Of All The Ways He Loves Me (7 page)

I folded my lip between my teeth. “So do you.”

He laughed.
“Uh huh.”

“Well, can I come in?”

He reversed, and I stepped through the door into the foyer. Gazing straight ahead I could see into the living room-kitchen combo and past it to the back yard. But I turned my head to the right and looked toward the family room next and saw a complete mess.

“What
are
you doing?” I asked.

He’d di
smantled their vacuum cleaner. With newspaper spread across the floor, he’d laid out nuts and bolts and bits of plastic in every direction on top.

“My mom said if I was going to work for Mr. Evers, I needed to start by repairing ours.” He walked past me and settled cross-legged on the carpet.

I seated myself in a chair. “So how long’s this going to take?”

He focused his gaze on me. “Why?
You in a hurry?”

I grinned. “No, I can enjoy the view.”

He smirked and went back to his work.

We sat that way for at least an
hour, then lifting his head, he kinked his neck left and right and groaned.

“I can fix that,” I said. “Scoot over here.”
I figured I’d try to massage him like he’d massaged me, though I couldn’t possibly be as good at it. He turned his back to me and pressed close until the heat of his skin warmed my legs. I pressed my fingers to his neck.

“I don’t know the technique,” I said.
“But how’s that?”

“
Mmm. Nice. Keep going.”

I squeezed and manipulated his
muscles for a moment. Then he twisted himself to the right and looked up at me.

“Come here,” he said.

I leaned over until my face was even with his, and with our faces upside down from each other, he kissed me. I exhaled after he straightened, the most pathetic love-sick sound.

He shoved to his feet. “You want anything? I’m going for a drink.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

He disappeared from the room, and
a noise from behind me made me glance behind..

“Oh, hello, Dear.”
Paterson’s mom stood in the entranceway. “I thought I heard the dog bark.”

“Hi, Mrs.
Radovich,” I said. I stared at her for a moment. Paterson was a good combination of his mom and his dad. He had his mom’s coloring, but his dad’s height and weight. His mom was dressed, white shorts and a yellow top, and a plastic bangle bracelet on her left arm.

She smiled
with pink-coated lips. “Paterson said you had a nice evening.”

My cheeks warmed. “We did.”

“Good. Good,” she said.

I breathed in. At least she hadn’t asked me more.

Paterson reentered, having retrieved his shirt from wherever he must’ve left it; he had two canned sodas clasped in his hand.

“There you are,” she said to him. “
Do you still have the hand steamer I loaned you?”

He handed me a can. The cold metal chilled my fingers.

“In my room,” he said. “I can run and get it.” He popped the top on his soda, and it gave a whoosh.

“No, no. That’s okay. You need to finish with this
, and I can wait.” She waved toward the mess in the floor, her bobbed hair swinging out over her cheek.

“
I’ll go get it,” I said. Paterson glanced at me, a smile on his lips.

“Would you? I’d appreciated it,” his mom said.
“I’d go myself, but the old knee’s acting up.”

I knew s
he’d fallen two years ago and smashed up her knee. I remember her wearing a brace on it and using crutches. And Paterson having to do a lot of stuff for her. It had pained her ever since or at least, she complained a lot.

I set my soda on a coaster
on a round end table to my left and stood to my feet. I looked from her to him. “Where is it?”

“It’s in the floor by the bed,” he said. “
You’ll see it. But I think it’s still plugged into the wall.”

With a nod, I scooted past her and
climbed the stairs.

I’d been up to his room many times over the years, so though it seemed strange to be going up there alone
right then, I knew where it was and what to expect when I got there. Paterson was like most other boys, a slob. I’d picked up his clothes, made his bed, and dusted his furniture more times than I could count. And found scary things in weird places. Old pizza came to mind. When we were younger, he’d paid me from his allowance simply to get out of doing it, but as we got older it became just one of those things girls did and boys didn’t.

I paused in the doorway t
o scope out the space. His bed was unmade, of course, and across the floor between it and the door strung a parade of clothing. I shook my head with a grin and scooped it up as I went. Wadding the items into a ball, I tossed them in the clothes basket in the corner. I then grasped a couple pairs of shoes and threw them toward the closet where they landed with a thud.

I spotted the steamer at the foot of the bed and
bent over at the waist to pick it up. Clutching the handle, I tugged on the cord extending under the bed, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Well
, shoot,” I mumbled.

Setting the steamer back down
, I knelt on my hands and knees, sticking my head beneath the bed, and at that moment, my gaze fell on a pair of books stashed there. I sat up too quick, banging my head on the footboard.

“Ouch,” I yelped, laying
my palm over my throbbing noggin. I reached back underneath and slid the books out and into my lap.

The title of the top one screamed up at me.
Massage Techniques
. Massage techniques? I flipped the cover open to find a series of pictorial lessons – neck massage, shoulder and arm, back massage. I halted at the page on hands because there it was, exactly what he’d done the other night.

I swallowed.
So what if he’d learned it in a book. That didn’t mean anything. I’d learned things in books. Besides, for whatever reason he’d done it, I’d enjoyed it. I flipped a few more pages, staring briefly at foot massage, then closed the book and set it aside.

But
the name of the second book shoved my stomach into my throat.
No. No. No.
He hadn’t read this. He couldn’t have. Not Paterson. I knew him, right? He was my friend, and he cared for me. And I thought I now had feelings for him. It wasn’t possible he’d read something like this.

My hands shaking, I turned the pages, growing sicker by the second, and
tried to formulate a good excuse for him. Surely, it was harmless. But it couldn’t be because he’d tried half of it on me.

Draw her in
, it said,
by diverting her attention to other things
. He’d done that just last night, talking about the barbeque and his dad’s bad food, and I hadn’t seen how he was moving me closer and closer until there I was.

Offer lots of compliments and make them long term
, it continued.

Long term?
Six months
, he’d said.
Ever since the fair.
I tugged at my top; I hated it now. He’d made that up, said it only to lure me.

I flipped the page and
covered my mouth. My eyes burned, and I blinked back the tears.
Seduction,
it said in bold letters.

Seduction?
A young couple in a heavy embrace glared up at me.

A sexual conquest.
That’s all I was, all he’d thought of me all this time. It explained everything:  his weird behavior, his attempts to cajole me. It explained why he wasn’t Paterson anymore.

I sucked in a sob, my world crashing around me. I had to get out of here, away from this house, this place.
Away from him. My breath caught in my chest and my lungs squeezed. I couldn’t breathe. I coughed.

“Nat?
You coming?” he yelled from below.

I swiped at my damp eyes and tossing the books in the middle of the floor, snatched the steamer and moved to the stairs. I steadied myself
at the rail, my heart pounding, my fingers going numb, and took the steps one at the time. At the bottom, I avoided his gaze and looked instead for his mom.

“Here you are,” I said, choking on my
rising emotions.

“Nat?
What’s wrong?” Paterson asked near my right ear.

“I …” My words faltered.
I wouldn’t turn around, wouldn’t look at him. “I … don’t feel well. I’m going home. I’m sorry.” I ducked my head and moved toward the door.

“Nat?”
he called.

But I didn’
t answer. Instead, walking straight outside, I headed for the fence. My weeping started at my first footfall in the neighbor’s grass. However, I didn’t wave at him this time. I couldn’t. Because everything I loved had just blown up in my face.

Exactly how I’d thought it would.

***

Paterson
leaped in place at the click of the door. What had just happened? He glanced at his mom who gazed back, confusion displayed on her face.

“Pat …” she began.

He cut her off and scowled. “Don’t call me that.” He didn’t like it on an average day, and he liked it less now.

Something had upset Nadia, but what? She’d acted fine all mor
ning, so she can’t have suddenly felt bad. That wasn’t it; she was covering. But for what?

He rubbed his forehead.
She’d volunteered to go upstairs and seemed okay then too. It wasn’t until she’d ––

He froze.
The steamer on the floor by the bed.

Leaving his mom behind, he ran up the stairs and slid to a
halt in the doorway at the sight of the books. “No. Oh, no, Nat, it’s not what you think.”

She’
d left one open at chapter five. Chapter five, the one chapter he’d avoided because he’d never go that far, never behave so disrespectfully … so awful. Yet now that’s exactly what she thought of him.

He
forced himself to gaze at the image on the page, and his insides tore apart. Surely, Nadia knew him better than to think he’d do that. Didn’t she? They had years of knowing each other behind them and shared memories.

But the thought picked at him –
she’d had doubts all along, questioned him constantly over his reasons why, and it’d taken all he could do to convince her he cared for her, that she was valuable to him just by being herself.

He stooped over and lifted the book from the floor.

This is not what he wanted. He’d never do that to her, but now … now, she believed otherwise. She believed he was no better than the guy who ogled a girl, trying to see down her shirt or up her dress, the guy who thought no more of a pretty face than how much she would give him.

And that was wrong.
Nadia was worth so much more than that. She was priceless.

Paterson’s eyes watered. N
o matter how much he tried to tell her that now, she’d never listen. Because if there was one thing he knew about Nadia Asbury, it was she didn’t give you a second chance.

He swallowed past the
knot in his throat, surprised by the tears dripping from his chin. They stained and wrinkled the page. He shut the book and set it aside then threw himself down on the bed.

She couldn’t disappear, couldn’t walk out of his life and be gone forever, because he loved her.
It’d taken pressure from Evelyn for him to see it, but it was so real now. He loved her so much.

H
e’d loved her all along really. All these months, she was the one thing he’d looked forward to each day, the most beautiful person in his life. Except now, she thought … thought …

He cried into his pillow. She thought all he wanted was sex.

CHAPTER 6

I cried until my head hurt worse than it had the week
before at the church picnic, until my sinuses clogged and pressure behind my eyes gave me a roaring headache. Then I curled into a fetal position on my bed and stared numbly at the wall, the hours stretching out before me endless and aching.

The pain in my chest spiked sharp with each breath, an agony made more painful by the fact he’d been my very best friend. All
of that was gone, all the things I’d thought I knew about him, all the funny quirks that made Paterson, Paterson. I could trust none of it, not my memories, not his fancy words, not our passionate caress.

I comforted myself,
saying it was better this way, better that I knew who he really was, better I’d found it out in advance, better than him continually leading me on, my living a lie, and his taking advantage of me. But the knowledge of that didn’t relieve my heartache only made it worse.

I couldn’t face him. No way I could go to church the next day, look at Penny and
Jenn and explain why he was on one side of the building and I was on the other. No way I could sit beneath Evelyn’s gloating, her acting like she’d been right all along. No way I could be there next week for him to kiss me. Which left me with the question of how to get out of it all and the seed of an idea. I had to deal with this one day at a time, and avoiding tomorrow was foremost.