Me & Mine

27. Want, Take, Have

Max gently traces circles over my bare back. The early morning sun lights up his room and I turn my head away from that promise of daybreak, of responsibility, of decency. There's something about mornings spent in bed, something youthful and careless, something to be cherished for as long as life allows you. The ivory silk sheets embrace the lower half of my body as the whispering of summery breezes, soft and smooth like Max' fingers trailing over the small of my back. I smile and close my eyes, wishing we could stay here forever.

"Why do compasses always point north?" Max whispers, tracing his finger up my spine, following the lines of my tattoo.

"Because they need to go there," I whisper, my voice muffled by the pillow, "the little magnets on the needles, they are drawn to the North Pole. They always need to go there."

"Is there anything you don't know?" Max kisses my shoulder and rests his body against mine. It feels warm and soft and safe and sound.

"There are a great many things I know," I smile, "and there are a great many things I don't know."

"You sound like a poet," Max says and I turn myself around, staring into his eyes and smiling with mine. He kisses me softly once and my cheeks turn rosy.

"I wish I was," I say softly, "to express in words what I feel to be true – about love and life and death and reason, I wish I was a poet! I wish I grew up in the Roaring Twenties, always simultaneously dreaming and knowing that dreams never come true."

Max smirks and tucks away the curls hanging over my face. "But that doesn't sound lovely at all, to know dreams never come true."

I smile. "Oh Max," I whisper, "but if dreams were true then why would we dream?"

***

"Another great thing about the Roaring Twenties," Max screws open a bottle of champagne and makes it pop, "is champagne for breakfast." I smile and let my feet sink into the silk bed sheets. I'm wearing one of his white shirts and he's got his sweatpants on. It's nearly midday now, and somehow no matter what we try, we always gravitate back to his bed.

"I don't think that's a Twenties thing," I say, taking the bottle from him, "it's more of a rich kids thing." I take a sip and bite the inside of my cheeks. Whoever said the best way to cure a hangover is to keep on drinking forgot about that first, awful sip after just a few hours of sleep. I quickly take another and hand the bubbles back to him.

I lean my head against his chest and sigh. I don't know Max very well – I know little of his past, of his aspirations, of his family or why his parents are never here, but I do not think it is very important to know those facts and figures. I think it is important that my shoulders relax when my head rests against his body, and that my minds seems clearer when he looks into my eyes. I think it is important how my hand falls perfectly into his and how our bodies fit together as the final pieces of a complicated jigsaw puzzle. There's nothing much I'm certain of in life, but I do believe that when a person can feel this way about another person, facts and figures and time and standards mean nothing at all.

"Why is it that all we remember from the Prohibition era is how much people drank?" Max asks, smiling and bringing the bottle to his mouth again. I chuckle and shrug. "Perhaps because many talented people wrote many great works about it," I say, sipping away at the champagne.

"Perhaps," Max says, "or because a little alcohol makes life infinitely more interesting."

I smirk and raise my head. I take another sip and kiss him softly. "I'll drink to that."

Max smirks and leans in for another kiss when the doorbell rings. He lets out a sigh and jumps up from the bed. I follow him downstairs, clad in nothing more than the dress shirt that just covers enough.