Lark (First & Forever 5)

In the next instant, we were all over each other.

There was really no explaining it, other than one moment I was thinking about how much I’d like to kiss him, and in the next, we were. His baseball cap fell onto the floor, and when I picked him up and pushed him against the wall, he wrapped his arms and legs around me.

Lark’s tongue was halfway down my throat when we were suddenly interrupted by cheers and applause. We both looked up the stairs, and there was my entire crew, clapping and cat-calling. I turned red and put him down, and Lark took an exaggerated bow.

Then he called, “Hi, everybody! I’m Lark, and I brought you cupcakes. I used way too much food coloring, so don’t be surprised when you start peeing rainbows.”

Malone quipped, “Looks like you brought our man Dylan some wood, too,” which made everyone laugh. I turned my back to them and adjusted the front of my pants.

Lark kissed my cheek and said, “Text me later.” Then he scooped up his hat, gave my friends a cheerful wave, and bounced out the door.

I picked up the box and carried it up the stairs, hiding my grin as I said, “All of you suck. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

“We had to come check on you,” Heath said, with a huge grin. “We heard all these wet, sloppy sounds and needed to make sure you weren’t getting attacked by a giant octopus. Turns out it was just a tiny little twink with a bird name.”

Malone asked, “Did he have to leave because it’s past his bedtime on a school night?”

I sighed before telling him, “Dude, he’s twenty-six.”

“That’s still enough of an age gap for me to tease you mercilessly forever.”

Once everyone helped themselves to coffee and a cupcake, most of the crew went back to their movie, but Heath and Malone sat down at the table with me. While I admired the cupcake on my plate, which featured Halloween, Easter, and Christmas sprinkles atop a magnificent rainbow swirl of frosting, Heath said, “Seriously though, why’d he leave so fast? I was hoping you’d introduce us.”

“Probably because he doesn’t know where he stands with me right now,” I muttered, “so he didn’t want to stick around long enough for it to become awkward.”

“That didn’t look awkward,” Heath said. “It looked like two people who are really into each other.”

“There’s always been an overwhelming attraction, right from the start. But the physical part is easy. I’ve been able to hook up with strangers because it’s just sex with no emotions involved. It’s different with Lark, though.” I slowly spun my plate as I said that, studying that joyful cupcake from all angles.

“Because you care about this guy,” Malone said, and I nodded.

About half an hour later, I went into the bedroom for a little privacy and sent Lark a text, thanking him for the cupcakes. He replied right away with: You’re very welcome. I had fun making them.

When I asked if he wanted to video chat, the phone rang in my hand almost immediately. I opened the video call, and Lark beamed at me and said, “Hi there. Where are you right now?”

“The room where we sleep. We call it the dorm.” I stood up and panned the phone around to show him the eight beds with matching dark blue blankets. They were arranged in groups of four on opposite walls and offset so they weren’t directly across from each other. They were also bracketed on either side by four-foot-high dividers to give the illusion of privacy, but of course it really wasn’t private at all once every bed was filled.

“It’s so stark,” he said.

“Yeah, we don’t really personalize our bunk, because someone else is going to be sleeping here tomorrow night, and another person will be in here the night after that, until we rotate back in for our shift.” I sat back down on my bed and leaned against the wooden headboard.

“Your loft is kind of the same way,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s really nice. But it’s also on the impersonal side.”

“Yeah, that was by choice. I wanted a living space that wouldn’t stir up a lot of emotions or trigger my anxiety. For a while after Travis died, just about anything would set me off—not just obvious stuff like photos, but little things like his favorite coffee mug, or a tchotchke we’d bought together on a trip, even a shell we’d collected at the beach. I had to go for a completely clean slate, so I’d have a chance of pulling myself back together.”

“You said something once about buying the loft because it was so different than what you were used to. That makes sense now.”

I nodded and explained, “When we got married, his parents bought us a home in Bernal Heights. It was a beautifully restored ninety-year-old Edwardian. I just couldn’t stay there after Travis died, so I signed it over to his parents. Then my mother-in-law absolutely insisted on finding me someplace new. She went house hunting with me, bought me that loft, hired an interior decorator, and paid for the furniture.”

“She must really love you.”

“No, not really,” I said. “Travis was an only child and the center of his parents’ universe. No one was ever going to be good enough for him. Then there was the fact that we were only twenty when we got married. They thought we were way too young for such a big commitment. They learned to accept me eventually, but buying that loft was all about Travis, not me. They knew he would have wanted to make sure I was okay, and it was one last thing they could do for their son.”

Lark chewed his lower lip for a moment before saying, “Is it okay to ask what happened to him?”

“He was a firefighter, and he died in the line of duty. He went back into a burning apartment building, because some of the residents said they didn’t see their elderly neighbor with the rest of the people who’d been evacuated. While he was inside, part of the building collapsed.”

I cleared my throat to push down the lump that had formed, and Lark whispered, “Oh, no.”