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“Maybe you have other reasons for keeping your distance. Maybe you’re feeling things you don’t know what to do with and are trying to run away—”
“That is not it at all.” His voice is cool and clipped. Most people would shrink back when faced with that particular tone from him.
Stella snorts. “You can keep telling yourself that, but age isn’t always the obstacle you want to make it, and I have eyes in my head, you know. I’ve known you most of your life, and I’ve never seen you as happy as you’ve been since she arrived.”
It sounds like Stella is about to leave, so I whirl around and return down the hall to the back stairs that I always take to come down from my room.
I’m flushed and flustered and oddly giddy as I try to compose a natural expression and make it look like I’ve only now come downstairs.
Stella is frowning as she closes Arthur’s office door. When she sees me, she says, “Hello, dear. Dinner will be ready in about half an hour.”
“Okay. That sounds good.” I smile at her and think quickly. “Is he busy in there?”
“Not as busy as he wants to pretend.”
I’m not sure what to do with that comment, so I ignore it, tapping on his office door.
“Come,” he calls out gruffly.
“Hey,” I say, as friendly and natural as I can conjure in these circumstances. “If you’re busy, it’s fine, but I wanted to see if you wanted to watch a movie with me.”
He blinks at me from behind his desk like he just woke up from sleep.
“It’s fine if you don’t,” I add. “But I’d kind of like the company.”
I’m quite sure I never would have had the courage to offer such a direct invitation if I hadn’t overheard his conversation with Stella. But I did hear it.
I suddenly have hope when I didn’t before.
Arthur makes a guttural sound, turning his head to look at his computer screen and then shifting back to me. “Okay. Sure. Okay. If you’re sure.”
He almost never sounds so flustered. It makes me want to hug myself.
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. Then sure. I don’t have anything else I need to work on today.”
“Great. I’m glad.”
“Great.”
I hear Stella chuckling softly as she makes her way down the hall.
***
WE GO TO THE MEDIAroom and find an old movie to watch. I love black-and-white classics, the kind that star Humphrey Bogart or Katharine Hepburn or Cary Grant or even Fred Astaire. Arthur appears pleased with my taste in films, and we pick out one to watch as we sit on the couch together.
We chat occasionally, and Stella brings us Thai chicken wraps and a bottle of wine. I have a really good time, so much so that I suggest a second movie. He agrees. And he doesn’t seem to mind when I move closer.
Even when I lean over toward him to get more comfortable.
He puts an arm around me, and it feels better than anything I can remember.
This man is nothing I believed him to be before. He’s deep and kind and complex and generous and scarred and so warm at the core.
Warmer than anything and anyone I’ve ever known.
And I want it. I want that warmth. I want to bury myself in it. Never come out.
