23
Noah wraps his arms around my waist as I stand over the stove, flipping his crêpe. Truth be told, he’s distracting me but I’m certainly not about to complain. He smells good, like he always does in the morning, a very subtle male scent. He kisses my neck, distracting me further.
I shrug and giggle like a junior high school girl. “Do you want me to burn your crêpe?”
“Oh… you know what I want.”
“Again?” I blurt. “Already?”
He laughs. “Yep.”
I flip his crêpe onto a plate and turn on my heel, wanting to take in this beautiful man I’ve recently had the luck of discovering. I want to take it all in; his beauty, his energy and exuberance, and most of all, his unapologetic youth. I eye him dubiously. “How old are you?” I ask, baffled by the fact that I don’t already know. We’ve had sex three times now, and I still don’t know much about him.
“Uh…” he falters. “Twenty… eight. Why do you want to know?”
God… he’s eight years younger than me. My friends were right. I’m such a cradle robber. I don’t volunteer my own age, no way in hell. “When’s your birthday?”
“Uh…” He seems taken aback by the inquisition. “Uh… November 10th.”
Oh crap… he’s a new twenty-eight. I’m almost nine years older. “So you’re a Scorpio?” I ask with a playful smile.
He shrugs. “And you? What are you?”
“I’m a February baby,” I tell him. “I’m an Aquarius.”
A smile stretches across his face. “You follow astrology? Are Scorpios and Aquarius compatible?”
I grin playfully. “Well, we’re definitely compatible in bed,” I point out. “What else is there?”
He takes me in his arms again, and kisses my collarbone. I’m just about to fall into bed with him again, but first, we must eat. “Hungry? Your crêpe is getting cold.”
“Famished.”
He settles down at the kitchen table and I present him with a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, some cut-up apple, and his crêpe. “What do you like on it?”
“I’m easy,” he says. “Surprise me.”
I slather on some butter. He doesn’t seem to be the type who worries too much about calories. I sprinkle some brown sugar on and some raspberries. He watches me intently as I roll up the crêpe, smiling like an eager kid. A pang in my chest takes me by surprise, a weird sense of déja vu. I shake my head.
I top my masterpiece with a good dollop of canned whipped cream, almost as good as the real thing.
He sinks his teeth in eagerly and savors it, closing his eyes and moaning as if he were having an out of body experience.
I laugh out loud. “It’s notthatgood.”
“Mmm.. but… it is,” he says with a mouthful.
The crêpe is gone in less than a minute, and when I ask if he’d like another one, he nods enthusiastically. So I get back to work, a silly smile on my face. I wonder what Daniel would think if he could see me right now. He used to say that I never smiled. I wanted to throw a lamp at his head when he said that.You wouldn’t fucking smile all the time if you’d had the life I had,I wanted to scream. But I’ve never been one to drown in my sorrows or bore others with them.
The thing is… Noah makes me happy. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it’s because I’m in love. It’s more than that. There’s a positiveness and energy about him that is quite rare. There’s also a familiarity about him, as if we were meant to be together, soulmates perhaps. Funny thought… I don’t even believe in soulmates. I used to, when I was a silly teenager, but a lot has happened since, and I’ve become quite jaded and cynical in my old age.
“So are you seeing your friends today?” he asks between bites. “Or do I get you all to myself?”
I smile. “You get me all to yourself,” I say happily. “Mischa is busy with her family, Claudia is working, and Gretchen is volunteering at her boy’s daycare today.”
“I’d love to meet them,” he tells me. “You’re always talking about them. They seem cool.”
I lighten up at the thought of them meeting Noah. They would love him. I also wouldn’t hear the end of it. They would tease me even more than they already are.
