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Karen had never slept on silk sheets before. It’s funny how you get used to nice things fast.
Opening her eyes, she thanked Matt’s catholic God for the Saturday mornings, even if it was so early. It was good to just be quiet, sometimes. Her life moved in such a fast pace, to be still for a few moments can be a blessing.
She was lying on her side, wearing an old Columbia University shirt, hand and head on top of a broad chest full of scars, leg twisted around his. The light from the window hurt her eyes and she sighed, turning away from it and on her stomach, trying to hold on to the last traces of sleep. Her movement made Frank stir and throw a heavy arm towards her, hand landing on her butt.
“He in yet?” he asked, hand gripping, voice rough as sandpaper.
Opening her eyes, Karen saw the familiar shadow moving around the kitchen through the frosted door.
“Yeah.”
Sighing, she turned around, kissed his face and sat up. Frank wrapped his hand around her wrist for a second and then let go, asleep again.
Getting up, she started towards the bathroom to quickly rinse her mouth before walking to the living room, spotting Matt (not in his suit), biting in one of the “protein bars” (covered in chocolate) she liked to keep around his cabinets.
“Hey”, she greeted, walking towards him, who raised his hand and stretched out his arm to her. When she was close enough, he pulled her by her waist, accepting the kiss she offered and tucking his face on the crook of her neck, pulling he in and her arms raised to wrap around his shoulders. “You ok?”
“Yeah. It was quiet.”
“That’s good. Are you just in?”
“For a couple of minutes.”
He had taken his shower already, she could feel his skin was still a bit cold.
“No fresh bruises today?”
Matt lifted his head and smiled.
“Not today. It was just a couple of muggings.”
Smiling, Karen took a bite of the protein bar and started towards the bedroom again, pulling him by the hand.
“Great. Come to bed, then. Even you need to sleep.”
When she lied back down, her spot was still warm and Frank was still asleep, now on his stomach.
Settling in the center of the mattress, she felt Matt lying behind her and sighing. Karen smiled.
There she was. Karen from Vermont, whose feelings had been such a mess a few weeks ago, not knowing what she wanted, who she wanted, if she wanted, why she wanted.
Funny how the way to this arrangement of theirs was such a natural thing. While everything spun and exploded and happened in a million different directions so fast, Matt, Frank and herself learned how to move steadily. Learned not to fight. Learned to just… Go.
And oh, she loved it. She would keep going for as long as she could.
Sleep was creeping up again, Matt’s solid presence behind her, the way his chest pressed against her back with every breath, lulling her back in, even if Frank sat up and reached behind her, to run his thumb over one of Matt’s closed eyes, like he does, with his palm flat against his cheek and fingers grazing his ear.
But then that hand was running up her legs and up her shirt and she was not going to fall back asleep now.
.:.
An hour later, maybe a bit more, Matt was lying on his back and she was tucked against him, head on his shoulder, back on his side, his arm under and around her neck, fingers linked with hers, resting over the shirt she had put back on, while Frank improvised a curtain with a sheet over the window.
When he got back, he rested his head on her stomach, almost at the curve of her hip, curling an arm around her leg, her thigh - and her hand, the one that wasn’t locked with Matt’s - over his chest, and Matt turned on his side so he could reach Frank’s head and run his free hand over his short hair.
Karen from Vermont. Twisted and arranged in a complicated love sculpture. Who knew.
“You know”, Matt said. “Since this has been working so well, I’ve been thinking.”
“A dangerous past time,” Frank said, caressing the back of her thigh.
“What do you think about inviting that talk show host we met the other day to this? Trish? I think it was it-”
“Over my fucking dead body”, Karen said without even opening her eyes, making Frank laugh that throaty laugh of his and Matt lean in to kiss her face and bite her earlobe,
chuckling.
“Greedy.”
“You better believe it.”
She sighed and moved to best settle against them.
“You rest easy there, ma’am” Frank said.
“It’s all for you”, Matt completed.
Sighing, she smiled, so comfortable with all that silk and all that skin around her.
Funny how you get used to nice things fast.