The gate was hanging open, evidence that she’d passed through it. He slipped through it too, grateful that he wouldn’t have to make a sound. He wanted to call out to her, to tell her to come down, or to at least sit down, but he was afraid he would startle her and cause her to fall. So he froze, her name on his lips, his heart at his feet. She didn’t seem upset. She didn’t seem to be crying. He moved a few steps closer, but her face was angled away, the curve of her cheekbone the only thing visible from the angle he approached. There were no dark streaks on the pale pink of her coat, so no obvious bleeding. She seemed entranced by the view from the top of the slide and completely at ease with the height.
I’m just a poor wayfarin’ stranger
Travelin’ through this world of woe
There’s no sickness, toil or danger
In that bright land to which I go
Her voice rang out like bells across the park, and Finn took a step back, the sound as shocking as it was sweet.
I’m goin’ there to see my Father
And all my loved ones who have gone on.
Just a poor wayfarin’ stranger
Travelin’ through this world of woe.
He didn’t recognize the song. He’d never been to church, and the only song his mother had ever sung was the theme song to Cheers. And she’d sung it badly. This was something different, so different as to be incomparable. And Bonnie, singing for no one but the stars and the hovering trees, sang the words like a broken hallelujah, a heartsick hosanna, and the song echoed in his chest as if he hummed along with her.
I know dark clouds will gather ‘round me
I know my way is hard and steep
But wide fields arise before me
Where God’s redeemed, their vigil’s keep.
I’m goin’ there to see my brother.
He said he’d meet me when I come
Just a poor wayfarin’ stranger
Travelin’ through this world of woe.
The last note hung in the air for a full five seconds and Finn realized he was holding his breath. He told himself that was the reason for the tightness in his chest and the moisture at the corner of his eyes. He wanted her to sing again. But she had clearly finished the only number she was going to perform. She dropped her chin to her chest and sank to the little metal platform, her legs stretched out in front of her, positioned for a turn down the slide.
Relatively safe from being startled into a fall, her arms wrapped around the bars at the top of the slide, Bonnie didn’t even turn as Finn approached, and she seemed oblivious that anyone might have heard her concert in the park. He circled the slide and stood at the bottom, looking up at her.
She blinked and then gasped a little, as if she thought for a moment he wasn’t real. Then she smiled. It was a smile that said she was thrilled to see him and overjoyed by his presence. She’d smiled like that when he’d promised her he would wait for her outside of the Quik Clips. She had smiled at him like that when he’d told her they were going to have to spend the night in the Blazer in the middle of a blizzard. She’d smiled that way when he told Shayna and her girls he would get them home. Now she smiled at him, sitting there on top of the slide as if it made perfect sense for her to be there, like she hadn’t just stolen his vehicle and led him on a chase across two states. She smiled at him, her whole face infused with light, and he forgave her. Instantly. No longer furious. No longer scared. No longer ready to strangle her, tie her up, and call the police. All of that was gone—evaporated like snowflakes on his tongue.
It was one a.m. on a Thursday, the end of February, in a cold, deserted park in St. Louis, and there was no place he would rather be.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” Dammit. Now he was smiling too. And shaking his head in surrender. “What in the hell am I going to do with you?”
“You could move so I can go down this slide.” She winked. He didn’t move. So she let go. He knew she would. She flew toward him, whooping all the way down, and at the last second he stepped back so he didn’t take two red cowboy boots to the shins. She barreled into him anyway, all momentum, wrapping her legs around him, and he grabbed her, falling back as he did. Thick, rubber playground bark broke their fall, for the most part, but Finn still found himself flat on his back with Bonnie sprawled across his chest.
“I told you to move.” She laughed, her face above his, her knit cap clinging to her head. He reached up and pulled it all the way off, and she immediately ran one hand over her hair self-consciously, smoothing down the strands that floated with static. He followed her hand with his, a caress that had nothing to do with her hair and everything to do with needing to touch her.
HE DIDN’T PULL me to him, didn’t wrap his hand around my body to urge me closer. My mouth hovered above his, waiting. I didn’t dare move. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was worried that Finn would suddenly jolt wide awake, wipe the cobwebs from his head, shake me off, and leave me in the park.
I wouldn’t blame him if he did. He should hate me. Yet he was looking at me like everything was going to be okay. He was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me again. And I wanted him to kiss me more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. His mouth was so close I could taste his breath on my tongue, and I wanted to lick my lips to savor the sensation.
Then his lips weren’t close, they were there. And here. Above. Inside. Around. My eyelids fluttered, and my belly plunged, and the heaviness in my limbs made me want to sink into the kiss like an anchor in the sand, digging in, yet strangely weightless. Then both of his hands were in my hair, securing my mouth where he wanted it, holding me still as he tasted my lips and asked me to let him in. And I welcomed him with a sigh that slid into the cold night and drifted away just like my song. It was a new verse, a duet of lips and the merging of mouths. It was rising crescendos and crashing cymbals, and it was unlike any song I’d ever sung. And even as he withdrew, the kiss echoed around me, inviting me to repeat the music of his mouth against mine.