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Grief is its own kind of intimacy, a bond of sorts between you and the one you lost. No one else feels it the way you do about that person you loved most. And maybe it helps to know someone reaches that same level of despair. That’s what family is for, right?
“Jesus, keep me near the cross,” Kimba mutters, rolling her eyes and raising her voice. “Bitch, get off that phone. Stephen, she’ll be fine. We’ll make sure she doesn’t screw anyone before the wedding.” I snort, but over her shoulder, Vivienne’s eyes are wide and horrified and filled with poison.
“Sometimes my goals and dreams feel too big. Like you really think you can convince a nation to change its ways? And the answer is always yes. I don’t know how either, but yes.” I force a chuckle, growing uncomfortable under her unwavering regard. “Is that arrogant? Presumptuous?”
If a kiss has a color, this one is the muted shades of the sky overhead, a ménage à trois of midnight and indigo and moonshine silver. If a kiss has a sound, this one is the concert of our breaths and sighs and moans. If a kiss has a taste, it tastes like this. Hunger flavored with yearning and spiced with desperation. With bites and growls and tender licks and soothing whimpers. Perfectly served portions of sweet and scorching.
“What do politicians make? They make war. They make profit off the misfortune of others. They make mistakes they won’t take responsibility for and decisions they never have to feel the impact of. No, thank you. Not for me.” “Well, when you put it like that, I guess you think I should turn down the campaign job.”
Maxim’s smile steals hearts for a living.
“I’m myself. I hate the two-party system. It asks people to set aside their individual principles for a platform. Give me a guy who says, ‘I believe like four of their things and maybe three of theirs, and they both get it wrong on this shit, but don’t worry. I got my own plan for that. Follow me.’”
‘The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.’”
“And he looks at you like the sun rises and sets on your vagina,”
I feel like one of those infants people toss in the
water and they just start swimming. It all feels intuitive; people and their needs make sense to me, and politics should be about meeting the needs of people.
That grates because I can’t count how many times I’ve rolled over in some bed in some city and remembered her hair spilled on my pillow. Imagined I could smell the sheets again after the first time we made love, a heady blend of our bodies together and the subtle perfume that kissed her neck. Every time I see a windmill I remember her low, sweet laughing voice calling me Doc Quixote as she rode a bicycle ahead of me.
Wow
“I know I can’t will you to give me another chance, but remember this, Nix.” I bend my head so close my breath stirs her hair and her scent stirs my pulse. “The harder I have to work for something, the harder I take it.”
Lennix freely given was the most intoxicating thing I’ve ever tasted. She spilled down my throat like wine, warm and wet and full-bodied. Unbuttoning her blouse, offering me her breasts. Leaned back on her elbows in my bed, morning sunshine beaming between her long, firm legs spread open. Begging me not to stop in the chill of night, in the rain.
“Not always, no,” I reply, staring into my champagne. “I just fight for the ones I think should win.”
“What is this concept of enough? It sounds wholly un-American. There’s never enough. Ask my son if he ever gets enough.”
