She nodded, kicking at a loose rock on the sidewalk and sending it skittering into a storm drain beside us.
"He...uh, he spent a lot of our money when I was growing up," she explained, slightly halting, like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be entirely honest about this. I didn’t blame her. I knew how it felt, talking ill of your family like that, no matter what the context might have been, something dug deep into your psyche telling you to be nice above all else.
"And eventually Mom kicked him out when he invested a bunch of money that was meant for my college fund into this stupid business one of his friends was starting up," she continued, shaking her head. "It was gone before I even knew Ihad it, and I – I swore I was never going to deal with his crap again. And that my brother was going to get the chance to go to college, even if I didn’t."
"He really did that to you?”
She nodded. I winced, shaking my head.
"Dina, I’m so sorry..."
"It’s in the past now," she replied, waving a hand, though I could still hear the slight edge of pain to her voice, like there was something deep inside that she didn’t want me to see. I wasn’t going to go pushing beyond what she was comfortable sharing with me, but I couldn’t believe the sheer gall that man must have had to take money that was meant for his daughter’s future and throw it at something so stupid.
"And I haven’t seen him since," she continued. "Probably for the best. He’d try to borrow money of me off he laid eyes on me now..."
She let out a slight laugh, turning on to a narrow residential street. I watched her for a moment, wondering how it was that she could have such grace for her father, despite what he had done to her. How she could turn the mess he had made of her future into hope for her brother. I wasn’t sure I had ever met anyone like that before, someone so willing to search out the good in the depths of the bad, and it wasn’t exactly helping the draw that I felt deep in my chest to pull a little closer to her.
"Well, this is me," she remarked, as she stood outside a slightly run-down looking apartment building, reaching into her pocket for her keys. "You can go back to your hotel now that you know you got me home safe..."
And, as she looked up at me again, that slight smile on her face, I felt it again. That rush, that draw towards her, the same one I’d had when we’d been at dinner together. The one that I had done my best to tamp down since she had told me that she didn’t want my help, determined not to overstep my mark. And,as she looked at me now, I knew that I couldn’t just ignore it anymore, no matter how much I might have wanted to. I could still feel my arm tingling where she had touched me, that brief moment of comfort enough to light something up inside me I knew I couldn’t shut down. I reached for her hand before I could stop myself, fingers lacing through hers, such sureness in my mind that I could not hold back.
"Dina," I told her softly, as she gazed at me, not moving, keys still clamped in her hand as she looked back at me. Her hand tightened on mine slightly, as though she was making certain that I didn’t go anywhere.
"Mhm?"
She bit her lip, her eyes wide, glistening in the dark punctuated by the streetlights around us. I needed to show, not tell, my answer. And, finally, I leaned forward, and brushed my lips softly against hers.
It was just an experimental kiss, a test to see if she would pull back, but she didn’t. Her fingers laced around mine as she parted her lips slightly, and I deepened the kiss, my other arm looping around her waist to pull her in close, our bodies pressed together there on the doorstep of her apartment. In that quiet, still town, I could have sworn that we were the only two people on earth, utterly lost to each other, her hair grazing my cheek, her heartbeat thudding against my chest. I moved her back against the door, holding her there in the dark, the cool air circling around us and blurring the edges between us until there was nothing left but
And then, all at once, she pulled back. She looked down at the keys in her hand, breathing hard, cheeks flushed, and then back up at me.
"I’m sorry, Felix," she whispered to me, shaking her head. "I should, I should..."
She didn’t even bother to finish, as she turned her back on me, slipping her key into the lock and pushing the door open before I could say another word. I stared at her, at the spot she had just been standing the space I had just been holding her, and tried to make sense of what the hell had just happened. One moment, we had been kissing, her body sinking into mine like it was all she wanted in the world, and then, she had been pulling back and fleeing back up to her apartment...
I rubbed a hand over my face, letting out a slight groan. I couldn’t figure this woman out. Just as soon as it seemed like I had made a little more sense of her, something would happen to throw that into flux, and I would be left hanging on for dear life as I tried to make sense of it.
I listened to her footsteps retreat up the stairs, and sighed, turning on my heel to head back to the hotel. She was right, all I had wanted was to get her home safely, and it looked like I had. I needed to get back to my hotel room, get some rest...
And hope that, by tomorrow, I would have forgotten how it felt to kiss her.
Chapter 8
Dina
"Good morning!”
I called out to my mom as I opened the front door to her little house with my elbow, carefully maneuvering the fresh coffee I had picked up from Bean There Coffee Shop to make sure I didn’t spill it all over the carpet in the hallway. She stuck her head out of the kitchen, where I could hear the familiar tones of Marty Green, our local radio host, filling the room.
"I didn’t expect to see you this early," she remarked, as she stepped out, coming over to give me a hug and pluck one of the coffee cups from my hand. "I thought you weren’t coming around till later..."
"I woke up early," I replied, which was only partially a lie. I hadn’t actually managed to get much sleep at all the night before, as caught up as I had been in the kiss that I had shared with Felix before I had retreated to my apartment. I couldn’t believe it had happened, but, in the moment, when he had reached for my hand, every defense I had built had just crashedaway as though it was nothing, and there was nothing I craved more than the feel of his mouth on mine.
I had come to my senses before anything else had happened, thank goodness. Remembered all the times I had let myself get drawn in to a fantasy of a romance with a man who was passing through this town, only to get my heart stomped on when they had decided to move on. And Felix couldn’t have made himself clearer if he tried, telling me about his family, about how tied down they seemed, how he was always on the lookout for a new adventure. A rolling stone gathers no moss, and he doesn’t intend to slow his roll long enough to get stuck anywhere.
Even with me. I followed Mom into the kitchen, where she was already making breakfast. She had texted me the night before to let me know that she had picked up some breakfast food for us and that she wanted to cook for me, no doubt to make sure that I actually got a decent meal. As delicious as the food at the diner was, I couldn’t live on home fries forever, and Mom knew it. She cooked for me a couple of times a month, whether I liked it or not, though she was right in pointing out that I arrived a whole hell of a lot earlier today than I normally did.
"Smells great," I remarked, as I stepped into the kitchen, trying my best to keep my voice light as I sat at one of the dining room chairs. This one had a chip out of the bottom of one leg, where Danny had crashed into it on his pedal bike when he had first learned to ride; I reached down and rubbed my finger over it, the familiarity felt soothing given the mess that was going on in my head right now.
