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I’ll meet you by the water.
XOXO
Your Lara.
Another day, another unknown number. Though this time the text arrives outside his hotel room in Mexico. Ada doesn’t have a permanent cell phone, just a string of borrowed phones. In her messages she always signs off as Lara, after the character of some Russian novel he’s never read but always says he will, even if the film version proved tiresome. He’ll never tell Ada how tedious he finds her precious Dr. Zhivago. He’ll never tell her he wishes he was smart enough to understand it, and they could have that intellectual intimacy he never wished for before. There’s intimacy in reading the same words, and in sharing the same experiences. Well-versed in each other’s bodies, but then what? He’s never been told.
She texted him a few days ago before the Mexico trip, not at all surprised she knew about it. Couple of the guys from Washington and STARS didn’t exactly coordinate it, but after the Veracruz job, it seemed like a good idea to mosey over to Playa del Carmen. Leon didn’t want to go at first. What little time he has to relax, he likes to spend it at his not-much-but-it’s-home-apartment. His poor dog. They might be at the point where Bailey is his sister’s. So sure, the water may be crystal clear turquoise, the sand powdery and soft, and the fruity drinks good, but he’d rather be home than on vacation. Meet me closer to home? He asked Ada before he left Mexico. Would be easier. Vacations aren’t my style.
Not feasible, came the first part of her swift reply. Meet you at the resort. I’m your style. Besides, we should get away for a while.
He goes to the open bar that overlooks the ocean. The bartender finds him immediately and asks for an order. “No preference,” he says. She comes back with a cocktail glass, a pineapple on the edge and umbrella hanging from the side. She says it’s on the house, but he sticks twenty pesos in the tip jar when her back is turned. Very cute, he thinks as he takes a sip, disappointed when it doesn’t numb the anxiety. Did he ever feel this way when he took his high school girlfriend to the lake? It’s supposed to be easier the older you get, but Ada is Ada. She defies logic. Frankly, they probably should have ended this long ago. He’s too old for clandestine bullshit, and she’s even a little older than him. Someone will break and say enough is enough.
It’s not going to be him.
Yes, he’s played this game before. He’s said to himself, maybe I should end it, but then he remembers how they are together. Their bodies always know what’s good for each other, even when their minds aren’t congruent. He thinks maybe I’ll end it, but then he remembers what it’s like to wake up in the morning and she clings to his side. He remembers what she does when she thinks he’s asleep. She’s tender. There’s a gentle kiss on his cheek, a smoothing of his hair away from his forehead. “Rest now,” she even said once. So damn domestic. He envies that about her, that she can be all. Goddess, femme fatale, agent, girlfriend. If only in the dark, when he tries too hard to be her boyfriend.
He'd skip to that part if he could. He’s aching for it.
He finishes the first fruity drink and gets another. Anxiety is only slightly better when he’s clapped on the back.
“Kennedy,” Burton says as he comes to his side. “Having fun?”
“Just got here.”
“Think we were going to the beach later. Volleyball.”
Leon snorts. He’s not opposed to what Ada would regard as a “unbearable display of manliness,” but he’s too dour in mood, too aching. Where even is Ada? By now he should have heard “hey handsome” and had an arm slung around him.
Ada. Ada. Ada. Where is she? Where–
“Leon. No time no see.”
She didn’t hear him. It feels like she did.. He takes her in, her big circular sunglasses and wind-tousled hair, still short but a little longer than last time. She’s kissed by the sun. Her lips are red like summer strawberries, her red swimsuit V-shaped and plunging with a matching silk sarong tied around her waist. You’re never you on vacation. You’re never you when you get to get away for a while. Leon gets the feeling he’s Ada’s permanent vacation, her eternal excuse to get away. Maybe the code’s cracked, the multiverse has expanded and Ada’s at her truest self now.
“Wait. You two know each other?”
Ada places a lazy hand on Leon’s thigh at Barry’s question. “Leon wasn’t in STARS but he had some training,” she says. “We had some adjacent classes.”
“Saw her sitting by the water waiting and I thought she looked familiar,” Barry mentions to Leon. “Found out she did STARS. What a coincidence, right?”
“Right,” Leon says dully, too numbed by the internationally wanted spy having a casual conversation with two agents. “Quite a coincidence.”
“Having a nice time?” Ada asks, her hand still on his thigh.
Leon sighs. “Just got here.”
Barry however, grins. “Yeah.”
If Barry knew Ada was Leon’s girl would he give her that blatant up and down? That cocky grin? But you’re being ridiculous Kennedy, comes Leon’s next intrusive thought. Shit. He should be grateful Barry didn’t realize why Ada looked familiar. That’s the thing Leon, Ada said once when he commented on her lack of secrecy, her love for red, the most eye-catching color. No one is truly looking for me. No one sees.
That’s not what bothers him. She can play all the games she wants—and he knows he’s willingly strung himself along for it, but this game of banter about beach volleyball and vacationing complete with giggles as she smooths her hair back and sticks a strand behind her ear as Barry remains fixated on her red lips is too dangerous a game for his ego. I’ve kissed that mouth, Leon imagines himself saying. Yeah. I kissed it lots of times. She’s left red lipstick everywhere…
“Maybe you’ll join us later?” Barry asks. “I can introduce you to everyone else.”
“Maybe,” Ada replies. “I think I need a drink first. What about you Leon? Want a pina colada? Or is that too frilly?”
“I will gladly take another pina coloda,” Leon says. “How about you tell everyone that it’s too hot for me for the beach right now Burton?”
“Ah come on, sure you two don’t to take your pina colodas to go?”
“No. We don’t.”
His mother would swat him if she heard that tone, but luckily Barry laughs it off. “See you soon then Leon, Lara,” he says before heading back out to the water. Alone with her in Mexico at last. He could finally tell her all the things he thought about telling her before. He’s suddenly lost the ability to speak.
Ada plops next to him. She orders two pina colodas, slapping more than enough money to the bartender after and telling her to keep the change. “Saw you order one from over there on the beach,” Ada says. “I’m impressed you didn’t order bourbon or something more manly.”
He shrugs. In the following silence, he gets a brain freeze as he sips his drink. As if he wasn’t the worst person in the room already for thinking he could get jealous of who Ada Wong smiles at.
“What’s the matter Leon?”
Too gentle. “Nothing,” he says, grimacing and turning away from her. He has to. She’s the sort of beautiful that hurts.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Gentle again. What has he done to deserve it?
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Been waiting for you too.”
She puts her hand on top of this. “Then let’s get away for a while.”
Absurdly, he wants to kiss her hand. He refrains.
“Leon. There’s not a lot of people further down the beach. You could take me there.”
He can’t believe it. They don’t “date.” They fuck. Usually the only place she wants to go is the bedroom.
He calls her out. “Think we’re dating or something?”
“I missed you.”
She squeezes his hand. It feels good. It feels intimate. “I missed you too.”
“Then would you kiss me already? I’ve been waiting.”
“Weren’t thinking about Barry?”
She doesn’t reply. He can’t read her eyes behind her sunglasses. He wishes she would take them off. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you since the last time,” he admits freely. “I wanted you home. Anywhere but here on this…whatever the hell it is. What were you even thinking?”
“He struck up a conversation with me,” she replies. “He saw me from somewhere and thought it was because of his training. I know how to play the game Leon.”
“Didn’t have to flirt with him.”
Her lips are a tight line. “It was not flirting.”
“I don’t know. Reminded me of how you acted before.”
“I never kissed anyone but you.”
“You’ve flirted before?”
She doesn’t reply.
“It’s fine,” he lies. “I don’t care.”
It’s July. The heat is boiling. He’s never been colder. “I have principles,” Ada says. “I think you’d know that by now. And I was being friendly to Burton. You usually are.”
“Maybe I fucking hate vacations.”
“Well. Maybe you’ll come find me when you do.”
Pulling away from him, she tells him her room number, dropping more cash on the bar before she heads out, enough for both the drinks and a tip. Marta—that’s the bartender’s name—gives him a look of sympathy.
“Yeah, I fucked up,” he says with a long sigh. Mercifully, he’s left with the reply of sad, understanding eyes. Out of all the shit she’s seen serving drinks, he wonders if he and Ada were top tier.
He doesn’t feel so top tier as he leaves to sulk by the pool, thinking of discarding his tacky floral shirt and diving in the water. Ada would dive, but he’s not a diver. He’s not brave like she is. Only brave enough to have her in his thoughts for weeks. For years. Only entitled enough to think he’s the only one she should ever speak to in the world.
What’s wrong with him? Why couldn’t he take what she wanted to give and walk along the damn beach with her? So what if Barry would have asked questions, so what if they could have been seen? They would have been together. They could have danced even if he fucking hates dancing. He could make love to her properly, even if they’re not fucking proper, and he should just stop trying to be.
That’s the thing isn’t it? Ada’s never wanted him to be proper with her.
He takes the elevator to her room. The last one in the hall. He knocks. She makes him wait. So much so that he wonders if she’s out frolicking on the beach with Barry or some other dipshit. But finally, finally, the door opens.
“Are you alone?” he asks when they meet again, Ada still in her swimsuit.
“I’m always alone,” she says.
“Even with me?”
“I come to you when I’m tired of it. I feel like you do too.”
A moment passes until he feels as though he’ll collapse, and maybe she’d be there to pick up the pieces. He decides he won’t collapse. He’s done with collapsing, even if no one sees. Her eyes are a warm brown, the sunglasses finally off. Good. He wants to see her eyes. He wants her to see him and every little thing he does to her tonight, because he won’t be done in an hour. He won’t be done in two. He needs the whole night. He needs her forever.
He can’t ask for forever. That’s what blinds him at first, that sends him into her arms as soon as they outstretch, asking him take me. It’s not her talking to Barry or talking to someone else as if they could be lovers during some other job somewhere far, but the fleeting-ness of their time together and how he’d cut out his heart for more. She gasps when he kisses her—cups her face in his broad hands and keeps on kissing until she coils her body close to his, and they are flesh and heat, anger and memories.
“Been a while,” he mutters. “And sorry, but you pissed me off.”
“I like your apology. But I hoped I did.”
He chuckles as he kisses the crook of her neck, as her hand weaves through his hair. “I might be rough.”
“I want rougher.”
“Get on the bed.”
He doesn’t recognize his voice. He doesn’t recognize the words as his words, not until Ada sits at the edge of the bed, inching her legs open as he falls at her feet. His lips graze across her knee, her inner thigh, and she moans sweetly as if his tongue has already grazed over her clit. “Wider,” he mutters, and her legs spread further apart. She pulls at the string of her bikini.
He pries her hand away. “Nothing from you,” he says. “Not yet. Not until I say.”
“Leon…”
“You’re not anyone else’s.”
“I’m mine.”
She’s saying that to piss him off even if there’s some truth to it. There are parts of Ada that are only hers. Younger him never questioned. Older him wanted more. But these reminders don’t work anymore. He sees more of Ada than anyone else.
He still wants her pissed. He wants that fire. Better to fuck her with his blood boiling and with fire like he wanted to when they met again in Spain. They didn’t. He was just happy to have her again.
“Do you call your name when you’re coming?”
She smirks. “I won’t call it now. No matter how good it is.”
“Yes you will.”
Try me, she says as she musses his hair, keeping his head between her thighs. But he’s tired of kneeling. Not at the idea behind it—he’s kneeled for her when she asked—but he is her guest. He makes the rules.
He stands and orders “on the bed.” It piques her interest. She shuffles upward, propping her head on a pillow. Fixated on limbs and lines and shapes, he slips off the sarong and traces her slim ankle, her calf, her thigh, her hip, sinking to the bed with her before pulling one arm and then the other over her head. She closes her eyes. Her lips part expecting a kiss. He doesn’t. He only kisses the soft hollow of her neck, and the little divot at the base of her throat. He refrains from clumsily groping her breasts, and only allows the softest kiss in that soft valley in the center before he tugs at her bathing suit. She understands, untying the front and tossing it aside. Her nipples, pinkish red, are already hard. He still refrains.
They watch each other for a moment, and he wonders how often he’s truly been able to look. She looks often when she thinks he’s asleep. He’s felt her hand against his cheek, felt her smooth errant locks of hair away from his face. “Like David,” she muttered once, and it took him a long time to realize she meant Michelangelo’s David in Italy. This image—Ada on the bed, with her hair astray and her eyes warm and coffee-like—he can’t think of any piece of art that compares. Best of all, this image is only his. Not Barry’s, not anyone else. His.
He wants her nude. “Be mine,” he pleads, not orders, and she pulls at the string of her bikini, tossing it to the side. His erection waned when she left at the bar and it sprung back to life when they kissed, but he leaks at the sight of her nude. It’s herculean strength, but he gets off at her eyes, begging him to touch her, to kiss her, to love on her, to do something, anything. Yet for a moment it’s as though she’s unattainable.
Yet when he finds the strength, it’s as if he’s never touched her before. She’s so wet already. His finger light and gentle, he takes her arousal and spreads it around her clit. She always liked the slow circles to start with, and then his tongue, and then his fingers again, harder, and she loves it, she loves it…
But he can’t stand not being inside her. He pushes his shorts and boxers down, Ada grasping him in her hand before he can think to stop her. He can’t bring himself to tell her no or stop, not with her eyes on him, the tip of her thumb circling the head of his cock.
“What do you want?” he asks. “My mouth?”
“Later. I want you inside.”
“Watch me first,” he asks of her and asks for himself, prying her hand away and settling between her thighs, suddenly bereft of any desire other than to taste her. She’s never tasted this good. She’s never mewled so much, or thrashed this hard at the simplest fleck of tongue or the lightest prob of his fingertips before he eases inside. He circles his finger inside her. She throws her head back.
“I said watch me,” he says, and she does…she does…taking that phone of hers on the bedside table—images he can barely see as he swirls his tongue around her clit—taking her phone, snapping that picture of him buried between her thighs before she comes for him, warm and pulsating and perfection. Hang them in the museum. Hang them in the halls of the Metropolitan. They are infinite.
He rises, taking Ada’s hand and kissing it as if she was the star on the stage and not him, though frankly he knows he wouldn’t have been half so insistent if she hadn’t been so goddamn annoying with Burton. She wipes her cum off his mouth as he shrugs off his boxers and shorts and tosses them to the side. Afterward Ada dutifully unbuttons his shirt, peeling it off for him to shrug it away. She senses his want, almost as burning as hers. The incessant, all-consuming touch me, touch me.
Her hands are as delicate on his skin and on his scars as they’ve ever been. She marvels even if he hasn’t been as lucky as her. He’s littered. Though there is one scar on her body that he can’t bare to bring up or even kiss, the bullet wound from Raccoon City along her side. It’s like it doesn’t exist.
“You’re so strong,” she says, caressing his shoulder. “Leon. Give it to me.”
He’d love to be a contrarian. Tell her to get on top of him, or even ask her to give him her mouth like he did for her. But he was never one to demand that or even truly ask, and for what it’s worth he likes to be on top of her, likes to feel her hands dig in his ass and push him deeper. He’s such a tease though. Keeping his hands on her knees he coats himself in her arousal, taking longer than either of them would like, even taking the time to slowly slide inside before sliding out. They used to use condoms. Used to until she told him she got on the pill for him, and there was no one else in her life save him. “Same,” he said stupidly at the time, Ada taking away the condom he brought out and throwing it out. She wanted to feel all of him. It’s been that way since. But not like this. He’s never truly looked at her as he’s been inside, even when she was on top. Her body, the way she moved. That was it. Look how good I can be. There’s still that. He relishes her bliss, her soft smile as he settles gently on top of her. He nearly comes at how she says “do that, again,” when he tugs at her hair. God, he’s never seen her let go this much. Something has always held her back. What’s made her feel so free? Is it the inherent freedom of vacation?
What’s made her hold back?
“Be like this again,” he whispers in her ear. “Be free.”
“I’m always free with you.”
“No.”
“You hold back.”
“Bullshit.”
He shudders. Not from his impending end, though he can feel it, but from Ada’s eyes. Ada’s smile. Her soft caress laced with confirmations he’s serving her well. She’s always liked to talk, even if they’re better at actions and words. Actions, as they are, can only be interpreted in so many ways. Words are different. They’re weapons.
Not tonight. His words are painful truths. I want you. I need you. I have dreamed about you. We need this moment to last forever. Ada, baby, get on top of me. Has he ever called her that before? Knowing her she would scoff and say “darling,” or “dearest” is more her style.
She coaxes him off. Fallen on the bed she straddles and obeys. He sees that soft-focused look in her eyes. She’d do anything he asked. No, he says. Don’t think about anything that’s happened or will happen outside of this room. I’m the only thing that matters. We are the only thing that matters.
He takes her phone. Like she did earlier, he snaps a picture of her with her soft-focused eyes and her lips slightly parted. Hang that up in the Metropolitan next to a snapshot of him between her thighs. There’s their proof, they are the only thing that matters. He snaps another, and then another. He wants them to cover the walls.
But mostly, he wants her right here.
He locks her arms behind her. He guides her as she moves, as she never fully leaves him before sinking back down. The sound of their flesh meeting gets him off. Her little abandoned moans inspire him to rub a soft circle around her clit. This is what loving on her can be, all the time. If only…if only…
She cries out. He was so focused on his dream, his fantasy, that her climax shocks him as she shudders and falls to bone in his arms, as she cups his face in her hands and takes him away, the tip of her tongue sweeping across his bottom lip. He’s going to be stained with her red, body and soul.
“Never do that again,” he orders. His heart can’t take it.
“I won’t do that again.”
“Say that you’ll always find me.”
“I’ll always find you. I’m here now. Don’t you believe that?”
This isn’t the way he wants to come at first, not with the prickle of a tear or two threatening to escape. Not with Ada assuring him they are fine. They are good. They are exactly who they need to be. He’s what she needs. He wanted to come and rain her with a thousand kisses as thanks, as praise, as absolution. But when he comes, shuddering in her arms, he holds her close and hides his face away in the crook of her shoulder. This is shameful. This is wrong. He fucked her with jealousy.
“I shouldn’t—”
“I wanted this,” she says. “I wanted you mad. I wanted you upset. I wanted you here.”
He peers at her. “You think I haven’t been here before?”
“Something has been on your mind lately.”
“Just you.”
She wants to be enjoyed, she says. She even wants to be used. She wants to just be. He’s good for that. He’s good for her.
“We’re good for each other.”
She curls closer. He pushes her back down and rains hose thousands of kisses on her body. There is one spot however he is most persistent, most loving. Her hands weave through his hair. She keeps him there. She can take a thousand more kisses, and in that moment he has the antidote for all their scars.
Some time later he wakes. There’s a note laying next to him where Ada should be. Not as egregious as past notes, ones that have said, sorry, see you later. This one says I’ll be by the water. Let’s get away for a while. She signs it off as Ada.
Ada wants to be away, not Lara. Not a ghost. Not a dream from Raccoon City or Spain. His lover.
Of course he looks at the pictures before he leaves, sending them over to his phone. There is Ada in bliss, him between her legs. He shouldn’t have them. He can’t bare to delete them. It’s proof none of his time with her has been a dream. Besides, she’d be insulted if he didn’t have them.
Back in his Hawaiian shirt, something Ada will surely scoff at later—Leon finds Ada by the bar. With nightfall, there’s a steel drum knock off Beach Boy band playing that reminds him of music his dad played when he was a kid. He ends up running into Barry before he swings by Ada’s side, who apparently also used to have parents who liked the Beach Boys. “Good stuff,” Burton says, and Leon nods in half-agreement, because Ada is smiling at him from across the way, asking let’s get away for a while, deeper than we were earlier. Deeper than ever.
“Really is your girl huh?” Barry asks, noticing because everyone notices. Everyone knows, and Leon wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Yeah,” Leon mutters. “She’s my girl.”
“Ah shit. Sorry. I—”
“Don’t sweat it.” Leon could frankly hug him. Jealousy shouldn’t make it that good, but it’s the best they’ve had.
“But what are you exactly? I mean—”
“Just two people who can’t let each other go. I’ll leave it at that.”
Barry says no more. Forgotten, Leon stands by Ada’s side, kissing the gentle slope of her shoulder. “Leon,” Ada says, as “Don’t Worry Baby,” begins to play and he can’t help but smile. It was his mother’s favorite. He tells her so as they dance. She calls it a new favorite of hers.
She giggles when he asks why. “Thought it was obvious,” she says. “We got away for a while.”
“What about next time?”
“We’ll get away again.”
“I’m not your vacation Ada. I’m permanent. I always will be. Not someone you can go away with and forget—”
“That’s why I want this. I want to remember.”
As she leans her head against his beating heart, Leon closes his eyes. He’ll remember this forever, the music, the beach, and Ada, drawing out another moment where they live in both the past and the future, where they both got away for a while.