Page 14 of Second Chance Summer

I like the way he looks at me

I love how he takes care of himself and his body

I like how hard he works

Yeah, I’ma go with that.

I look up at him and smile.

He narrows his eyes. I playfully narrow mine in return.

“Okay,” the doctor says. “Hendrick, why don’t we start with you first?”

“Sure. I wrote down that I like the way she puts everyone ahead of her own needs.”

“In what way?” I ask. I know I’m not supposed to interrupt, but I just have to know what he means.

He says, “You make sure everyone else is good before you are. You’re selfless that way. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you.”

“One?” I ask, raising a brow.

“Yes. There are plenty others.”

I glance at his lips and connect back to his eyes when he says, “Two, I like the way she cooks. She’s great at doing a lot of things, but cooking is way up there on the list.”

“Okay, and what’s number three?”

He grins nervously. I’ve never seen Hendrick Vaillant nervous about anything, and I’m sure the doc can’t detect it, but I can. He says, “I wrote a paragraph for number three, so I’ll just read it off.” He clears his throat and says, “I like the way she smiles. The way her cute little laugh lives inside me. I like the way she holds on to me at night when we’re resting. The way she clings to me like she never wants to let me go. I like the way she trusts me with her body. The way she gives her all to me. Her mind and her soul. I love the way she breathes. The way she angles her head upward and looks at me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters to her. There. That’s what I wrote.”

He glances at me, showing happiness on his face and a glimmer of sadness in his eyes at the same time.

“That was very thoughtful,” the doc says. “Wouldn’t you say so, Lanai?”

“I would,” I say, still looking at Hendrick from across the table.

“Okay, now it’s your turn.”

“Okay. Um…I don’t know if mine will top his—”

“That’s okay,” Hendrick says. “It’s not a competition. Just…truth.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth, Hendrick,” Dr. Makalua says.

Their eyes settle on me. All of a sudden, I feel like I’m in the spotlight and needing to say all the right things.

I say, “Okay. I wrote down that I like the way you look at me, how hard you work, and how you take care of yourself and your body.”

“Hmm…” he says.

I smirk and ask, “What was that hmm for?”

“I was just wondering…you said you like the way I look at you. What way is that exactly?”

“In a way that tells me you care. That I’m the only woman you could ever want. Ever desire. You look at me like your life isn’t complete without me in it. Like you’re the moon, and I’m the sun. Without either, life couldn’t exist, and we’d be—well, what we are now. Broken and nonexistent.”

I take a deep breath. A small, sad, faint smile settles in the left corner of my lips as the food arrives. I take a bite of French toast and, in my mind, I’m diving deeper into what I said. It wasn’t a fallacy, and I’m not sure if Hendrick thinks it is or not, but I spoke the truth to him just now. Maybe later, I’d get to explain so he doesn’t have to sit across the table and stare at me over his coffee cup.

Chapter 6