Of All The Ways He Loves Me (6 page)

At that thought, I tilted my head. Had I planned to be with him even then? I had. I hadn’t thought about any separation of
us
even in our college years.

“What does that look mean?” he asked.

I offered him a modest smile. “I just realized something.”

“What?” He’d curled a hand around his glass and
my gaze was drawn to the condensation pooling at his fingertips.

“When we talked about college before, we’d agreed to go together.”

“Yes, we did. How’s that a realization?” he asked.

I moved my gaze from his hand along his arm, stalling at his shoulder.
“Because I never thought about going a different direction from you.”

I altered my view again, to his neck and then his face.
He was smiling, a teasing smile that I recognized as the one he used when he was amused.

“
What are you thinking?” I asked.

He lifted his glass and took a swig. “Only that you pictured us together, and I can imagine how.”

“Not like this,” I said. No point in not admitting that.

He released his drink at last and dried his fingers on the table cloth. “No. You had us good friends, never growing up.”

Growing up. Was that what this was? Was I that little kid telling her parents, ‘I never want to grow up?’ yet all the while things were changing around me. Including Paterson.

“How did I get into this mold?” I asked. “That I actually thought things would never change.”

“Because you’re Nadia Asbury,” he said. “Nadia Asbury likes things the same. She eats her cereal at exactly 7:03 A.M. After which she circles the center island, walking to the left, stopping at the sliding glass doors to look out over the back yard. Then she runs upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and throws something on, only to come back downstairs and call me. It’s 7:43 by then.”

“How is it you know this and you’ve never been at my house at that hour?”

“I know a lot about you.” His smile changed, from the teasing look earlier to one that said a myriad of things. “But isn’t that what makes this work? That even without being near you I know exactly what you’d do.”

My hands were trembling. Why did the change in him scare me so? Was it because of what he’d
said, that I was so predictable? Or was it more complicated than that?

The waitress arrived with our food and our conversation was cut off. But taking a bite, I couldn’t help but watch him and wonder. There was a lot of evening left and the kiss we hadn’t had two days ago. Was I ready for that?

Something way down deep, some incredibly female part of me said I was, and my hands shook again, so much so I paused in my eating. I wanted him to kiss me, wanted it in the worse way possible.

But I couldn’t because this was Paterson.
Paterson who asked for a new toothbrush at the first of every month. Paterson who always set his dirty glass in the sink upside down. Paterson whose every habit and mood and inclination I knew as well as my own.

Yet
that boy, the one I’d stood in the frog pond with was no longer that boy at all, but a handsome man who more and more blew me away.

***

“If I hold you, you can’t back off,” Paterson said.

They’d left the restaurant and driven to Coachman’s Park.
Coachman’s Park was built about five years ago to accommodate the city’s growing Little Leagues, but since then, they’d added walking paths, a xeriscaped flower garden, and a handful of covered picnic tables.

He leaned against a wooden railing encircling the drop-off to a small pond and settled his hands at her waist. Nadia shifted, as if
the slightest movement would make her collapse.

She’d gotten edgier after dinner, probably anticipating whatever she’d decided he was going to do. But the truth was
, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do, only that at this moment, he wanted to put his arms around her.

Not like he hadn’t done that before. They’d watched movies together, half draped over each other, and there was the time she’d sprained her ankle. He’d held her pret
ty tight while she’d cried. In many other moments over the years they’d had physical contact, except none of it for the purpose this was – simply to be doing it.

He tugged her closer, but she kind of
jerked, her body stiff and spine rigid, her arms straight at her sides.

“Relax,” he said.

“I can’t. This feels weird.”

“Okay, close your eyes again,” he said. “
Remember that time at the barbeque?”

She grasped a wad of the fabric of her dress.
“Which one?”

He scooted her a few more steps.
“The one about three years ago when my mom was wearing that ghastly green dress.”

“That
dress really was ghastly.”

He laughed softly. “Dad wouldn’t let her wear it ever again, but I think she still has it in the closet.”

“That’s what girls do,” Nadia replied. “We don’t want to throw it away, so we let it hang there.”

He laid his
left palm in the small of Nadia’s back and pressed. She slid another few steps. “Boys put it in a drawer,” he said, “then drag it out three years later and try to wear it again.”

She laughed, and he slipped his other arm behind her and brought her to him. The tail end of h
er laughter blew moist on his skin. He joined his other hand around her waist and pulled her tighter to his chest. She tensed. “Anyhow,” he continued. “Dad was cooking the burgers.”

“Burning the burgers,” she corrected. “They were more like charcoal briquettes at the end.”

“Saved only by the sugar-free ketchup.”

They both shivered then. Sugar-free ketchup was … simply wrong.
Blech to the person who’d invented it.

“Didn’t your dad put peanut butter on his?”
she asked.

Paterson laughed
softly. “He did. Not the first time either.”

“That was really gross,” she said. “But the coleslaw was good. I’ve always liked your mom’s coleslaw.”

“It’s the pickles. She uses these kosher ones and chops them up real fine.” He slid his hands upward, one midway, the other near the back of her head.

Nadia raised her chin and opened her eyes. “How’d you get so close to me?” she asked.

“Magic,” he replied. “It’s not so bad. Is it?”

“No. Oh …” Her eyes widened. “That feels good. What are you doing?”

He chuckled, and twirling her hair around his fingers, kneaded her neck. “You like that, huh?”

“Y-yes,” she mumbled. “
Wh-ere’d y-you learn it?” She breathed her words out in pulses.

“Natural talent, of course.
You’ve just never noticed.”

“I notice things,” she said. “
Like right now, you’re wearing that cologne I bought you.”

He smiled. “I am. You’re right. What else?”

“Your shoes.”

He glanced down at his feet. “What about them?”

“Your mom bought you those after your dad poured paint on your others.”

“
She was so mad,” he said. “They didn’t speak for a week. But I did get nice shoes out of it.”

She glanced down.
“Where’d the rest come from? The shirt and tie.”

“I bought them. That’s my other news.”

He stopped working his fingers and cradled her head in his hand.

“What news?”

“I have a job.”

“A job?
A real job?” Her voice changed and she pulled back.

He
sighed and tucked her against him again. “No leaving. I’m not done.”

She turned her head, laying her cheek against the base of his neck.
Her lashes brushed the hair on his chest. “What job then?”

“Working for Mr. Evers
, repairing small appliances. I
am
good with my hands.”

She exhaled loud and long. “You are. I never knew that would have good benefits until now.”

She folded her hands to her chest, her nails pricking his skin, and he returned his hand to her head. He noticed things too, the curve of her hip, the brush of her leg on his knee, the contour of her shoulders and that lovely expanse of her neck.

Emotion swam upwards from his heart into his mind, and
overcome, he released himself to float away on it, conscious of the flowery scent she wore in her hair, the flex and bend of her spine, the velvet caress of her skin. She might doubt this, but he did not. This was right, and she was everything. God bless Evelyn for making him see it.

He closed his eyes and rested his chin on Nadia’s head. “
This isn’t so bad. Is it?” he asked, his voice emerging a croak.

Nadia stretched an arm out around his side, wrapping her fingers in his shirt. “No, but … it lacks one thing.” She leaned her head back and their eyes met.

He gazed down at her. “What’s missing?” he asked. How could this moment be any better than it was?

She called his name. “Paterson?”

He wrinkled his forehead. “What?”

“Kiss me.”

CHAPTER 5

Kissing Paterson was everything a first kiss should be, one of those staggering moments when everything in you stands to attention then melts away, and it did what great kisses always do, it fueled another and another. Soon I was pasted to him, not caring to come up for air but only
to feed this new longing growing within me.

We did
part eventually, and he laughed at me, calling me
voracious
, and so I was. But life was good at that moment, and I couldn’t believe I’d ever have to come down from my emotional high.

He drove me hom
e and walked me to the door where we parted quietly. The porch light was on and the drapes open, which mean my parents were watching. I said I’d call him the next day, and he laughed and said, “At 7:43.” That being the time he’d said earlier. Then I went indoors and raced up the stairs.

I dreamed about him, his hand on my face, like he’d done just before he’d kisse
d me, and the look in his eye, the new one that said he was thinking about me like that again. I awoke in a state of complete relaxation, my every muscle warm and placid, my mood almost indolent. It took me a good thirty minutes to pull myself up, run in the bathroom, and go down the stairs.

My mom was in the kitchen in her gown and
fuzzy blue robe. She had this patch of hair sticking up on one side like a peacock feather. She brought her cup of coffee to her lips and slurped, then gave me a smile. “How was your date?”

I settled myself on a stool, wriggling my bottom for a secure purchase. “Good.”

Her smile became wider. “Only good?”

“Great. Perfect. Wonderful.”

She raised a hand to my head and patted it. “That’s what I thought. He’s a charmer, your Paterson.”

My
Paterson. He’d become mine somehow over the last week, and I’d opened my heart wide and allowed him inside. Then last night had sealed the deal, I was in this for good, ready to fall completely head over heels for him, if I wasn’t already.

I was so lucky and blessed.

Mom poked the cereal and the milk my way then handed me a bowl. I made my breakfast, my mind working constantly toward seeing him again. A plan set in my thinking. I glanced at the clock. 7:30. It was perfect, and I had thirteen minutes to pull it off.

I dashed back up the stairs, ducking in m
y closet and searching amongst my jam-packed clothing for the top I had in mind – the tank top he’d said he liked the day we went to the fair. I matched it with a pair of jean shorts and sandals, then zipped back downstairs, through the kitchen, and across the yard, right for the hole in the fence.

It took some wiggling to make it through. I was bustier than I was at age ten. Climbing the neighbor’s fence was also entertaining, especially since the neighbor was in his yard staring at me. I waved on my way over and landed myself to the right of the pond. I checked the time on
my cell, one minute left, and rounding the corner of his house to the front, took a deep breath on the stoop and rang the doorbell.

Their dog barked
and scrabbled his claws on the inside of the door. They had some half-Schnauzer, half-poodle mixed breed. Paterson yelled, “Hush,” and the door swung open.

I lost my breath looking at him. He really had to stop doing this to me. One eyebrow raised, he leaned a shoulder against the door frame, his naked chest staring back at me. Not that I hadn’t seen him without a shirt because I had many times, but never after kissing him and never with my heart so tied up in seeing him.

“S-seven forty-th-three,” I said. I sounded like a cross between Elmer Fudd and a snake.

“I see that,” he said. His gaze roamed; he’d noticed my shirt. One side of his lips turned up. “You look nice.”