Random (Going the Distance) (25 page)

“I’d send you a ticket.”

I blink. “Wow.”

“I would really like to see you, Jess. You have no idea.
No idea
.” He reaches out to the screen, as if to touch my cheek, and I feel that wash of tears in my throat again. “There are so many things I want to know.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say.

A voice on his end, quick and sharp, is somewhere over my head in space. My dad says, “Right. I’m on it.” He’s already standing up as he starts speaking to me. “We have an urgent situation here, Jess. I have to go. Can we do this again this weekend?”

“Sure. Thanks, Dad!”

“Think about coming to see me.” Then he does something that breaks my heart. He leans in and puts his forehead close, and I suddenly remember our ritual before bed. I lean in, too, pressing my forehead against the screen. “Bye.”

* * *

It’s all I can do to leave the iPad alone long enough to shower and put on a sundress that shows off my back and my tan. My feet go in sandals, and I weave some braids around the top of my head to make my hair look more festive. Then, with twenty minutes to spare, I sit on my bed and open the iPad. I’ve played with them before in stores and once when a friend had one at school, but I feel like I’ve gone to a new planet. The colors are so beautiful. I don’t know how to do anything, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. For now I open the icons one at a time, the calendar and the clock, the games and the bookshelf, which is empty.

I realize I can put books on here, too. Free ones, of course. But I can fill it up. Will I like reading this way? Or will it be cold and unfriendly?

When Tyler shows up I fly to the door, tablet in hand, to show him. “Look what my dad sent me! An iPad!”

He’s carrying a box, too, and he puts it down on the couch. “Your dad sent it to you? From New Zealand?”

“I know. Weird. But he wants us to be able to Skype, and I think it made him sad when I said I go to the library to use the computers there.”

He holds the iPad for a second, then hands it back to me. “Sweet! Now you can Skype
me
, too.”

“Really? I hadn’t thought of that.”

It dawns on me that he’s dressed a little nicer than usual, in black slacks and a blue button-front shirt with long sleeves, open at the neck just a little. His hair is brushed away from his face, showing off the angles and lines, bringing attention to his beautiful mouth. My stomach tightens, and I flash on the day I first met him, when I spied his collarbone in a shirt like this. “You look great,” I say.

He kisses me. “So do you. I like your hair.” He picks up the box. “I brought you a present.”

“Two presents in one day!”

“It’s not an iPad.”

I grin at him, and pull open the flaps. It’s clothes, neatly boxed with tissue paper. I set the box on the couch and uncover a dress. “Tyler, you didn’t have to do this.”

“I want you to feel like the beauty you are,” he says, and his eyes are steady and clear.

The dress is simple and elegant, gossamer and rose colored, with a silk underdress that’s a slightly darker pink. The hem flares a little, and the top is straight, with spaghetti straps. “It’s beautiful!”

“Try it on. Sam at work told me your uniforms are a six.”

“Perfect.” I take the dress in the other room and spread it out on the bed, reaching for the ties of my sundress, which suddenly looks like a dress to wear to a picnic on a Sunday afternoon, not out to dinner. I wiggle out of it, then slide the rose dress over my head and pad into the other room. “Will you zip me?” I turn around to give him access.

He brushes my hair out of the way and kisses my shoulder, then zips me up. The dress fits exactly right, close around my torso, but not tight, flaring out gently over my hips. I brush my hands over the fabric, then dash into my room to look at myself in the mirror.

“I love it, Tyler!” I can’t see my whole self, but almost all of me, and I twirl, right and left, to make the skirt lift. I feel like a princess.

Tyler comes up behind me and rolls my hair into a rope, then lifts it up and circles it around my head, slightly messy and sexy. “Can you pin it up? To show off your shoulders?”

I think about a magazine picture of a girl with flowers pinned into a messy chignon like this. “I don’t know if it will stay, but maybe. Will you get the scissors from the left-hand kitchen drawer and go out and cut about three or four roses from the vine in front?”

He smiles at me in the mirror, his big hands making my shoulders look tiny. “Sure.”

While he’s busy with that, I weave my hair into a loose braid and wind it around my head, this way and that, trying to find a way to make it not look like I’m a milkmaid from the Alps. The truth is, there’s a lot of hair to put up, and it’s heavy, but I finally arrange it into a poofy thing at the top of my head and let some of it hang down, and when Tyler brings the roses back I tuck them into it, too.

“That’s beautiful,” he whispers, and bends to kiss my neck, his hands skimming over my sides. “I knew you’d look perfect in this dress the second I saw it.”

“It really is beautiful,” I say, and I’m pleased, but there’s some part of me—maybe the voice of my mother—that wants to say more. “But you don’t have to take care of me, ok? I love your kindness, but I’ve been living on my own for awhile now and doing fine.”

“I know. Maybe I just like it.” He meets my eyes in the mirror. “Look at us.” He pulls me closer to him, and I tilt my head sideways so I won’t bump his chin. His hands are on my waist, and I put my hands over them.

“We look great together.”

His hips are against my butt. “But you’ve given me another hard-on.” He grins wickedly. “I swear I’ve been hard for a solid week, thinking of you.”

It takes me by surprise, I have to admit. I thought we were in a soft, romantic spot, and then he says
that
. I frown a little. “It’s not always about sex, is it?”

“Isn’t it?” He bends to kiss my neck, my shoulder, his hands sweeping down the front of the dress. I shiver a little, and my nipples show under the silk. He laughs gently, low in his throat. “Innocence and temptation,” he murmurs, cupping my breasts. “Impossible to resist.”

“It’s embarrassing that you’re always getting me heated up.”

“No,” he says earnestly. “We have something magical here, Jess. It’s more than chemistry. It just shows up through the physical.”

I’m touched, and reach behind me to brush my hand over his cheek. He kisses my palm. “Would you do me a favor?”

“Depends.”

He slides up the skirt in back and tugs on my panties with his thumb. “Leave these here.”

I raise an eyebrow, considering how I feel about that. He stands behind me, watching my face. “You don’t have to if it bugs you. But there might be rewards.”

In his eyes I see us together at dinner, in our lovely clothes, and this one delectably wicked thing that only we know. With a slight smile I slide my panties off and toss them on the bed. His eyes go dark as he bends to kiss my shoulder again, and his hand slides up under my dress, his palm skimming over the bare flesh of my thigh and then to my bottom. It’s wildly arousing, and I give him a look.

He smoothes my dress back down, promise and heat in his eyes. “Thank you.”

I gather my purse and slide my sandals on.

Tyler says, “Why don’t you bring an overnight bag, just in case?”

I nod, and without a lot of fuss I gather up my work shoes, some socks and my uniform. From the bathroom I grab my blush and mascara and toothbrush. I dither about the brand new iPad, but when will I use it? This is enough.

“What time do you work tomorrow?” I ask

“Nine-thirty. You?”

“Same, to two.”

“Perfect.” He grins and offers his arm. “Now, let’s eat. You’re going to love this place.”

* * *

The restaurant is downtown, and we have to park in a garage, then walk a couple of blocks. Sun pours down over the mountains and splashes into the trees, dances on storefronts. Tyler holds my hand, and I see people notice us. I’m proud to be seen with him.

The restaurant is elegant, a little dark, with candles on the tables. A woman leads us to a corner table with a view of the street and the mountains, and holds my chair as I sit down. I sit down too fast, then realize she’s waiting to scoot it in as it hits the backs of my knees and I almost stumble, but Tyler catches my elbow in a strong grip. “Gotcha.”

I shoot him a grateful glance, and he gives me his half-smile. I’m glad I’m with him, rather than anyone else. If I were with Rick, he’d be all goggle-eyed and feeling insecure and sneering to cover it.

Tyler is smooth, picks up the wine list. “Do you like any kind of wine in particular?”

I blink. “I don’t really know any.” Then I remember. “But my other dad told me his wine label today. Long Cloud.”

“Do you know what kind of wine?”

I try to remember if he told me. “I’m not sure. What do they grow in Marlborough, New Zealand?”

Tyler gives me a little smile and pulls out his phone, types something into it. “Here we go. Long Cloud Wineries bottles and ships Sauvignon Blanc grapes.” He tucks the phone back in his pocket. “They probably don’t have Long Cloud, but we can order a Sauvignon Blanc so you can taste it.”

“Yes, please.” I wiggle a little in my excitement and wonder if that makes me look silly. He doesn’t seem to care, and when I look around, no one else is paying us any attention.

He orders a bottle of wine as if it’s expected, and the server doesn’t ask for my ID, which surprises me. I have it with me, the fake one, but I’d be afraid to use it in a place that isn’t full of noise and chaos. She’d be able to see it clearly, recognize it wasn’t me, but I’m glad I have it as backup.

“The menu here is a little different,” Tyler explains. “Family style, so we can order several things and share them, if that’s all right.”

I nod, looking at the categories, wondering what he likes. What
I
like. There are things I’ve never even heard of on the menu, and things I know of but have never eaten. It makes my ears burn. What if I order something I hate? What if I order too much?

“What looks good to you?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” My voice is more hushed than I would like.

He covers my hand with his. I look up. He smiles. “It’s an adventure. Is there anything you want to know more about?”

“Maybe. What are Korean wings?”

“Let’s ask when she comes back. I don’t know, either.”

“What else?”

“Edamame.”

“Ah, now I do know about edamame. It’s just baby soybeans in the pod, roasted and salted. We should have some.”

I frown. “Sounds kinda weird.”

“It might be. You don’t know until you try, right?”

“But what if we order stuff and it’s terrible?”

He laughs. It’s a bold sound, full of light and exuberance. “So what? We don’t eat any more of it.”

“Really?”

“What if,” he says, “we ask the server to bring us whatever she thinks will be great. Ask her to surprise us?”

His eyes glow in the candlelight, and his thumb moves over my hand. I’m wearing a dress that is suitable, and no one can see that my shoes are only sandals, and this amazing guy is sitting across from me, looking at me like I’m the best thing he’s ever seen—and the world shifts. I can almost feel a part of me crack and fall away, like a chrysalis. “Okay,” I say, and smile.

The woman brings our wine, which she pours for Tyler to taste. He swirls it and sniffs it, then sips. His eyebrow rises, and he smiles. “Perfect.” He pours me a glassful. I wait until he orders our food—and our server is thrilled, by the way, to choose for us—and we’re alone again. I lean forward. “What were you trying to smell? What do I do?”

“I’m no expert,” he confesses, “and I don’t actually know this wine very well, but pick the glass up by the stem so that your fingers don’t warm the wine.”

I imitate him.

“Then swirl it gently and let the fumes rise, then smell it and see what you can pick out.”

He illustrates, and I follow along. I dip my nose in the glass, thinking I’ll smell—well,
wine
, but to my surprise there’s a lot more.

My face must say that, because Tyler smiles and says, “What do you smell?”

“Grass,” I say, “and something like…lemons, maybe?” I smell it again, gently, and close my eyes. I can see sunshine and the ocean and a brown hill in the distance. I don’t know if it’s the wine or my memory, but I add, “Cat pee?” I start laughing.

He laughs with me. “I’ve heard that.” He smells it and shakes his head. “I don’t know. You might have a nose for this. All I got was lemons.”

As I hold the glass, turning my head aside, then turning back, the memory floats back. “Huh. I think we must have lived on the winery before we left. That’s funny—how much I don’t remember and how much I do.”

“Especially now that you’re talking to your—what do you call him? Your other dad?”

I nod. “Now how do I taste it?”

“Same thing. Take a tiny sip and let it swirl around in your mouth and see what you taste. Or—” He sips without the ritual. “—you can just drink it.”

“No, I want to do it right.” The wine is not at all sweet—in fact, it’s almost sharp, with edges—but I like it. In the little sip I take I taste grapefruit and that grassy thing and something I can’t name. “Wow. That’s great.” I take another sip, bigger, and it splashes down the back of my throat like laughing wine.

He holds up his glass for a toast. “To us,” he says, and my stomach flips as our glasses clink lightly.

“To us.”

The whole meal is magical, full of tastes and rituals and Tyler’s smile and his aquamarine eyes glowing in approval. We eat a ton of food and box up some to take home, and I have to excuse myself to go to the ladies room, which is the first time I remember that I don’t have any panties on. As I pass behind Tyler’s chair, I touch his shoulder and lean in to whisper, “I forgot I am…er…a little naked!”

He kisses my fingertips, his eyes darkening. “I didn’t.”

I can feel his eyes on me as I weave through the tables, and it makes me feel powerful and exotic and luscious, like everything else this evening has brought with it. In the mirror of the ladies room I see that my eyes are shining and my cheeks are flushed. The dress makes my skin look rosy gold. Little bits of hair have fallen down around my neck, but they look pretty.