Now a Major Motion Picture (8 page)

So she’s been talking about me to her friends.
He pondered what that meant. It couldn’t be a big deal—women told each other everything, right? But he felt a twinge of pleasure that he’d made at least some sort of impression on her. He was so out of practice, he didn’t know he’d had it in him.

The server appeared then with their sandwiches, and that was the extent to which he thought about it. He bit into his Southwest pita and answered with his mouth full when Mark asked him if he was going anywhere to watch the Cowboys that night. They moved on to a debate about which beer style was better, porter or lager, and soon it was back to work.

* * *

In fact, he didn’t have much time to think about Erin at all that week—his looming presentation with the hotel client kept him in the office well past nine every night. He went home every afternoon to get Amos and bring him to the office after his co-workers had left, something he often did in busy periods so Amos wouldn’t feel abandoned. On the way back to his condo each night, he grabbed takeout, and by the time he and Amos got home, he was so exhausted he crashed out in front of the TV, sometimes not making it into bed until the sun was coming up. Usually he tried to hit the gym a couple times a week, but he didn’t make it there once.

So when Erin’s name popped up on his electronic calendar Friday morning, he was taken off guard by the quiver that ran through his stomach. He headed out the door at six that night—he wanted time to clean up before driving the short distance from his place to hers to pick her up for their date at seven.

After changing into casual khakis and a blue V-neck sweater that unintentionally accentuated the deep blue color of his eyes, he left to pick her up, arriving at her place a few minutes early. He opened the car door and got out, but before he had time to reach her door she swung it open and breezed outside.

“Hi,” she said, flashing him a grin.

“Hi,” he answered, surprised she hadn’t played the waiting game he’d expected. She didn’t seem to be into mind games, which he liked.

He opened her car door and she raised an eyebrow, impressed.
Seriously, does no one do that anymore?
He really was from the dating Dark Ages.

After maneuvering his car out of the complicated network of streets inside Erin’s apartment complex, he headed north toward Addison, to his favorite Tex-Mex place. He’d thought about taking her somewhere more upscale, but decided to keep the pretense to a minimum. This place was him.

It seemed to be her, too. Erin was surprisingly easy to please.

As she walked ahead of him through the restaurant door, Noah’s eyes swept along her trim, five-foot, five-inch frame. She wore a casual skirt and a green sweater that hugged her curves without flaunting them. Her walk reflected an appealing combination of confidence and class.

This time, his head was fully in the game.

He found out a lot more about her tonight. She was twenty-eight. After finishing her master’s degree at The University of Oklahoma, she’d applied for the Teach For America program and made it through what sounded like a terribly rigorous interview process. She’d landed an unlikely placement in her hometown to teach math at an inner-city high school and liked the job so much she chose to stay on after her two-year placement ended. She also liked her roommate, a sorority sister from her undergraduate days who worked at a Downtown accounting firm, but she was ready to find a place of her own.

He learned she’d been engaged once, but had called the wedding off after finding out her fiancé had been cheating on her. That had happened six years ago, when she was still in college. The story hit way too close to home—and swung the conversation uncomfortably in his direction.

“What about you? Any interesting romantic backstories?” she asked. “I know there’s something behind this air of mystery.”

“Air of mystery?” He laughed. “I guess that’s one way to put it.” Noah picked up his beer and took a drink to stall for time. “I don’t think you really want to know,” he said, looking at her with one corner of his mouth turned up. “It’ll just scare you off.”

“Ah, I knew there was something,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Guys like you are usually snapped up early.” She paused. “And just for the record, I don’t scare easily.”

His mind wheeled—he’d never faced this situation before. Of the sparse number of girls he’d dated in the past six years, none had piqued his interest enough to warrant discussion of romantic history. He really did worry that if he said too much, she’d run screaming in the opposite direction.

“I’ll tell you this much,” he said finally. “I was engaged once, too. A long time ago. She broke it off, and I haven’t seen her since. I also haven’t dated much since then.”

He exhaled in a gush, the last two sentences strung together in a rush of words.

She nodded, seeming to sense not to push him any further. To his relief, she moved on.

“So tell me more about what you do,” she said. “You design hotels?”

“That’s part of it. Hotels, bars, clubs. Anything that’s hospitality related. Hotels are my favorite, though, especially boutique projects.”

His face lit up as he talked about his work. They kept up an easy stream of conversation until they’d finished dinner, paid, and left the restaurant.

As they walked to his car, he asked if she wanted to go somewhere for a drink.

“Sure,” she said, relief and surprise mixed in her tone. It was obvious she wasn’t ready for the evening to end. Noah, bemused somewhat by the thought, felt the same way.

He headed back toward Uptown, to a bar he sometimes went to after work. Erin had never been there, but he thought it was a place she’d like. They picked a pub-height table in the back of the bar and climbed onto barstools upholstered in red leather. He watched as her eyes roamed the room, which was lit with a warm glow by strands of Christmas lights that wound around dropped ceiling beams. The walls were paneled floor to ceiling in honey-colored wood.

“I like this place,” she confirmed, and Noah smiled.

They talked their way through a couple of beers—she was a beer girl, another strong point in her favor and somewhat unexpected. Most girls he’d been around in this city drank fruity mixed drinks or wine seeped in pretense. He wasn’t a big drinker himself. In the past he’d drunk as much as the next guy, but these days, two beers was about his limit. It had taken him a while to work up to even that—he hadn’t been drunk since that night over Christmas break in his senior year when he’d gone out with his friend Sean after work and ended up with Ashley…

He shook his head violently at the thought.

“Hello? Noah? You’re doing it again,” Erin said, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Oh, sorry.”

He’d never noticed how he zoned out any time something reminded him of Amelia. He shoved the memory out of his head and focused on Erin’s thoughtful expression, her lower lip pushed forward as she concentrated on his face. He had a sudden, fleeting desire to see what that lip would feel like against his. His eyebrows rose at the newness of the thought.

She started to speak, but studying his eyes, pressed her lips together and stopped herself. “Ready to go?” she asked after a long moment.

“Sure.”

He drained the last swig from his pint and rose to leave. As they stepped out into the cool night air, he swung one arm across Erin’s shoulders and led her across the parking lot toward his car. She glanced up at him, that same thoughtful expression on her face.

After making the short drive back to her apartment, he parked as close as he could to her door and got out with her.

“Want to take a walk?” she asked in a low voice. “I’d invite you in, but my roommate’s home. She usually hogs the couch on weekends.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Is it her couch?”

“It is, actually.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “See why I want my own place?”

He smiled. “A walk sounds great.”

He followed her past her door to a landscaped common area that backed up to her quad of apartment units. They wandered for a while on a maze of pebbled sidewalks that wound through the complex and linked a series of similar courtyards. She laced her fingers through his, the only sounds the murmur of concrete fountains and the chirping of the ever-present Texas crickets. When they returned to the spot behind Erin’s building, Noah stopped and pulled her down beside him on a stone bench that was nestled into some tropical-looking foliage.

The heady garden scent filled his lungs, and he and Erin sat in silence for several minutes. In their stillness, he could hear street noise in the distance, the sound of car doors shutting, the low drone of a TV in a nearby apartment. Erin shuddered against the chill of the autumn night air, and he slid an arm over her shoulders.

She looked up at him.

The urge he’d felt in the bar hit him again, and he leaned forward instinctively, brushing her lips with his. He pulled in a deep breath, his eyes closed. It had been so long since he’d felt a rush of emotion at a woman’s touch. This wasn’t the first encounter with a woman he’d had since Amelia had left, of course, but it was the first that held any meaning.

After a short pause, Erin reached up and slid a hand behind his neck. Their lips met again, parting this time in a fuller, deeper kiss. Several minutes passed before he pulled back, his thoughts tangled into a million tiny knots. He enveloped her shoulders with his arm and gazed at the smooth stone fountain, which glowed silver in the sparse light.

They still didn’t speak. He sat beside her and relished the sudden warmth that had spread like a blanket around them. When she turned her head to look at him, he said, “I’ll walk you to your door.”

Before he left, he bent down and kissed her again.

“I’ll call you.”

Erin nodded, for once offering no teasing response. She turned and disappeared inside.

* * *

Back at his own place, Noah glanced around as though seeing everything for the first time. He was used to being alone, but tonight, after turning away from Erin as her front door closed behind her, he’d felt lonelier than he had in years.

He stooped to rub Amos on the head and scratch him in his favorite spot behind his ears.

“It’s just you and me, boy.”

He felt inexplicably low despite the high he’d been riding on all night.

Suddenly exhausted, he wandered into his living room, its white walls broken up by a series of large-scale photographs arranged in a clean line above a charcoal-colored sofa. The photos were crisp, simple architectural shots of farm-related buildings set against a backdrop of rolling plains. They were black and white, but certain elements—words on the side of a building here, curving lines of a tractor there—were colored in a vivid orange. He’d come across them at an art opening for a co-worker’s wife. He’d bought them because they reminded him of home.

With a heavy sigh, he sank onto the sofa and flipped on his wall-mounted flat screen. He channel surfed a while, but found he couldn’t concentrate for long on any one program. After a few minutes, he clicked the TV off and stared blankly at the screen. He rose from the sofa and dropped the remote control on his glass-topped coffee table with a loud clatter.

He couldn’t believe what he was about to do.

Taking a furtive look around despite the fact he was alone in his own home, he walked to the nightstand in his bedroom, where he’d emptied his pockets as soon as he’d returned to the condo.

“I know it’s in here,” he muttered as he fished through his wallet.

When he’d moved to Dallas, he’d worked to clear his mind of Amelia. He didn’t want reminders, didn’t want to go anywhere she’d been or see anything that made him think of her.

Except when he wanted to think of her.

For those times, he’d brought just one physical reminder—a picture of him and Amelia taken during their sophomore year of college. A candid shot snapped at a fraternity formal, it was his favorite picture of her. His arms were wrapped around her waist, his head tipped down toward hers, and she was smiling up at him.

Oddly enough, the photo was on him at all times, buried in his wallet behind little-used items like his voter’s registration and library cards. Despite the fact that he didn’t want to remember, he was terrified of forgetting her, forgetting her petite, porcelain features, the green-gold flecks in her wide hazel eyes, the precise shade of her silky-straight, chestnut hair.

His fingers landed on the battered photograph.

“Don’t judge me,” he told Amos, who’d wandered into the room and now stared at him, his head cocked to one side. As Noah perched on the edge of his bed, Amos sighed, dipped his head, and plopped down at his feet, unconcerned.

Sliding the photo out of its hiding place, Noah stared at it, his fingers trembling as he replaced the wallet on his bedside table. He kicked off his shoes and leaned back into his pillow, his eyes tracing the soft curve of Amelia’s shoulders in her strapless dress. He remembered so vividly the sensation of her hand on his arm he could almost feel a tingle where she’d touched him. Even in the tiny snapshot, he could see the love in her eyes as she looked up into his.

His stomach wrenched.
Why am I doing this?

He shook his head, not knowing how to answer that question. It had seemed like he was finally moving on.

Gazing at the photo, he felt another strange flash of betrayal. What was Amelia doing now, he wondered? He knew that after college, she’d moved to New York, gotten a job in PR. He’d kept up with her for a couple of years through mutual friends, but stopped trying when it became apparent that she’d left for good, left him completely behind.

He’d heard since that she’d left New York and moved someplace else. Nashville, maybe? Somewhere in the South. He had no idea when or why, and that bothered him. Even after all these years, she still felt familiar to him. Losing track of her was like losing part of himself.

He stared harder at the tiny photograph. Maybe he needed this, needed it to move on. He might have closed the door on his relationship with Amelia, slammed it shut in one idiotic move, but he’d never gotten closure.