’re right, way better than sex. That is some seriously sweet and romantic stuff right there, damn! Why the hell doesn’t my husband do more sweet things like that? He just rolls over and falls asleep!” Karen said still somewhat awestruck and a little jealous at the whole thing.
    “Yeah, it was great…really great,” Stephanie said smiling and thinking to herself again.
    The two women sat quietly, more or less just staring at Stephanie’s picture of Thomas until Karen broke the silence with another question.
    “So, the picture – when was that taken, because you two look pretty cozy and happy,” she said.
    Stephanie thought for second before responding, “It was taken the very next day actually. We spent all day doing stuff as usual. Thomas took me to an aquarium and on a boat tour. Later that night he and I went to dinner with his mom Grace at a gorgeous restaurant that was right on the beach. It was on Blue Water Key, I think. We had an amazing dinner and talked and laughed the whole time. After we were done eating, the sun was getting ready to set, so the three of us went for a walk on the beach and talked and picked up shells and walked in the water.”
    Stephanie paused again to take sip of wine and collect her thoughts because for some reason she was tearing up and she did not know why.
    “Thomas’ mom was a little way behind us so we could be alone for a little bit and just talk privately. She was really sweet like that,” Stephanie said and without realizing it, she closed her eyes before she continued talking, “I was standing there looking out at the ocean, at the sun and the birds flying around. There was a little breeze but not windy, really, and I could smell the salt in the