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“What happened?” I slam my car door and run over to him. Okay, I don’t actuallyrun. Imoseyover to him, but quickly.
He shakes his head and lifts his brow while closing his eyes and running his fingers through his blond locks, which are not as orderly as I am used to seeing them.
“Oh no… Did you get catfished? Wait! Do you still have both your kidneys?” I paw at his back to make sure his body is intact, that he didn’t have any organs stolen to be sold on the black market. Also, I hope to make him laugh. Luckily, it works.
“Okay, okay, stop!” He stands, smiling. “Andrew was amazing. Wonderful. The date could not have gone better. Well, maybe I could have stood to, ya know, get some.” He waggles his brows in a very un-George-like way. “But that’s fine. I can wait for that. He was very sweet and respectful and is worth waiting for.” A big, pearly white smile takes over his face.
As he tells me all the great things about Andrew, my insides vibrate with excitement. But even as I bounce on my toes, anxious to hear the next line of conversation, an ache begins in a corner my heart for something I can remember from long ago. There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when a relationship is just starting. When you only think ofthemand your day doesn’t truly begin until you hear from them. That’s a feeling I’ll never have again. Which is okay, really. It’s been replaced by the kids’ laughter and morning snuggles. I just wish I still felt some of that joy with Jake.
Maybe that’s what Maria meant when she said we have to go back to the little things. Except that was about feeling safe. The feeling I’m talking about is anything but safe. New love is like freefalling without wanting to land, like skydiving and waiting as long as possible to pull the rip cord. It’s your palms sweating and your stomach flipping when you enter a room and your person is there. And it’s recognizing their scent on your shirt for the rest of the day after they’ve given you a hug.
What Jake and I have to figure out is if a couple who has been together for two decades, who has been through so much and seen it all and then some, can even get back anywhere near that place. Sure, we made love the other day, and it was nice. But it wasn’t the kind of rip-each-other’s-clothes-off-the-second-we’re-alone-sex we had when we were first together. If that is what Maria meant when she said to try to get back to the beginning, I just don’t know if it is possible. I don’t know that we could have even gotten back to that pointbeforeeverything that happened in November. Adulting is hard, and it makes it impossible to keep things fresh and exciting in your love life.
George’s smile lingers just a moment after he finishes talking, but then he looks apprehensive again.
I scrunch my eyebrows together, and the rest of my face follows due to the force of it. “So then, what? What’s wrong?”
Again, his fingers tangle in his hair. He looks at his feet as he kicks at the dusty driveway with his toe. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
We stand in silence for a moment. I look at the man who showed up on my doorstep one day, telling me all about the Chosen One and that she’s me, and he’s worried I’ll think he’s crazynow. “I’m going to think you’re crazy? Hasn’t that ship sailed, sank, and had a replica built, which then also sailed and sank?”
He finally locks eyes with me but stays silent. His jaw is still as if carved from rock. His entire face looks like it belongs in a hall of ancient sculptures.
I’m starting to get worried. Shifting around under his gaze, I slowly raise one eyebrow as I turn my head slightly to angle my ear toward him. Finally, I raise my hands in annoyance. “Spill it.”
George lets out a breath that I think he’s been holding in for hours. “Okay, so, well...”
I run my fingers through my curls, grabbing fistfuls in frustration. “George, I’ve gotten to the point faster tracing my finger around a circle.”
He sighs and rolls his eyes before continuing, “Well,Miranda, before the date, I had this dream about the date itself, I guess. But I wasn’t meeting Andrew. It was a woman, in a red dress, with long dark hair. I didn’t see her face. But I could smell her. Don’t say anything, okay! Just let me finish!” When he saw me open my mouth, he must have thought—okay, knew—I was going to make a smart-ass comment. He puts his hands up and raises his voice just enough to be sure I stay quiet. “Okay. So I went on my date, the real date I mean, and when I was waiting for the valet to bring my car around afterward, this group arrived at the restaurant in a big limo. I was kind of on cloud nine, so I didn’t look at them until they were past me, but then I smelled the same smell as in my dream. When I turned to look, I saw a woman in a red dress with long dark hair walking into the restaurant.”
We sit for a moment, and I nod, absorbing everything he said. “Okay, so let me get this straight. You had a great first date with Andrew. Wonderful conversation. You seem to like the guy. And then some chick shows up and gives you déjà vu, andthat’sthe part you’re focusing on?”
He shakes his head and walks up the stairs to the front door, spitting his words at me. “You know, I knew you would react like this. You don’t understand. I was raised to notice this kind of thing. I was raised to know when something isn’t just a coincidence.”
I shoot back, “Or you’re just afraid you like someone new and won’t be able to keep moping around about Evan if it turns out maybe he wasn’t the love of your life!”
He stands in the doorway, one foot over the threshold. I can’t see his face because I’m still on the driveway behind him, but I imagine he’s shaking his head and biting his lip in frustration. But I can’t bring myself to believe there’s more to this. I need to believe George can go out on a date without our work following him there. Because if he can’t, that says a lot for the likelihood ofmehaving any kind of normalcy inmylife.
He studies me for a minute. I feel like a kid waiting for the teacher to decide my punishment for not turning in an assignment.
Finally, he speaks. “Okay. Whatever. Let’s go do some research.” As we walk to the library, which looks like it belongs in a university and not some dude’s house, he explains the situation at hand. “There’s some weird stuff going on in my woods. I need your help figuring out what is happening out there.” His eyes are stormy today, matching the atmosphere in here.
“Wait,yourwoods? Is this the real reason you want me to start training outside?” My chest is suddenly so tight, it is hard to breathe. Damnit. I stop where I am, close my eyes, and breathe in, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I repeat it twice more and my body is relaxed again. Well, shit. It really worked!
When I open my eyes, George is in front of me, his eyebrows close together, lips pursed. “Are you okay, Miranda?”
I force a smile. “Of course. Maria gave me a breathing exercise for when I feel stress coming on, so I did it, and it worked, and now we can move on.” I gesture with my hand for George to keep walking. As I follow him deeper into the library, I worry my bottom lip. I didn’t realize when he mentioned training outside soon that he meantthissoon, or involving something so personal to him. I know I’m being cheeky in an attempt to distract myself, but at the same time, I do realize that it’s time to step up my Guardian duties. “Anyway, can you be more specific? Or isweird stuffa technical term with an exact definition in docent speak?”
He spins around so abruptly that I run into him. Then he stares down at me. “Can you keep the jokes to a minimum right now, please? This is my family estate. It’s important to me.”
I step back, instinctively retreating, as I nod. If I had a snappy retort, it flew from my mind the moment I saw his expression.
We dig into our research at separate counter-height tables in his library. I’m looking into creatures that prefer to live in the woods, and he’s looking into creatures responsible for crop circles because theweird stuffis a lot of underbrush and flora dying off in unusual patches. We plan to regroup and cross-reference. My mind is having a hard time focusing, so I glance at him. It’s just a glance to give my eyes a different focus for a moment, the equivalent of a weight lifter shaking out their legs after a set of difficult squats. But when I look at him, something else in my mind clicks. I watch him for a minute, my eyes squinting.
“Hey, George?” I call to him with a sweet, sing-song tone.
“Mmm-hmm?” He answers back without looking up. “Did you find something?”
