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“What?” she asked, when she realized I wasn’t moving.
“I’m so confused.” And I was. I didn’t understand. And then it hit me. No one had ever loved Shelly. She’d never experienced that connection with another person. She’d never experienced the fit of someone else’s body with hers, when the fit was more than just physical. She’d never had it. She probably didn’t even understand it.
Suddenly, her face fell. “Have I disappointed you?” she asked.
“Why would you ask me that?”
She motioned toward my face and said, “Because you suddenly look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t like me.”
I liked her. I liked her more and more every time I spent time with her. Her brain was a thing of wonder. Her body was a work of art. Her personality was intriguing. But fuck if I could understand anything about her.
“Lynn always looks at me like that when I’ve disappointed her. When I haven’t lived up to her expectations.” She began to wring her hands. “And now you’re doing it, but I don’t fully understand why.”
“You haven’t disappointed me.”
She finally breathed again. “Okay.”
“I’m just confused. Sorry.” I started to walk again.
Suddenly, a woman on the other side of the walkway yelled out, “Help! He took my wallet!”
We were on the second level of the mall, walking down the walkway with the railing on the left side of us. The scream had come from the other side of the open area, on the other side of the mall.
Then I saw him. A kid, maybe about sixteen years old, dashed down the aisle, and he was too fast for anyone to catch him.
But before I could even blink, Shelly had kicked her shoes off.
“Don’t!” I said, but she was already gone.
“Fuck,” I said as I let her bags fall to the floor. I turned to dash after her, but she was already rounding the corner. She’d hitched her pencil skirt up her legs, and she ran like I’d never seen anyone run. But the part that surprised me the most was that she did what I would have done—and I seriously would have if she had given me one more fucking second—and she ran past the next connecting walkway and went around to cut him off.
Next thing I knew, she’d tackled the gangly young man. His beanie fell from his head as he hit the floor with an umph and the woman’s wallet skidded out in front of him. Shelly put a knee in his back to hold him down. The young man grunted and kicked but Shelly subdued him until she could reach over him and get her hands on the woman’s purse. Then she lifted her knee, got off his back, mumbled something that only he could hear, and he ran in the other direction. Then she straightened her skirt and pushed her hair back from her face. She picked up the woman’s wallet and calmly returned it to her.
People had recorded the whole scene on their phones as the woman cried about how her rent money was in there, in cash, and how very grateful she was. “How did you do that?” she asked.
Shelly just shrugged, graciously accepted the woman’s thanks, and walked back to where I was still standing next to her discarded bags. She stepped back into her shoes, which made her as tall as my nose. “Are you ready to eat?” she asked.
“You’ve never been on a date, huh?” I asked, still replaying the tackle in my brain. She wasn’t even breathing hard.
Her brow furrowed. “Didn’t we just discuss this?”
“Friday night,” I said on a laugh. “I’m picking you up at my house at seven o’clock. I expect you to be wearing one of these flirty dresses and I expect to take you on your first date ever. So be ready.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
I probably should have asked instead of just telling her, but Shelly wasn’t just any woman. She was different.
“This is for Megan’s benefit, right?” She stared at me.
“Sure,” I said. But I wasn’t sure that was entirely the case. I wasn’t sure at all.
“Then I accept your invitation,” she said politely.
I picked up her bags, hooking them over one arm, and then I took her hand in mine. She startled, mouthed the word boyfriend at me with a question in her gaze, and then she relaxed a little when I shrugged. Her hand tightened in mine briefly, and then we went to the food court for food.
