1 - Dangerous Beauty
Donna woke up alone in bed, a regular occurrence. She spread her arm out to find that the other side of the bed was cold, meaning he'd woken up a while ago.
She sighed and got up. She took her thin robe from where it was hanging on the doorknob of their shared closet. The house had two bedrooms, yet they most often slept together in this one. The other room was made up as a guest room, but they never had guests.
Donna tied the robe around herself and left the house. He did this a lot, so she knew where to find him. The soft sound of guitar strumming confirmed it.
She walked down the creaky wooden steps from their deck to the beach. Sand clung to her feet as she made her way over to him. She sat down in the sand, close to him but far enough that the neck of his guitar didn't hit her.
He was playing David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World, which meant today wasn't great.
He finished the song and laid the guitar down across his lap. "Hey."
"Hey."
"Sorry I left you again. Didn't want to wake you up."
She placed her hand on his knee. "I told you, you never have to apologize for getting up early. I get it."
"I know. I just… don't feel great. Not sure why."
Donna nodded. She scooted closer to him, taking the guitar out of his lap and setting it down on the sand. She kissed him softly, lightly placing her fingers on his jaw. It was slightly stubbly. He hadn't shaved in a couple days.
When they parted, he dropped his head onto her shoulder. "I don't know what I'd do without you, man."
She wrapped her arm around him in a half-hug. "Probably just keep playing The Man Who Sold The World until your fingers bled."
He chuckled. "Well, thanks for saving my fingers, Pinciotti."
"No problem, Hyde."
Hyde parked the El Camino outside Irish Coffee Bakery. It was a small breakfast place just outside of Hyannis, where he and Donna lived. They'd lived on Cape Cod for nearly four years now, and Hyde liked it.
The familiar jangle of the bell on the door rang in his ears as he entered. Callahan, the bakery's current owner and the closest thing he and Donna had to a friend, grinned at him.
"What'll it be, Hyde?" Her thick Irish accent lilted her voice.
"Two hash sandwiches and two coffees, one black, one with cream and sugar."
"So, the usual." Cal turned to the small window between the dining area and the kitchen. "Hyde's usual!"
Jerry's relaxed Boston accent came from the back. "Stop shoutin' orders at me!"
Jerry was much less of a friend than Cal. He was angry with a demeanor that screamed don't-fuck-with-me. Hyde had dedicated the past four years to keeping a low profile, so he avoided Jerry as much as he could.
Cal stuck her tongue out at the window, presumably in Jerry's direction. Then she turned back to Hyde. "So, how's Donna?"
"Better than me," Hyde said with a shrug.
"What's wrong with you?"
Hyde scratched the back of his neck. "I don't know."
Cal nodded. "I get it. At least you got a gorgeous girlfriend. One who will definitely appreciate this breakfast you're getting her."
"Order up," Jerry said, placing a box and two coffees in a drink holder on the shelf. He eyed Hyde's shirt with disdain. "The Doors? In 1983?"
"Yep. Just 'cause your music taste is shit doesn't mean mine is." Hyde took his order from Cal and paid. "Thanks, man. See you around."
"See ya!" Cal said with a bright smile.
Hyde drove to the house as quickly as possible, watching the grassy sand dunes fly past through his windows. Seagulls circled the skies up above.
He'd grown to love the coast, even after being raised so far from any kind of ocean. There was a dark peacefulness to it; the knowledge that one natural disaster could destroy your life in an instant paired with the soft crashing of waves while you laid next to a beautiful woman on the beach. It was that kind of dangerous beauty that pulled Hyde to the sea, like a Siren's song.
That same dangerous beauty had pulled him closer to Donna.
Hyde parked the Camino in their driveway, slightly sandy from the beach being so close by. He grabbed the food and went up the few steps to the pale yellow front door, which Donna had painted when they first moved in.
Donna was seated at the kitchen table, doing the crossword in the newspaper. Hyde set the box with their sandwiches down and handed her the black coffee. She smiled at him. "Thanks."
"No problem." He sat down next to her and took out his sandwich. "What's the plan for today?"
"I was gonna do this crossword, then write for a little bit. Then go to my shift at the store." Donna wrote a word down quickly in the crossword. "I was thinking for dinner we should drive out to Yarmouth and eat out."
"That sounds good."
They ate quietly, Donna finishing her crossword. They almost never talked during breakfast. Hyde was fine with that.
After they ate, Hyde got his songwriting journal- a nice leatherbound one- from their bedroom and sat on their couch. It was a pale blue, adding to the nautical theme that everything except ice cream shops and mini-golf places seemed to develop on the Cape. Something about being near the ocean made house and store owners want to decorate with seashells and wooden crab sculptures.
He opened the book to a song he'd been working on for years. He only wrote when he was having bad days, and he very rarely wrote for this particular song. But given the dream he'd had last night, he felt today was an appropriate time to continue it.
It was titled Where The Ocean Ends. It went along with a piano piece he'd composed. Jackie had taught him how to play years ago, on the grand piano that was probably gathering dust in the Burkhart mansion.
It was a love song. Donna didn't know about it. At least, Hyde was pretty sure she didn't know about it.
A lot of his songs ended up being about love. Who could blame him when he had one woman on his mind almost every moment of the day?
He had a feeling the next verse would be a sappy one, so he centered himself and put his pencil to the paper.
The fast-paced clicking of typewriter keys filled the room as Donna put together her latest novel. She was seated at the desk in the guest room, where she usually wrote.
The current novel was a tragic romance. The male protagonist was a prince that got captured by a dragon. The female protagonist was a knight that had to save him. They had been childhood friends and fallen in love, but grown apart as adults. The prince's capture would bring them back together.
Lost in thought, she mistyped a letter. She sighed and stood up, walking out of the room. She didn't have the patience to retype it right now.
Hyde was in the living room, feet up on the couch. He had his songwriting journal out, something Donna was almost never allowed to see.
Despite their closeness, there were still some things they kept from each other.
Donna knocked lightly on the doorframe to let Hyde know she was there. He looked up and put his journal away, tying the small leather strip around it to keep it closed.
He swung one leg off the couch and gestured for her to sit between his legs. She did so, smiling at him a little. "I hit a little block while writing."
"Yeah? I have just the thing to solve that."
Donna laughed a little. They both leaned in and kissed deeply. Her hands traveled into his hair, the curls now familiar rather than strange in comparison to Eric's thin locks. She was also familiar with his touch and his body. She finally understood what Jackie had raved about in their private conversations so many years ago.
Thinking of Jackie and Eric made her pause for a second, but she recovered quickly. Hyde's lips on her neck helped with that.
They'd been sleeping together for nearly four years now. They occasionally slept with other people, but not often. They didn't let people get to know them well enough to get that close.
Donna kissed Hyde on the lips again and tugged him up off the couch. Together, they made their way to the bedroom, exchanging kisses all the way.
As her hands crept under his shirt and ran over his abdomen, Donna prepared herself for the crushing guilt that would follow their next actions.