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“Yes?” she asks.
“Your…boyfriend?”
Meredith smirks. “Are you hitting on me? That’s fantastic. I have never been hit on before.”
“What?No. I’m not—I didn’t—no.”
“Huh.” Her full lips purse. “Too bad.”
5
Meredith
“Then, I bought a bike,” I tell Uncle Bob. “And then, I almost got hit on. Nothing indecent, just a little flirting—err,almostflirting.”
“Very nice. Sounds like a productive day.” Bob flips one page of his book. He doesn’t look up, but I know he’s listening. This is what he does whenever I talk. This or type. But he can type and listen—he’s skilled like that.
Someone else may think he isn’t present. But Bob’s nose is always in a book. He’s either reading one or writing one. Books are his best friends. And eye contact makes him uncomfortable. He told me so—while he stared at a book.
“Coffee, bikes, and romance all in one day. You’re off to a great week, Meredith.”
“I am.” I dip my head and read the title of the thick book in his hands,The Children of the Sky.I haven’t read that one. And while normally I’d ask Uncle Bob to tell me about it—I’m too excited. “Would you like to see my bike?”
“I don’t go outside until it’s time to get the mail. Remember?”
“Right. Five o’clock. You can see it then.” I start for my room. I need to YouTube: riding a bike. I thought my twenty-three years of life would come in handy. But apparently, you don’t just know how to do something simply by being alive.
I sit on my bed and type into my shiny new smartphone: how to ride a bike. I click on videos, but I’m distracted. I can’t focus on the nice man giving pointers to the four-year-old on the bike.
Never in my twenty-three years have I had a man put his arm around me. The sensation of Levi Bailey’s arm wrapped about my waist won’t leave me. Or the aroma that filled my senses as I pressed my face into his chest. I think it was aftershave. He smelled like a cool summer’s day—that’s aftershave, right? Or maybe Old Spice commercials have been lying to me my entire life. Either way, I am not conjuring either of those senses—the feel of him or the smell of him. They just come.
Looking at this four-year-old’s bike, at any bike really, brings those sensations to the forefront of my mind.
I pull in a deep breath—as if Levi were standing in this very room and I could truly breathe him in here and now. But my brain has been teasing me with Levi’s scent. Suddenly the only thing I smell are the roses I bought earlier this week, sitting clear across the room.
Standing, I lift my arms and pretend Levi, or someone who smells just as nice, holds me in their arms. Then, I dance—waltz, to be exact—all the way over to those roses. It’s silly, because while dancing may be number sixteen on the list, it isn’t number four—which is the item I’m currently working on.
I drop my arms in front of the roses and dip my head downward to truly breathe them in. I laugh, they’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever smelled.
Well, besides Levi Bailey.
Two days. Two days of YouTube and falling over. I’m getting nowhere on Lilac—the name I have lovingly given to my lavender, three-hundred-dollar deathtrap.
“Bob!” I call from the front porch. “Can you—”
“Nope.”
“Right. It’s not five o’clock.” Even if it were, I’m not sure Uncle Bob would stand outside long enough to help me balance on my bike.
I slink into the living room where he’s typing at his old TV tray on his laptop. His fingers pause long enough for me to let out a dramatic sigh—for effect. Then, I slump into an overstuffed armchair.
“You know, when Jamie Jones didn’t know how to fly a plane, she went to an expert.” His fingers hover above the keys of his computer, but he turns his head, not enough to see me, but to let me know he’s listening. Really listening.
“Who’s Jamie Jones?” I ask.
“The character fromOne Day to Live.”
“Your second novel, right?”
