“We need to create the perfect moment,” she says. “A meet-cute they’ll remember.”
“What’s a meet-cute?”
“You know exactly what it is.”
I do not in fact know, but I hazard a guess. “A meeting that’s…cute?”
“You have to ruin everything,” she says, her eyes dancing with amusement.
God, I’m ridiculously happy to be here with her. But I’m not a good passenger at the best of the times, especially in small cars, so I clear my throat and say, “I’m probably about to ruin your good mood. I’d prefer to drive, if that’s okay.”
She averts her eyes skyward for a moment but hands me her keys.
I open the side door for her, then stow my guitar in the back and get in beside her. “I don’t mean to be disagreeable,” I say.
“Then you’re not off to a great start.”
I clasp her hand. “We can try to do the meet-cute thing if you’re set on it, but I’d argue that the best moments in life are unpredictable.”
“Your high school robot disagrees with you.”
This is where I could tell her. My heart pulses with the need to do it.
I kept that note. I made the robot for you. It was supposed to help you brew your ginger beer.
But I don’t. I’m…
Honestly, I’m fucking terrified that she’ll withdraw. That I’ll be too much, the way I’ve been for a lot of people. My mother was the first in a long line.
So I don’t vocalize any of it.
“You’re the one who said it, not me,” I say. “I was thinking about the moment when Pansy walked in on us.”
I release her hand so we can secure our seat belts.
“Be careful, Cormac. You almost sound grateful that I roped you into?—”
“It’s not a fake relationship anymore,” I say, my tone harsh.
Shit. I hadn’t meant to say it like that.
She’s quiet for a moment, and I start driving toward the house, needing the distraction because I can’t look at her right now. I don’t want to see the end of us written across her features.
We’re nearly there when she finally says, “No, I guess not, but I don’t really know what we should call it.”
That makes two of us.
“Iamgrateful it happened,” I say into the quiet of the car. “Regardless of the circumstances that got us here. Still. I think it’s a very bad idea to willingly go bowling with a possible psychopath. Do you know how much bowling balls weigh?”
She puts her hand on my leg, her touch warm and intimate and so very welcome. “No, Cormac, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
The restof the weekend passes quickly. Nora has to work all day Sunday, so her desire to set up Nathaniel and Ann is, perforce, delayed. I also suggest that maybe we should wait awhile—it might be a good idea to give Ann time to recover after her heartbreak. Nora, in turn, points out that Ann is in her seventies or eighties, and probably shouldn’t wait too long if she wants to “get back on that horse.”
I ask her to please not use that metaphor again, especially in reference to Ann, and she hits me with a pillow.
Fuck, I love her, and it’s getting harder to hold back.
She comes over on Monday to share some takeout, and we sit on the couch to eat.
