AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
I went home,showered, and changed into clean clothes. All the while deliberately pushing aside what I’d learned about my father’s fate. This was nothing to me, I kept saying over and over in my head. Nothing to do with me. Ten years had passed since I’d even seen him. He was out of my life. I would not be sucked in. After the oven was preheated, I washed the dishes that I had left in the sink that morning and put them away. From what I’d observed, Jamie was a very good housekeeper. She liked everything beautiful and just so. I liked that about her. I liked a lot of things about her, for that matter. All day I had warned myself not to look too far ahead. This was a friendship that could develop into more, but there were no guarantees. But deep down, I am a romantic. It was impossible to be in her presence and not fall in love a little bit more each day.
At precisely eight, a light tapping on the door told me that Jamie had arrived. My stomach fluttered, as if I were a teenager about to pick up my prom date. If my students felt half the way that I did about their crushes, it was no wonder they were such a disaster. They were a mass of hormones and uncertainty. I would remember that the next time one of them did or said something ridiculous or obnoxious.
I yanked open the door. She stood there, holding a box from Brandi’s bakery. “I had a few pastries left from this morning. They might be stale.”
She took my breath away. A rush of adrenaline coursed through my body. “Pastries? Great.” My voice was a little loud. Too much enthusiasm for possibly stale pastries. They weren’t what really excited me. It was the woman in front of me.
A pink blouse paired with denim cutoff shorts showed off tanned, muscular legs. Her long hair fell in soft waves down her back. Sparkly earrings dangled against her long neck. My gaze wandered to the curve of her collarbone, so delicate under her tawny skin. “You’re beautiful,” I blurted out, then flushed, embarrassed to have uttered out loud what I couldn’t stop thinking. “You want to come in?”
“Sure, and thanks. It took me a long time to decide what to wear tonight. Stupid, right? It’s just dinner at home.”
“I appreciate the effort. It’s nice to be a man. I just threw on whatever was hanging on the back of my chair.”
She laughed and stepped inside the apartment, closing the door behind her. “You should make a habit of hanging up your clothes at the end of the day.”
“Don’t be a show-off,” I teased.
The timer chimed from the kitchen. “That’s our pizza.”
“You made pizza?”
“Don’t sound so excited. It’s a frozen one from the store.” Why had I gotten a frozen pizza? I should have made something special. The kind of dinner that would impress a woman like Jamie. But what? I didn’t know the first thing about cooking something elegant or elevated, as they said in foodie land. A man has to work with what he has. Which, in this case, was a last-minute purchase at the grocery store.
She gazed around my apartment, as if seeing it for the first time. When in fact she’d been there for many parties. Somehow, though, my place looked different to me tonight, and not in a good way. Jamie’s presence made everything look shabby and drab. When one shines as brightly as Jamie Wattson, even the sun wouldn’t stand a chance.
The alarm rang again, this time with what seemed like more urgency.
I rushed to the kitchen. Had I burned the pizza? I opened the oven and let out a sigh of relief. The pizza had not burned and actually had crisped up nicely and browned on the top. Cheese bubbled, and the aroma of tomato and garlic wafted through the apartment.
Jamie had followed me into the kitchen and now closed her eyes and sniffed dramatically. “That smells really good. My stomach’s been growling for the better part of an hour. I got really busy at work and didn’t have time for my afternoon snack.” She waved her hands, laughing. “Yes, I usually have a snack, courtesy of Maisy. She brings them from home for both of us. ‘Once a mom always a mom,’ she told me the first time she broke out the granola bars and juice boxes.”
“Smart woman,” I said, pulling out the pizza and setting it on a heating pad I’d left on the counter. “I’m not much of a cook, as you probably figured out. Frozen pizza is about the extent of my repertoire.” Where had I put the round pizza cutter? I knew I had one in here somewhere, I thought, as I rummaged through the drawer where I kept spatulas and serving spoons and a mess of other items I rarely used.
Just then, I had an awful thought. I was letting her see into my life. My real life, all the messiness of my apartment. The identity of my father. I pushed aside the thought of him going to prison. He would not ruin this night for me.
The worried thoughts continued. Was it too much? Would she think my drawers were disorganized enough that she would rule us finished before we even started? Would she think we were incompatible? Judge me for being unorganized and a little on the sloppy side?
No, no, I told myself.Don’t let the voices in your head destroy the little bit of self-confidence you’ve managed to build over the years.The old Saboteur Darby wanted to get out and wreak havoc on the evening so that I would be safe but ultimately alone and miserable. I wouldn’t let him. Not tonight. I found the pizza cutter at last and held it up in triumph. “Haven’t used this guy in a while. I’m more of a frozen burrito kind of guy.”
“A pizza cutter?” Jamie asked. “How sophisticated of you.”
“I got it at a yard sale.”
“I love yard sales.” She’d wandered over to the refrigerator and peered at a photograph of me with Breck and Huck last summer hiking along the river. “But no to the frozen burritos.”
“Are you serious about yard sales?” I asked. We had so much in common. Regardless of my cooking skills or organizational rituals.
“Dead serious. You can get a lot of good things, but you have to get up early. Yard sale types are enthusiastic.”
“Yeah, and they’re early risers.” I grabbed two wine glasses, one wide and short and the other tall with tapered glass, also mismatched and attained from a yard sale.
“Frozen burritos, though? Absolutely a hard no,” she said.
“But why?” I asked, pretending to be crushed. “That was going to be dessert.”
She laughed. I loved it when I made her laugh. I was a king then, not a yard sale collector. Not an insecure son of a criminal.
