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“I...have something upstairs. They’re fuzzy on the inside. More like slippers. It’s been snowing, so it might rain. Should I wear those in this weather?”
“The Uggs?” Kota said. He turned toward the front door. “You can wear those. They’ll go with your outfit. I’ll grab a proper jacket from Nathan’s house for you.”
“And I had a gift for him.” I slumped my shoulders and looked down again. “Do you think I should give it to him now?”
Kota paused, turning toward me. He approached me and put his hands on my shoulders. He slowly and steadily massaged my muscles. “Sang, for whatever reason, he wants you to join him today. He’s never turned away any gift we’ve given him. If you give him one, he’ll open it when he’s ready. You don’t have to push him.”
I breathed in slowly, finding my courage in his touch, soothing the shaking that had started in my heart. “I want to hurry,” I said. “I don’t want to make him wait.”
“I know,” Kota said, and he kissed my forehead before he gently urged me on. “If you need anything, call me right away.”
I nodded, although I sent a long look to North and Silas, knowing they’d seen the kiss.
North frowned, adjusting his weight on the couch to lean more on the armrest. He shared another look, something I couldn’t understand, but I wondered if he was uncomfortable witnessing this.
Silas was still, looking toward me, but with unfocused eyes. His broad nose dipped down slowly until his gaze dropped to the floor. I noticed his hands clenched, one on the arm rest, one at his leg.
I retreated to the bedroom upstairs, finding the boots. I didn’t dare linger, not wanting to make Mr. Blackbourne wait.
If he came for me on this day, the day he never went out on, I didn’t want him to change his mind.
???
Moments later, I was in boots and a light gray jacket, holding the gift that was wrapped in gray paper and a maroon bow.
I couldn’t hide it as I approached Mr. Blackbourne’s BMW. He stood beside the car, holding open the door for me, but his eyes dropped to the gift.
I offered it to him, unsure of what else to do. “I didn’t want to forget,” I said, and then quickly added, “You don’t have to open it now. I just wasn’t sure...”
“Thank you,” he said. He reached for it, grasping the bottom of the box, and waited for me to get in.
I slipped in, reaching for the seatbelt as he closed the door for me. He opened the back door and placed the gift onto the rear seat snugly, using a floor mat as a brace so it wouldn’t shift around. He left the gift there as he circled the car to get in.
Good enough. I second guessed getting him a gift for his birthday. Maybe I should have just gotten him a card. Maybe he didn’t want a gift. Maybe I should have held off until tomorrow.
Mr. Blackbourne backed up the car from the drive in silence. I kept an eye on the house, suspecting Kota and perhaps North and Silas might have been peeking out from behind curtains, wondering as much as I was right then as to where we were headed.
As Mr. Blackbourne drove, I kept my eyes on the brown grass on the lawns we passed by. The sky was gray and overcast, but I wasn’t thinking about the scenery.
With his somberness and black tie, a thousand concerns flew through my head. Maybe something important had happened, and he was about to tell me terrible news that couldn’t wait. The police were about to arrest me for not going to school. My stepmother was demanding to see me or she had threatened them. The Academy had rejected me the moment they talked about me and I wasn’t going to be invited to the important introduction the following week. Something drastic had clearly forced Mr. Blackbourne to come out today despite his usual desire to be alone.
It was something they’d all respected, an unspoken rule, but I was breaking that somehow.
I wanted to talk to him, but my tongue was glued to the top of my mouth. I was afraid to say the wrong thing. He never spoke, his eyes focused through the windshield as I got more and more nervous.
Since his gaze never left the road, I stole long glances at him, trying to gauge his mood. His light brown hair, trimmed perfectly, was as neat as ever. The scent of his spring soap was strong today. His fingernails were manicured. I wondered if he did that himself, or if he went to a spa like Victor often did.
I was unsure of where we were going until he took a turn into a park when the lane and surroundings started to look familiar.
I wasn’t positive until we got to the end, where there was a playground, a picnic area, and a dock stretching out to a lake. There was no one at the park today, probably because of the cold. There were remnants of people having been there recently, though, with a child’s forgotten shoe on top of a picnic table, and footprints in the sand near the playground.
Mr. Blackbourne had brought me here before, the time I’d been angry with North and he had given me guidance. He had told me about how his mother had brought him here when he was young. Perhaps his mother brought him here on his birthday, and while those had been happy times, now that she was dead and gone, he continued the tradition even though it made him sad.
Would he have brought me here if that were the case? Maybe I’d angered someone else without realizing it and he was had brought me here to talk about it.
Afraid to make a move before I knew why he’d brought me, I waited quietly as he parked and got out. He walked around the car to open the door for me, holding it expectantly.
I kept a soft smile on my face, trying to not appear as anxious as I felt. I got out and stepped away so he could close the door. I kept my hands behind my back to hide the shaking. The air was chilly, but with the jacket, it was just my nose and face that were exposed to the wind.
He moved to the trunk, opening it.
I stepped closer as he lifted out a picnic basket. It was something I hadn’t ever seen in person, only in movies. It even had the red checkered cloth sticking out of it.
He closed the trunk, holding the basket in his left arm, and then turned to me, his steel eyes softer now, turning silver.
Surprise surged through me, replacing my anxiousness. I stepped up beside him, allowing him to lead the way. I was still unsure what he had in mind but understood I’d been wrong in my previous assumptions.
This wasn’t about me at all.
He headed toward the dock. I checked for other people that might have been behind the picnic area, or further down the beach, but I didn’t see anyone else. We were alone today.
We walked the dock, our shoes the only sound, creaking against the wood beams as we walked over them. At the very end of the dock, he stopped and gestured for me to stand aside. He put the basket on top of a post at chest height, and then opened it, taking out a heavy blanket that had been on top. He put the blanket down on the wooden planks. I stepped toward him with a hand out to help but then paused, unsure if I should get involved, afraid to do something wrong.
He looked at me with a lifted eyebrow, and then held out a corner of the blanket to me.
I took it from him, and together we lay the blanket over the dock.
Once it was smoothed out, he nodded down toward it. “Please, sit. Get comfortable.”
I was grateful in that moment that I hadn’t switched the pants for a skirt. Still, I sunk down to my knees, choosing to sit on my heels. The blanket was only a thin cushion against the rough boards of the dock. I wanted to be ready to stand if he needed any more help.
He brought the basket over, sitting it on one corner of the blanket, and then knelt down. He removed his shoes that looked a little too stiff for sitting on, and kept those at another corner of the blanket. I considered if I should remove my boots but they were comfortable and flexible enough. Also, it was chilly, and I wanted to keep the warmth.
Mr. Blackbourne reached his hand into the open basket, bringing out three boxes. The boxes reminded me of Chinese food containers, made of some kind of paper, but flat like a bento box—something I’d seen in Dr. Green’s Japanese textboo
k. He handed me one of the boxes along with a fork, also made of a strange material, like a thick stock cardboard. Next, he put a second box in front of himself, and then the third, he placed nearby, as if he were expecting someone to join us.
I looked up and around, looking for someone else who might be approaching.
Mr. Blackbourne took out a bottle of water, offering it to me. I took it and opened it to take a sip since he hadn’t opened the boxes yet. I smelled food, something greasy like fried chicken, but the boxes were cold.
He took a Thermos from the basket and then a small paper cup. “Do you like tea?” he asked. “It’s black tea. I’ve got sugar packets if you’d like.”
“I’ve never had regular black tea,” I said quietly.
There was a slight lift to one of his perfect eyebrows but he said nothing. He poured out some tea into the cup and passed it to me. I was more interested in holding a warm cup in my hands than actually drinking it. Still, I tried a sip, and the flavor was bitter to me. I did my best to press my lips together in an attempt to mask my soured expression.
He poured himself a cup and then another one, placing it near the third bento box.
I looked around us again, back toward the shore and toward where he had parked, expecting someone else to arrive.
