“You’re too kind, Della. You come by on your way home, I’ll give you some for a sandwich. They are the best in the city,” he said with a toothy grin.
She heard Vince, but was distracted by a man leaning on a car across the street. He looked familiar, like she had seen him somewhere before, but she couldn’t place him. She shook her head at the notion, smiling at Vince.
“Maybe you can show me how to keep a plant alive one of these days,” she said with a laugh, looking across the street again. The man was gone. “But until then, I’d love some of your tomatoes.”
“How is your painting coming along?”
She sighed. “I haven’t had much time for it. I’m on my way to dance lessons now, you know, for the wedding. It’s been taking all of my extra time.”
It was a small white lie. Della couldn’t tell her friend that what had been taking a lot of her extra time was extremely hot sex with a man she met on a plane.
Vincent offered a raspy chuckle, his eyes narrowing under the rim of his wide gardening hat.
“There’s a man, isn’t there? You finally met someone on one of those dating websites?”
Della’s jaw dropped in astonishment, and he laughed, waving her off.
“I have four daughters. I can tell when you have a man in your life. You look happy. I like the dress,” he said with a wink. “It’s reminiscent of Claude.”
Della shook her head, but laughed, too. Vince was a sweet guy, a retired art professor who taught the watercolor class she took now and then. She looked down at the flowers on her dress. “They do look like a Monet, don’t they? Like The Iris Garden at Giverny. That’s probably why I liked it so much.”
He nodded approvingly. It was one of his teaching tricks, to refer to artists by their first names, and see if his students could come up with the surname. But using great artists’ first names also took the pressure off, made art seem more approachable, in a sense. Della appreciated that, since her painting was hardly expert, but she did it to expand her horizons and exercise her creative mind.
“The bright colors suit you. Will you be in the studio this month?”
She hesitated, and then shook her head with a tiny pinch of guilt. “Not until after the wedding, I’m afraid. But I promise, after that’s over, I’ll be a regular again.”
He smiled and waved her on as they said goodbyes, and she rushed along the sidewalk to her class, making it right on time.
“Della, what a gorgeous dress!” her instructor, Ruth, exclaimed.
Other students in the class all turned to focus on her, and Della felt her cheeks warm, but she forced herself to meet the pointed attention head on. “Thank you, Ruth.”
“You have to dance with Steven today, I think. You are tall enough in heels to dance with him.”
Della swallowed, her nerves returning. Steven was Ruth’s assistant, and very handsome. He was a professional dancer on Broadway who assisted Ruth part-time when he wasn’t on stage himself. Several of her assistants were dancers she had taught over the years who came back to help with her classes, but Steven was the most good-looking.
Della always found him intimidating, certainly when she could barely avoid tripping over her own feet most of the time. He walked over to her and smiled engagingly, his grey eyes taking in her dress appreciatively.
“Good afternoon, Della. Ruth’s right, that dress was made for dancing,” he said, and invited her to join him with a bow.
Della saw Stephanie, Steven’s usual partner, glare at her from the other side of the studio. She looked away, remembering her newfound confidence, and smiled back at him. The music started and Ruth called for them to take their positions to continue practicing their swing dancing moves, which made Della bite back a groan. She hadn’t been able to get the complicated, twisty movements right since she’d started learning them. Chloe, however, was having a swing band at the wedding, so Della had to learn the basics.
The music started and Steven led her through the first basic steps, which she did very well, even in her heels.
The first wrap-in, wrap-out went smoothly, and her confidence grew. Maybe she’d had the wrong partners before, because it seemed to be going much easier with Steven, who praised her as they went.
He also once, when they were in the sweetheart position, appeared to peek down the front of her dress. When she met his eyes with a surprised look, he winked at her, which made her misstep and nearly land on his toes with her heel.
Experienced in such things, Steven moved his foot deftly out of the way, but Della’s good dancing streak was broken, and suddenly, she was flustered and missed the next few steps, no matter how Steven tried to get her back in the groove.
As the steps became more complicated she erred even more, and finally had to stop, frustrated, as the other dancers moved around them.
“I’m so sorry, I just... I’m never going to get this.”
“It’s my fault. I threw you off when I peeked down your dress,” he admitted with a devilish smile. “Sorry about that. I should have been more discreet. But I didn’t want to be.”
Della blinked in response, unsure what to say as Steven led her over to the side of the room.
“I’ve always thought you were cute, but that dress just...wow. I don’t suppose you’d want to go out sometime? Maybe have a private dance lesson? Or I could get us tickets to a show?”
Della’s thoughts were scrambled and she didn’t know what to say. Steven was actually asking her out. It was surreal. And she was seeing Gabe, but no...she was sleeping with Gabe. That was a whole different thing, right?
Was it okay to go on dates when she was sleeping with someone else? She had no idea how to calculate the angles of this unexpected development. Her life had never had so many interesting variables, but she had no experience solving this kind of a problem.
Thrown for the rest of the lesson, she left early and headed back to her office to work. It gave her time to think about what had happened with Steven. Regardless of the reality of her situation with Gabe, it felt wrong to date Steven—and maybe he meant more than date—while she was sleeping with Gabe.
What if she ended up having sex with both men? One at a time, of course, but still...talk about jumping in the deep end. She’d had no men in her life, and now she had too many. She hadn’t even checked her dating profiles she’d been so busy, so who knew what was happening there? Maybe she should put her profile on temporary hold until she could catch up with what was happening in her real life.
She frowned as she looked out the window of the train, watching the walls and stops flash by, and wondered why she felt so guilty possibly accepting Steven’s invitation, even though Gabe had made it clear he was just a temporary guy, and all they shared was sex. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to think logically. Reason and logic never let her down, and as she approached the issue that way, her answer appeared very quickly.
This was not a moral issue as much as one of timing. She simply was not ready to be with more than one man at a time, but Gabe was not likely to be around for more than a few weeks. A month at most, he’d said. So if she could make a date with Steven a few weeks down the line, perhaps for a show, that would solve the problem, right? Or she could even go to a show with him now, but no sex.
She squirmed a little in her seat, still feeling uncomfortable with seeing someone other than Gabe, at least at the moment, silly as it might seem. The train slowed down by her stop, and she stood, feeling like she had worked through the problem to some extent, anyway. For now, she was only seeing Gabe, and Steven was a nice possibility for the future.
Emerging up from the subway tunnel into the sun, she made the turn toward the university, where she could bury herself in the normality of work for a while, before it was time to go meet Gabe. As she walked to her building, a young man, probably a grad student, smiled at her and offered an appreciative glance.
This dress was a man magnet, she thought with a grin, knowing that probably wasn’
t what Gabe had intended. Would he be jealous if she saw someone else?
The idea thrilled her, but she shook it aside, knowing he probably wouldn’t. They didn’t have that kind of relationship—she frowned—or did they? She discovered, playing with the idea in her mind, that she didn’t like the idea of Gabe with another woman.
That was even more reason for her to make plans with Steven, she decided as she took the elevator to the floor where her office was. She could easily fall for Gabe, and maybe she had already, just a little. If she was smart, she couldn’t let it go any further.
But she didn’t want to be smart. She’d been smart her entire life. She wanted to be stupidly, completely blind to consequences, odds, or risks for once, and she wanted to be that way with Gabe. Foolish, she reprimanded herself as she entered her office and settled down into work, hoping the stack of student research proposals and other projects would help her get these crazy ideas out of her head.
But it appeared nothing could erase Gabe from her senses. She worked, but kept noting the time, and how much longer until she went to meet him at their mystery location. Six o’clock. One more hour.
She grumbled at herself and her loss of perspective. It was one thing to want to be with him. It was another to pine and wait for him, staring at the clock.
Disgusted with herself and needing a break to stretch her legs, she rose and left her office, walking down the quiet, familiar hallways of her department. Only a few other people were around later in the afternoon, meeting with some students or working on papers, but she was here alone now.
Summer classes were in session, but the buildings were always more deserted this time of year, and she’d always valued that. She frequently worked until the wee hours, taking advantage of the quiet and aura of academia. Noting the names of her colleagues on the doors that lined the hall, minds greater than hers, she smiled, loving that she was counted among them. Most of them were older than her, and she couldn’t call them friends, exactly, but she respected them, and she’d pushed herself to earn their respect.
No doubt they would not respect her if they knew what she had been up to recently. Certainly Dr. Aldi had never had wanton sex with a stranger he met on a plane.
But who knew? she thought with a smile, turning into the ladies’ room.
Seconds later, she heard the door open again, and then close. Della didn’t think much of it, but no footsteps crossed the floor to the stalls. Perhaps someone had thought it was the men’s room.
Washing her hands and walking back out, she heard a noise behind her and turned to look, but no one was there.
The halls she had been reminiscing about suddenly seemed very lonely and crowded with echoes. She walked back toward her office, and was sure she heard footsteps somewhere behind her. As she glanced back, she did see someone turn the corner, and walked as fast as she could in her heels, her heart slamming in her chest.
College violence was still very much a reality. They were in a large city, after all. She always reminded herself when she was on campus not to get too comfortable in her surroundings, ever, but doing so was inevitable. No one had ever had a problem in the department.
But she had a problem now. Footsteps echoed behind her as she reached her door, and pulled on it, finding it had locked behind her. A cry of fear and frustration escaped her lips, and she shoved a shaking hand into her bag, but she couldn’t find her key.
Finally she did, as the heavier steps got even closer, just down around the corner now, and she slid the key into the lock, rushing into her office and locking the door behind her.
Moving to a far corner of the room, she stood out of sight, listening to the person approach her door, but...they didn’t even stop, simply kept walking and then she heard the door at the end of the hall squeak open—the heavy metal door that led to the stairwell.
She let go of a breath she felt like she had been holding ever since coming into the room, and looked at her hands. They were shaking. So were her legs, and she walked unsteadily to her chair, and sank into it, dropping her head into her hands.
Then her overactive imagination poked at her, wondering if the person had actually left the floor, or were they out in the hall, lying in wait?
All the while chastising herself for being ridiculous, she walked to her door, steeling herself to open it—but she also brought the small can of pepper spray she kept in her purse.
Peeking outside, she saw nothing, and opened the door wider.
Empty.
Her heartbeat slowed slightly, but she was too afraid to venture out of her office, just in case. Feeling foolish, she called security and asked them to walk her down from her office, even if it wasn’t dark yet.
“Is there a problem, Professor?” the guard asked, with a concerned voice.
“I thought someone was outside my office earlier, but they left. It just spooked me, I guess. Thank you for coming up.”
“No problem. Better safe than sorry,” he agreed and they chatted generally as they walked back down to the quad.
Della felt even more ridiculous when they emerged out into the filtered sun of the early summer evening.
“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate the escort, but I’m fine from here.”
He tipped his hat and walked away, and Della strolled the sidewalk of the quad, taking in the beautiful buildings of the institution that she loved like a second home. It was awful to feel unsafe here, and she didn’t want that feeling to linger, especially when it was just a product of her own paranoia.
Looking at her phone, she saw the time and picked up her step. She’d need to make the train soon in order to meet Gabe at the appointed time, having wasted so much of it hiding in her office.
The thought of being with him moved her along faster, not just because she wanted to see him, but because the idea of being with him made her feel safe. And that was something she very much needed right now. No matter how she tried to talk herself into being rational, she caught herself looking over her shoulder, still feeling as if someone might be following her.
She didn’t shake the feeling until she was on the train speeding toward downtown. Speeding toward Gabe.
6
GABE SAW DELLA ARRIVE, the dress he sent her standing out in the dim evening light as she walked by the large windows at the front of the bar, and in the door. He rose to greet her at the door with a light kiss, taking her in.
“You look gorgeous.”
“Thank you. This was very generous. I love the dress. It was a very sweet thing to do,” she said with a slight smile, though her eyes looked strained and her hair was slightly mussed.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, looking more closely.
She hesitated before responding, which gave him his answer, even though a second later she nodded with a too-bright smile and told him she was fine.
Gabe let it go for the moment, and took her hand, leading her back to their table.
“This isn’t quite as creative as your invitation to the museum, but I thought it would be nice to go on a date,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “You know, dinner, drinks, maybe some dancing. The kind of night out you deserve, Della.”
He was no lightweight, but he’d had two drinks before this and the third Scotch was starting to ease the guilt eating away at him. He was only here to insinuate himself into her life, to get closer, to see if he’d been wrong about her.
“Dancing? Oh, you don’t want to go there,” she said with a rueful shake of her head as a waitress delivered her drink and took their orders.
“Why not?”
“More maid-of-honor duty. Namely, dancing lessons, or as they are otherwise known, the seventh level of hell.”
He chuckled. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Thanks, but you should have seen me in these heels in my dance class today—total geek. Stepped on my partner’s feet, several times.”
“This is for the wedding? Learning to dance?”
“Uh-huh. I will have t
o at least do the required dances, and I have never danced at all, with anyone, outside this class. It’s nerve-wracking.”
“No proms? School dances?”
“I was too young to attend. You know, math prodigy and all that, I was in grad school before most of my peers were out of high school, so that really messed up my social life. As in, I didn’t have one. Not after the ninth grade. Before that was more or less normal.”
“Really? I knew you were smart, I didn’t know you were a child genius.”
She rolled her eyes back, laughing. “Only with numbers. For everything else I only had a normal ability, and when it came to social things, I was way below average.”
He reached out, touching her cheek. She looked ethereal in the soft light of the bar, which was decked out in dark woods, cozy corners, like the one they sat in, and leather chairs. Gabe often came here alone when he was in the city, but it seemed right somehow to share it with Della.
“There’s nothing below average about you.”
She shrugged. “I’m just not used to it, even now.”
“That must have been very difficult. To miss out on so much.”
Her lips fell into that sad frown he observed from time to time. He had a feeling Della had been lonely for a good part of her life, and knowing that triggered an ache in his chest. Especially since she deserved better than what he was offering her, that was for sure. Maybe Bart was right—maybe he was too involved, because he couldn’t see Della being a part of this mess, unless it was as an unknowing victim. There was just no way—he started to think this entire evening was a mistake, except that he enjoyed being with her so much.
“Well, like I mentioned, I don’t date a lot. And I certainly never had two sexy men interested in me before.”
That definitely caught his attention.
“Um, two?” he asked, drawing back just a bit.
She closed her eyes in chagrin. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt that out—it was so thoughtless. I think this drink is getting to me. I didn’t get lunch, and then—”
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