We Know

Savannah

“Sing to me.”

~No.~

“Damon, I haven’t sung in eleven months. I lost it. I don’t do that anymore. Were you not listening a second ago?”

This man is so frustrating.

“Yes, you said I showed you you still had your fight, still had the ability to laugh and smile. So, Shortcake, let’s hear it.”

He steps back. The lack of his body heat makes goosebumps frost over my skin.

Naked, bare to wildlife and vulnerable to the harsh reality of life, Damon Henley asks me to take another jump.

“I can’t. That’s not wha—”

Damon’s kiss pulls me off the bike and into his arms. His hands in mine, he kisses me like he is trying to burn me with his lips.

“You don’t need me to tell you shit, Savannah. You know you can. You just never had to do it without them. It’s scary. I get it. My mom died when I was eight. We went for ice cream on a Tuesday. Celebrating a spelling test I didn’t even get a good score on.”

His eyes closed, his words breathing a heartbreaking ache into my heart for him.

I want to take the hurt away.

To soak it out of his body like a sponge to make him feel all better.

I know he won’t. That kind of pain never leaves us. We just get accustomed to it.

We keep a memory of what life was like before the hurt after so long we don’t really think about it.

The heartache will become the new norm and the past will haunt us. Leaving an ugly scar we forget is still there and how once, a long time ago, it wasn’t.

“Sing to me,” he whispers over the chirping of the crickets that seem to take to their seats in the audience around us.

“I got you. Feel my hand?”

One arm around my waistline, the other threading his slender nimble fingers between mine. His palm to the back of my hand he lays it across his heart.

The distinct rhythm beating under my touch melts barriers I didn’t know I had. Ones I didn’t know I even wanted bulldozed.

~How does this man just clean me of worry?~

~Of fear?~

~How does he pour so much of himself into me with the simplicity of just a touch?~

~A moment he gives?~

A sentence he so flawlessly lets rip like it means nothing at all. He acts like moving mountains is child’s play.

~How can he handle my broken parts with such ease?~

~Because he is my Angel.~

“You did it before. Just like with the bike.”

My eyes open, seeing his trained on me.

“When?” I scrunch my brows together in doubt.

“At the club. You sang to me on the dance floor.” His plump lips twitch into a one-sided grin.

“What?” I catch him sharing this chortle with me and the memory of us.

“You were drunk as fuck. We were like this, you started dancing, you sang along to the music and made me rock-hard.”

The memory comes back. The lyrics, even though distorted, I know are Chris Brown.

“What we did in the office makes sense now.”

My own mouth springing into a soft smile.

“I don’t have anything to sing along to.”

“You can’t play me, Shortcake. Acapella the shit.”

~You sure you don’t want head as your payment?~

~Another hand job?~

~You could bend me over the bike?~

~No?~

~Singing.~

~Really?~

“I don’t know what kind of music you like.”

I whine like a child that doesn’t want to do this. I don’t. I doubt I can. I haven’t done it in almost a year and I don’t think I ever will.

~How can I?~

~I smiled. And laughed. I have my fight back.~

~All of which I never thought I would again. AND not to toot my own horn or whatever but I was on Damon’s bike.~

~So…~

~Maybe he isn’t wrong.~

“Anything from your lips, I know I’ll love.”

~God freaking darn this man!~

“I hate you,” I groan into his kiss. Taking another two before he stops laughing.

“What if I suck?” I look in his dark blue eyes, again I’m bare. Not just from the lack of clothes or the fact we are out in the open.

It’s the emotional intimacy that I so easily light up with, deep from the festering pit in my heart that death digs when that insufferable bastard takes the life of a loved one.

Three sets of therapists all fall short to my Angel. None of them ever cracking into me.

“I know that you suck, baby, you also swallow.”

I feel his dick twitch against my stomach.

“Sing to me, Savannah.”

And with that, I prayed this was just a dream and I would wake up.

My ear replaces my hand, hearing the beat in his chest. The flashes of yellow from the lightning bugs act like nature’s spotlight.

I take a breath, a shaky exhale. Damon’s hold tilts my chin so I’ll look at him.

“I love it when we’re at a party in a downtown crowd.”

My voice shakes, a buzz of a whisper that I haven’t used in so long.

It sounds foreign to my own ears. Another deep breath and I force my eyes to stay open.

Locked on my dark Angel’s face, I try again.

“Oh but I can hear you call me baby with the music up loud.”

His smile like a kick of encouragement to push me on. My voice strengthening.

“Red wine, good times, no I don’t mind being with everyone else.

“And then there’s nights like tonight that I, I want you to myself.”

His arms twist around my waist, this beautiful man starts to sway like we are in some middle school dance, lined up with all the other couples.

I feel a red blush fluster my bare skin.

Another deep breath from my shaky lungs, I try harder.

“And tonight I wanna drive so far we’ll only find static on the radio.

“And we can’t see those city lights and I love the way you look in a firefly glow.”

I find it. The right cord, the right amount of volume to encase us in our perfect night.

Everything falling into place with Damon dancing with me to the sound of my own voice.

I feel this growth in my chest, my heart swelling with such passion for this man.

For how he challenges me, for pushing me.

For being him.

For helping me find ~me~ again.

“Saying everything without making a sound.

“A cricket choir in the background, underneath a harvest moon.

“Standing on your shoes in my bare feet, dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat.”

Damon spins me out, the blow of the air ducking out of my way like an invisible dress to fan out around me.

“We’re dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat.

“I wanna feel it like a kick drum, beating faster in your chest.”

He pulls me in again. This look on his face like I’m the best show in town and there is nothing in this entire world that would ever make him take his eyes off me.

Not now or ever.

“I wanna feel you holding onto me and make me hold my breath.

“You pull me closer, my head on your shoulder, baby we won’t beat the song.”

Damon waltzes us into the grass, dancing with me in time to my slower version of the Carrie Underwood song I can’t believe fits us so well.

“We’ll make a fallen star wish, one more slow kiss—what are we waiting on?”

The last verse runs from me, leaving me breathless and starstruck.

Our sight tuned in on each other, our lips skimming the outline of our soon-to-be kiss.

We stall, savoring this.

His broad and toned chest pressed so delicately to mine. His sturdy shoulders holding my hands in place.

“Savannah.” I breathe in my name like he made it the only option I could ever want.

“Damon.” I offer back the same.

Like our first kiss, on the floor of the community center after I hit him and he poked me with his boner.

That sweet, life-changing kiss. The one I knew would be the death of me. The one I called for what it was. For who he is.

One of those decisions that wreck your life and you're happy that it does.

We seal our fate.

We know what this means.

We know it in every shade of night and the brightness of the day. For whatever comes next and for whatever we have to do.

We know what we want.

What we will forever crave from this night on out.

We know.

Without saying a word or anything else.

~We know.~

Damon Henley and I are in love.