“Oh. Of course. Assonance. It kind of rhymes.” His eyes widened slightly. “Oh, man. I can barely wait to hear what my teammates think of that.”
“What would you prefer?”
He shrugged. “No idea. Just know that ice isn’t hot, Miss Anderson.”
Miss Anderson, even. “How about ‘sensitive’? Would you prefer ‘sensitive’ to hottie?” He didn’t meet her gaze. “We have to flirt, Mr. Elliot. That’s what’s going to pay the bills.”
“Great,” he muttered. She watched him take a deep breath and force himself to visibly relax his shoulders. It was a gesture that reminded her of something her father might do. The second her mind made that connection it unnerved her a little bit. When he met her eyes, he had a tight-lipped smile on his face, and they continued up the sidewalk.
As they approached the building, he put a hand on the small of her back and the final remnants of his scowl transformed into a pleasant look. A sinking feeling in her stomach made her worry that she’d done the wrong thing. Some knee-jerk response inside her wanted to parry with the fact that he’d approved her caption before she sent it, but she held her tongue. That would only sound argumentative, and she wanted to smooth the waters, not stir them up further.
Within minutes, they took their seats at the window looking out on the water. A waiter appeared almost immediately, wearing a white shirt and black bow tie. She knew he would be a great waiter based on the fact that she hadn’t noticed him until he started filling their water glasses. She knew that their places would magically clear and they would not be interrupted with inane questions during their meal. “Good evening, Mr. Elliott and Miss. Anderson. What a pleasure to have you with us tonight. Can I start you with a drink before I tell you about tonight’s specials?”
For their entire dinner, Davis stayed relaxed, smiling, chatting, interacting. He discovered just a few minutes into dinner that if he didn’t think about what she said last week, he could have a good time. As long as he stayed relaxed and Cora stayed relaxed, they could smile and laugh together while they chatted about friends and family and school. He understood without being told that if he sat back and scowled at her, someone would snap a picture, and that would end this flirty facade before it even got started.
During his entire trip to Boston and the rental car drive to the Cape, he had dreaded tonight. As he checked into his beach house, he had mentally reviewed their initial meeting over and over again and realized that he didn’t trust her not to say something insulting about him or his “reputation” again. When the main course arrived, he noticed that she again prayed silently, without asking him to join her or bless the meal for both of them. What would she say if she knew how faithfully he served in his campus ministry and how much he enjoyed attending chapel services? Would it put a dent in this imagined bad-boy reputation she had contrived for him?
If Cora chose to think of him as some drunk who participated in barroom brawls, he could say nothing to convince her otherwise. Hopefully, eventually, she’d get to know him better, and she’d learn how wrong that opinion of hers was and drop her prejudice. He had enough time to think about it and realized that he also needed to get to know the real Cora Anderson and reset his expectations. To that end, he drew on the fruit of the Holy Spirit right now and garnered the whole patience, self-control, and kindness that he needed to wear like a mantle. Otherwise, he’d just find himself saying something intentionally hurtful that he wouldn’t have the power to take back.
When their dessert for two arrived—a chocolate cheesecake surrounded by a wreath made from a swirled strawberry and cream sauce, Cora clapped and cheered like a school girl. It brought him back into the moment just as she held her phone out to the waiter.
“Would you mind?”
They each picked up a spoon and took a bite, looking at the camera. Davis gave a thumb’s up sign. As soon as the waiter took their picture, Davis sat back and set the spoon down. “There’s no way I could eat that this close to training,” he announced, allowing a little bit of wistful regret color the tone of his voice.
Cora wiggled her eyebrows and took another bite. As she swallowed, she closed her eyes in pleasure. The thought of kissing those strawberry flavored lips raced through Davis’ mind before he could stop himself. He couldn’t imagine where that thought had come from.
When she opened her light green eyes, she smiled and said, “I refuse to be intimidated by the thought of training.”
Wanting to get his mind off his inappropriate thought, he said, “Tell me about the opening ceremonies. I remember watching you there.”
She set her spoon down and leaned back in her chair. “It was insanely amazing. You can actually feel the crowd inside of you, it’s so loud. Lights everywhere, cameras, athletes I recognized from previous Olympics. It was hard not to fan-girl on the gymnastics team. Oh, and the swimmers. You know.”
He’d known the entire meal that she had put on a pretense of relaxed happiness. For the first time since he met her, he watched her jade green eyes come to life as she remembered the opening ceremonies. While she talked, her body became very animated, and the way she described the event made him feel like he experienced it with her. He remembered seeing her, remembered watching all the athletes as they entered the huge arena for the ceremonies. The fact that in less than a year he might experience the same thing felt surreal.
Using the card given to him by VelTech’s marketing company, Davis paid the bill for their meal, and they left the restaurant. On the sidewalk, he looked out at the water and said, “I think a picture from the beach would be a really good idea.”
“Good thinking!” Cora replied. Instead of turning toward the parking lot they headed toward the water. Cora stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and used Davis’ arm as support while she slipped her heels off.
The evening had started to cool. Davis looked at her with her bare arms and bare legs. “I’m used to the cold. You going to be okay without a jacket?”
“I’ll be fine.” She smiled.
They slowly walked in the sand toward the water. In the relatively early evening, several people milled around, some dressed for the restaurant, others dressed more casually for the beach. When they passed a waiter taking a break at one of the outdoor tables, Cora stopped. “Excuse me, would you mind taking our picture?”
She handed him her phone, and his eyes widened. “Is this the new one? I didn’t think they were out yet. I’m on the waiting list! Look at the size of that screen. It’s like a tablet!” he exclaimed.
She smiled and said, “That’s it. We’re beta testing it. What do you think?”
“Really nice! So light? How long does the battery go?”
Davis interjected, “Haven’t charged mine in two days.”
“No kidding?” The waiter got down to business to take the picture.
Cora stood close to Davis, and he automatically put his arm around her waist. Even in the evening air, he could smell her perfume and he pulled her a little closer to his side. They smiled, and the waiter snapped the picture and reluctantly handed the phone back to Cora.
“Thank you so much.” She grinned.
“Sure thing, Jade. Uh, can I get one with you guys?”
Her smile grew very wide. “Of course! Hop in here.”
The waiter jumped in the middle of them like a tuxedoed photo bomber, made a V sign, and snapped three selfies. “Thanks so much. You were awesome in Rio.”
“Thank you! Good night.”
As they walked away, Cora tapped on the screen of her phone then put it back in her purse. Immediately, Davis felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. “I just texted ours to you. That way we can both post it.”
Thinking of the maître d’ and the waiter just now, he asked, “Do you ever get tired of being recognized?”
Cora pulled her long black hair over one shoulder. “Sometimes. Most of the time, though, I’m not. But, you know, this is home. So, if I’m going to be recognized, it’s going to be here. Usually
, people just look at me like they feel like they know me but can’t place me. Anyway, this is just a season. In ten years, I’ll be a footnote in the history books.”
For some reason, he didn’t want to leave the beach. “I know the picture was what we came for, but do you want to walk a little bit? It’s really nice here.”
She turned her head and looked at him, and he noticed the hesitation in her eyes before she agreed and said, “Sure.”
They started walking down the sandy path with grass-covered dunes on either side of them. When his foot sank into the soft sand, and some of the grains worked their way into his shoe, he stopped and said, “Hang on just a sec.”
He kicked his shoes off then reached down and slipped his socks off. After he dumped the sand out of his shoe and shook out his socks, he set them near one of the wooden posts that ran along the path. The sand felt warm beneath his bare feet, and for a moment he wiggled his toes, enjoying the sensation. He turned to Cora and smiled. “Ready.”
They walked a little further down the path and over a crest. Suddenly, bright blue water greeted them. “Beautiful,” he remarked, looking up at the sky that had just started to turn orange and purple as the sun began to slip down the horizon. He watched a sailboat silhouetted against the evening sky glide by several hundred yards away.
They walked in silence for several minutes. When a wave washed away, Davis stepped into the cool, wet sand and bent and picked up a stone, running his thumb over the heart-shaped surface smoothed by sand and water. The colors in the rock matched Cora’s purple dress. He slipped the stone into his pocket.
“Where are you from?” Cora asked, breaking the silence.
The question surprised him. Through all the casual dinner conversation, she hadn’t asked a single personal question of him. He gave his standard reply, “The Army.”
She looked over at him. “What does that mean? You’re not a soldier.” The breeze blew a strand of hair over her eyes, and his fingers itched to brush it back. “Are you?”
With a wry smile, he explained, “My father is a soldier. I was born in Seoul, Korea, to a Korean military policeman’s daughter and an American Special Forces soldier from Michigan. From there, we lived in Washington, Texas, Georgia, New York, Germany, and then North Carolina, where I graduated high school.”
She stopped walking and stared at him. He stopped, too, and turned to face her. “That’s insane. Until school in Virginia, I lived in the same house in Boston my entire life. I can’t even imagine.”
He thought of the years of moving, of the repetition of settling into a new home, settling into a new friend group, and just as things got normal, gearing up for the next move. He loved it, even as a kid. Nothing beat walking into a new school and getting an opportunity to reinvent himself, make new friends, and gain new experiences and new opportunities. “I can’t imagine being confined to one area my whole life. I loved moving. I’m twenty-two, and I’ve lived in three countries and speak two languages.” His lips thinned. “I don’t think it’s insane at all. Of course, I have no basis for comparison. It was my normal.”
Her face fell, and he could tell that she hadn’t meant to insult him with her words. But, because of her callous rudeness when they first met, he had very little grace to spare her right now. He turned back toward the restaurant and gestured with his arm for her to precede him back to the car. Clearly, she didn’t need him to tell her he had reached his tolerance level for the evening’s charade.
They slowly and calmly walked back up to the restaurant. Davis collected his shoes and socks and carried them until he stepped out of the sand and onto the sidewalk. He sat on a bench and put them back on. Cora sat next to him and fastened her sandals. Without speaking, they walked back to the car. Davis reached for the car handle to open the door for her, but Cora reached it first and let herself into the car. He felt the muscles in his neck tense.
Refusing to get angry, refusing to spoil the first successful date, Davis took deep breaths through his nose as he stalked around to the driver’s door. When he slipped in and started the car, he looked over at her and smiled. “Where do you go to church here?”
She’d had her head turned, looking out the window, but slowly turned to look at him with wide eyes. “Church?”
Keeping his voice very even, he said, “Yes. Church. Chapel. Tabernacle. House of worship. The place you congregate to feed your soul and worship the Creator of the universe. Where do you go when you’re here at the Cape?”
“I, uh,” she cleared her throat and continued, “there’s a big church here that I go to when I wake up too late to drive home. I prefer my church in Boston and lunch with my family after. But sometimes, I go to the big church here.”
He drove out of the parking lot and turned onto the main highway. “Okay. I’ll rephrase my question then. If I wanted to go to church with you tomorrow, what time would I need to be where?”
“Oh.” She stared at him for a moment before replying, “If you want to pick me up, we’ll need to leave my cottage by nine-thirty. Otherwise, meet me there at nine-fifty.”
Considering his options, mulling over the details, he finally said, “Okay. See you at nine-thirty.”
Several silent minutes later, as he turned onto her street, she finally broke the heavy silence. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to go to church tomorrow?”
He pulled into her driveway and put the car in park so he could turn his body in her direction. “Because, Miss Anderson, I am a churchgoing Christian. Despite gossip,” he said, stressing that word, making it sound like it tasted bitter even to say it, “I’m not some barroom brawler. If you want to know what happened that night, maybe ask me. But do me a favor and throw all your judgment out the window beforehand, or the conversation won’t be a pleasant one.”
Leaving the car running, he got out and was at her door before she could open it. As she slipped out of the car, he shut the door behind her and said, “I had a really nice time during our meal. Tell you what. Why not let me open your doors from now on? Pull out your chairs. Take your coat. You know. Pretend I’m actually a gentleman. Never know who’s watching, right?”
She watched him stalk back to the driver’s side. Before he closed the door, he said, “See you tomorrow. Nine-thirty.”
He got back in the car and waited for her to go safely inside her house before driving away.
CHAPTER 3
“Mom, I just feel like I messed up.” Cora lay against her pillow and stared at the lightyellow walls with white trim. She had her bedroom window open, and the breeze blew her sheer curtains, making the sunlight dance on the walls. Next to her on the top of the bed sat her sketch pad. She’d artistically drawn and decorated Proverbs 18:21, using the first part of the verse that said, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
“In what way?” Her mom, Maxine, had always dealt with her straight-up, and if she’d messed up, Maxine would tell her.
She briefly summed up the first meeting with Davis, then what he said last night. “He is really offended that I judged him based on the newspaper photo.”
She heard her mom sigh, then say, “It wasn’t necessarily wrong to believe the photo. But, you should have read the article that it came with. And, it was wrong to judge so thoroughly and harshly at your first meeting. You and I both know that some members of the press are constantly trying to defame Uncle Tony and Aunt Robin. Honestly, your opinion was swayed by what happened in high school. So, you probably should have tempered your words and actions the first meeting, until you had a chance to know the whole story.”
Letting that sink in, she felt a burn of shame in her chest. “So, what do I do now?”
Her mother’s laugh rang through the phone. “Now you apologize, my love. Ask for a reset. Be his friend. This is going to be a wild roller coaster ride for him, and he has no idea what’s coming. You don’t, either. Being sports stars is a lot different from a staged romance with the world r
ooting for you and against you.”
“You’re right.” She knew it. She didn’t even mind admitting it to herself. She’d known what her mother would say before she’d even asked. “I guess I better get some crow cooked up.”
“I think you can do it without suffering too much humiliation.” Cora heard her father’s voice in the distance. “We have to head out. We’re having coffee at seven-thirty with friends before church. You let me know how today goes, okay?”
“I will. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
When she disconnected the call, she pushed herself out of bed and got dressed in the workout clothes she’d laid out for herself the night before. Within minutes, she had on black spandex shorts, a bright red tank top, and red and black running shoes. She went down the stairs and through the living room into the kitchen, where she opened the door leading down to the basement. As she stepped onto the stairs, she hit the light switch and watched the room below gradually light up as the fluorescent lights heated up. The home gym, a miniature version of the one in her parents’ home, stood ready for her. She stepped onto the mat to start warming up and pulled her hair back, securing it with a clip.
She thought back to the conversation with her mom and her reference to what happened to her when she was seventeen and a senior in high school. At six-two, she’d never attracted a lot of attention from the opposite sex. Which meant that when star basketball player, Patrick, invited her to a party, she’d felt so very flattered and special and, for a time, even a little pretty. He liked to party, and she knew it. Thanks to her twin brother, Chase, her father eventually knew it, too. When she said she had a date with him, her parents had refused. She remembered how horribly she’d spoken to Chase, feeling at the time like he’d betrayed her only chance for love and acceptance.
That night, she’d climbed out her window, climbed down a tree, and met Patrick at the corner. They’d gone to the party, where, several drinks and unknown drugs later, Patrick and some friends got into a fight with some other guys. When partygoers broke up the brawl, Patrick had grabbed Cora by the arm and dragged her to his car. Despite her common sense screaming at her, she got into the car with him and three other guys from the team. It didn’t take ten seconds for her to realize that he had no business driving and she had no business sitting in the passenger’s seat.
Jade's Match, the Jewel Series Book 7 Page 3