Given the state of the world's security and pandemic situations, there was zero opportunity for anything more than the worlds quickest hug and maneuvering bags into the back of my vehicle. We slid into our seats, looked at each other taking one another in and laughed.
This was really happening.
I threw the truck in gear and drove as far as I could, leaving the airport behind us until I could pull over into a well lit parking lot. "What are you doing?" he asked. Coming to a full stop, I threw the truck in park, smashed the emergency brake and flung my door open. He came out of his seat and met me in the headlights as I flung my arms around him and buried my face into his neck. He slipped his hands around my waist grasping at my dress at the small of my back and pulled me harder into him. I hadn't felt this complete, this seen, in almost 20 years. I whispered into the tickles of his beard, "Don't let me go this time."
I don't even know how long we stood there. I don't know how long his thumb stroked my spine through the opening in the back of my dress. I don't know how I was able to breathe with his other arm wrapped around me holding me so tight to him. I don't even know if we said anything else out loud again in that moment. The night's drizzle kissed our shoulders as his lips brushed my jaw line and the space beneath my exposed ear. I just wanted to breathe him in and stay there watching the heavy mist glitter across the pavement around us.
He slid his hand into mine and motioned towards the truck, "lets grab something to eat on our way home, we've got time to come back to this." I wanted so badly to believe we had all the time in the world, but I had already started counting down the seconds till we had to slip back into reality. I eased the truck back out onto the road leading us home; playing with the screen of the truck's media display, he scrolled through my music library and settled on something that took me back to music festivals and late summer nights in limbo between our neighborhoods. Trails through the woods where our feet beat paths leading back to one another, we would spend stolen hours in the darkness making out under pine tree canopies; stars winking at us through their branches. His fingers hooked through mine across the console, bringing me back to the present. He pulled my hand up to his lips, kissing my knuckles.
The last thing on my mind was food, but I obligingly pulled up to a 24 hour breakfast place where our once teen-aged bones would sit for hours drinking terrible coffee and smoking cigarettes bought from vending machines in the back of the cafe. Staring at each other from across the booth, we laughed again at the insanity of being here in this place 20 years later. I thrust my feet beside him on his bench, boots crossing over at the ankle. His hand rubbed my calf beneath the table as he flipped the menu card over on the table. We ate and bitched and moaned about airports and traveling in general, sharing our experiences over endless cups of terrible coffee.
Everything about sitting across from him felt so surreal as so much had changed and yet, everything was the same. It was comfortable and cozy and was this really happening? This was really happening.
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