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His tone was gentle, his eyes even more so, delving into her and cradling her heart. So much for less personal.
Fortunately, traffic started to move and he returned his attention to the road. The person who assumed not a whole lot was going on with this one because of his age or easygoing manner would be making a mistake. She reached out, touched his jaw.
"When you said that, I saw it here too. You get it because you understand it. Yet you're not cautious. You don't seem that way."
He shrugged. "I know what it's like for things not to turn out the way you want them to. We all do. We just handle it differently. That's a good thing, because if we were all dysfunctional in the same way, it would be a pretty boring party."
"I feel pretty boring, next to Chloe and Marguerite. But I've felt safe that way, because they love me."
She couldn't believe she'd said something that honest out loud. But he merely nodded. "Being accepted for who you are, there's nothing better. If you have that, everything else is possible." He hit the brake for a light and gave her a significant glance, one that wasn't easygoing at all. It swept her face, her throat, down over breasts to the nip of her waist, highlighted by his regard, even under the shapeless T-shirt. Then his gaze came back to her face, lingered there.
"I don't find you boring at all. And neither did my Mistress."
*
Wow. That was news. If he'd left it at his opinion only, she might have retreated behind false cynicism, assuming he was positioning himself for a booty call, holed up as he would be at her place. But a woman having a blatant sexual interest in her was a new idea. On top of that, it was the first time someone had suggested--as if it was the most natural thing in the world--that two people might be interested in her that way. Not competitively. She got the impression--and maybe she was crazy--that he was implying they both wanted her. At the same time.
She'd likely read way too much into those two sentences. As a result, she didn't say much the rest of the trip and Noah didn't push her for more, though he made affable comments about the traffic and their surroundings in a way that let her retreat back to her comfort zone, which worked for her.
She had a little patio home in a neighborhood of five hundred houses that looked just the same. Hers was on a cul-de-sac, backing up to woods, which she liked since the developer had stripped most of the forest to put up the cookie cutter houses faster. Her small fenced backyard was shaded by pines and palms, a few oaks.
In a three-bedroom, two-bath with small rooms, the two of them would be very aware of one another's presence, since her bedroom was across the hall from the guest one. She used the third bedroom as her craft room and kept a TV in there. There was a little one in the guest bedroom for the occasional overnight visitors, but her combination kitchen and living room had only a bookshelf and a French-door view of the comings and goings of the neighborhood for visual entertainment. Seeing it through the eyes of a relative stranger, a man, she worried he might be glad he'd only be here a weekend.
But it was her place, her sanctuary, bought under good financing terms with her own money. It wasn't a rusted trailer with garbage in the backyard and a scrawny mother cat having litter after litter of kittens under the stoop until disease took her. The kittens always disappeared eventually. As a child, she'd pretended they found good homes, rather than getting sick, hit by cars or eaten up by the nearby marsh alligators.
Her mother said getting the mama cat fixed was too much money and animals were meant to fend for themselves anyway. She'd felt much the same way about children. It gave Gen a quick flash of herself at seven, standing on a stepstool to fix oatmeal for herself at the old stove, reading the package to figure out how to do it.
"What a great place," Noah said. The sincerity caught her off guard, pulled her out of such memories. He'd brought in a duffle and placed it by the door so he could wander down the narrow hallway to look at the collages she'd placed on the walls. They were enhanced by the eggshell-colored paint, and she'd found good frames at yard sales. When she snapped on a light for him, the small track lights she'd placed over each picture provided enough illumination to navigate the hall, but turned the focus to the walls rather than the beige carpet she hadn't yet replaced with hardwood, as she intended to do one of these days. The kitchen was her first order of business.
"This is awesome," he said. The collage he was studying was a garden of flowers, created with different scraps of paper, some solid colors, some patterns. Tiny knots of newsprint made up the background, as if the flowers were peering up from the colorless dark earth. She wondered if the earth ever resented being the womb, never the creation. Probably not. Even if the earth nursed such a petty thought, a look at what it had created would dispel it. At least that was the way it should be.
"I made it after I bought the house." Her own personal celebration.
"You made this? All of these?" At her nod, he gripped her hand as if he'd made a delightful discovery. It made her blush. Fortunately, he turned his attention back to the wall before she could embarrass herself further. The next one showed the silhouette of a sitting cat, the body formed by various images of a cat playing, sleeping. She'd interspersed those images with simple colors, making her into a calico.
"Do you have a cat?"
"Not yet. One day."
He glanced at her. "A life still evolving. I like that."
"You're a strange one," she responded, but she smiled. He made her smile. She liked that.
He picked up his duffle bag. "Where am I at?"
She pointed to the guest bedroom. "It's a full-size." She hoped his feet wouldn't hang off the end. "There's a small TV in there. I have basic cable."
He waved a hand. "Doesn't matter. Lyda doesn't let me do TV. It makes my head hurt. Do you want to get started on anything tonight on the kitchen floor, or should I just fix you dinner?"
She blinked at him. "I wasn't expecting you to--"
"I'm here for you, Gen," he said seriously. "Let me make you dinner."
While she was searching for something to say, he disappeared into the guestroom, returning without the bag. "No matter what, we need dinner first. Any particular requests?"
"I have some leftover lasagna. There's enough for two, and some salad." She hoped there was enough for two, but he was a man. They could always order a pizza.
"Sounds good. Why don't you do whatever your evening routine is, and I'll get dinner ready? If you do collaging after dinner, I can hang out with a book and watch, if you're okay with that. I'd love to see how you do this."
