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“Do you mean it? We don’t know each other well, but I feel so connected to you.”
“Still?” he said with a grin.
I squeezed him briefly, smiling myself. Joy radiated out of us, bounced against the ceiling and walls, and came back, smothering both of us with tremendous positive energy.
“I’m serious, though…” I whispered, wondering if I was pushing him too much.
“I know what you mean. I’ve been wandering aimlessly since Afghanistan.”
Will he ever tell me what really happened over there?
I kept my questions to myself, enjoying the afterglow. We cleaned up a few minutes later, sharing a huge bowl of ice cream before calling it a night and crawling into bed together.
EIGHTEEN
Jade
I woke up before him the next morning. As I laid next to him, his bare back rising and falling as he breathed. I smiled to myself. It hadn’t all been a dream.
Had I finally found a man worthy of my time? Two years after meeting him in Afghanistan? Our story would be so fun to tell around the dinner table.
Carefully, I slipped from under the covers and got out of bed, trying not to wake him. He groaned and rolled over, but he appeared to be a heavy sleeper.
Was he a morning person or super grumpy before he had coffee and breakfast? As I grabbed his white robe from the top of his dresser, I realized how little I knew about him.
At the same time, none of the mystery mattered. It made our blossoming relationship that much better. In the kitchen, spotlessly clean, I started a pot of coffee in his fancy machine.
While it brewed, I returned to the bedroom where I found him still asleep. I gathered up my clothes and got dressed quickly because I needed to go home to change and shower before work.
I hated to go into work, but I needed the money. A little time and space between Cooper and I wouldn’t hurt anything. I needed to think everything through. It all seemed to move so fast.
Before I left, I wrote a quick note telling him I’d gone to work and would call him later that evening. He had a set of banana magnets on his refrigerator, so I used one of those.
Outside his door, in the small foyer with the elevator, I saw a door leading to a set of stairs. A quick three flights would help me wake up, I figured as I opened it and started down.
By the time I reached the lobby on the first floor, I realized I had to get in shape. The doorman, same person as the night before, smiled and nodded his head as I passed in a hurry.
I hailed a cab when I got outside Cooper’s apartment building. The driver yammered on about some festival happening in Brooklyn later that night. I nodded politely but said nothing.
When the cab driver made it to my building about ten minutes later, I paid him before getting out. I saw Max leaning against the brick wall next to the front door.
Ugh. I don’t need this now, I thought, wondering if I should just walk away and go to work in yesterday’s clothes. My workmates wouldn’t mind. Before I decided, he spotted me.
He smiled as we walked over. Everything about him was broad, his shoulders, his gait, even his thinking. The latter was the main reason I wasn’t interested in dating him anymore.
“Hey, girl,” he said, stopping in front of me.
“Hey, Max. I’m in a hurry.”
“You weren’t home last night.”
I tilted my head to the side and studied his face.
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, let’s just say I’m a protective person.”
“That’s creepy,” I said, walking around him. “I need to go.”
