Wild Reckless

Owen holds the bag in his lap for a few seconds, turning it and folding over the top a few times. I can tell whatever is inside is small, but heavy.

“I told you how my grandpa raised us, right?” Owen says finally.

“Yeah,” I say back. We’re both still whispering, and the fact that Owen is—without me asking him to—fills me with relief.

“He was a fixer,” Owen says, and I quirk my head to the side, pinching my brow.

“A…fixer?” I repeat.

“Yeah…I mean that’s not like his official title or job or anything. He worked in the warehouse with my dad. That’s how my parents met, actually. My dad worked for him,” Owen says, his fingers wrestling with the strings on the gift, tucking them in and out of the fold nervously. He doesn’t share these stories often, and I don’t dare speak or interrupt him.

“When he wasn’t working, and even more after he retired, my grandpa did odd jobs for people, fixing things. Not really a handyman, because he didn’t go to houses or climb ladders for people. But people brought him things. And sometimes, they’d forget to come back and collect whatever it was he was fixing for them,” Owen says, his lips curved into a soft, affectionate smile, his eyes showing nothing but fondness for this memory.

“So…” Owen starts, sliding the bag from his lap onto mine. “This is from my grandpa’s collection. He saved a few special things, things that sort of spoke to him. He never really knew why he kept this thing in particular. But then, when I was visiting him at the home the other day, I noticed it again. I’ve probably stared at this thing for four years, both on the shelf at our house and in his room at the home when we moved him there. It never meant anything…until now. When I asked him if I could give it to you, he lit up. He doesn’t light up often anymore.”

Owen pauses, his hands folded nervously in his lap, his thumbs tapping one another, his eyes cast down on the gift in my lap. The light through the window is dim, but it’s bright enough to see his expression. He’s anxious, and maybe also a little happy. I unbend the fold in the top of the bag and untwist the knotted strings, pulling out the crumpled tissue paper from the top. When I reach in, my fingers feel something cold, made of a heavy metal. I pull the object out slowly, holding it in front of my face, resting it on my palm. It stands only a few inches tall, and the shape is similar to a small grandfather’s clock, but I know what it is immediately.

My heart knows too, and it kicks—violently.

“My grandpa said the music teacher for the old Woodstock elementary school brought it to him. But then the guy retired and left town, forgetting about it completely. I guess you wind it here,” Owen says, his hands gentle along mine as he twists the crank on the back until the small object begins to make the regular ticking sound it’s meant for, the sound sweet to my ears. “He said they don’t make metronomes like this anymore. One wind lasts about six hours, unless you hold the hand still to make it stop.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, moving my thumb gently along the sharp edges of the heavy metal. The small object is a dark iron, with small bumps along the edges showing its age. I push my finger against the hand to stop the ticking, then wind it again to listen to it begin, holding it up to my ear to hear the mechanisms move inside. My eyes find Owen’s while I listen.

“You like it?” he asks, his bottom lip tucked under his top. I nod yes, keeping my eyes locked on his while the ticking sound fills my ear. My chest constricts with an overwhelming love for his gesture, and I stop the ticking once again, placing the metronome back in the tissue paper on the side of my bed, then lean forward on my knees and hold Owen’s face in between my hands.

“I love it,” I say, the beating inside me so strong it feels as though my gift has been swallowed whole and has begun racing inside my chest. My hands hold still, my eyes on Owens, watching him look over my face, down to my mouth and back to my eyes more than once.

“Happy birthday, Kensington,” he whispers, his lips grazing mine as he speaks. His next pass is more forceful, and when I feel his hands slide up my sides and around my back, I give in to my most basic urges, crawling over his lap until I’m straddling him and kissing him as hard as our lips will let us.

His hands slide down my back until they’re cupping my butt, the thin cotton of my leggings no match for the heat of his grip. Owen sits tall, and I take his signal and reach down to lift his shirt from his body, pulling the two layers of long-sleeved shirts up and over him, revealing the smooth skin I memorized while watching him play basketball outside. Everything about him is warm—his shoulders, warm, his back, warm—his chest against mine, warm. I can feel him through the fabric of my sweatshirt, but want to feel him more.