by Claire Cain
“Your hair’s long.” He smiled while he looked at it in his hand, as if in a trance.
“I guess it is, compared to the last time you saw me.” I couldn’t process the fact that he’d essentially caressed my shoulder or that he was now playing with my hair.
“I like it.” He looked up at me while he wound the piece around one finger and then let it slide out of his grasp over my shoulder when the breeze rustled past us. His hand rested back on the bench, the outside of his thumb still resting against my shoulder.
“Thank you?” It came out as a question. I couldn’t explain that. My pulse was pounding, and I was pretty sure the river had begun rushing because there was a definite rushing sound in my ears.
“You’re welcome.” He nodded to give emphasis. “Now, I wrap up my leave, and then I head back to Fort Campbell tomorrow and get back to work.”
“Will you deploy again?” I asked once I found my voice.
“Probably eventually, but right now our brigade isn’t slated for anything. In theory, I should have at least twelve months of dwell time. They’ve been known to renege on that but since we’re past the height of back-to-back deployments, I’ll hope for the full twelve for sure, if not more.”
I breathed out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Knowing he’d be stateside was welcome news. We sat there a moment, the river bubbling between its banks, and then we both sensed it was time, so we stood and walked back to the path toward his father’s car.
“I’m so glad we did this, Luke. It’s been fun to hear a bit about your life.” My chest tightened at the thought of the night ending, of going another ten years without seeing him or knowing him.
“Yeah, me too,” he said quietly, now watching the path carefully. He sounded distant, and I didn’t want him to retreat. I only had a few more minutes with him—maybe for a long time—so I kept talking.
“So where is Fort Campbell? I’m sorry, I’m so out of touch with Army bases, I have no clue,” I admitted.
“It’s in Kentucky,” he said, still distracted by something, his attention focused unwaveringly on the ground as we walked.
“The South. Well we’ll be kind of near each other I guess. I’m heading to Nashville.” I felt a little leap. We’d be in the same part of the country for the first time since high school. Then I noticed he had stopped walking.
“Nashville? Like you’re visiting there on your way back to New York?” he asked, almost glaring at me, even as he started moving.
“No. I’m moving there. Next month. In like three weeks, actually. Remember I told you I took a job with a diff—” I stopped talking because I could see he was moving. He was walking toward me with something I could only describe as urgency, and it was exactly that that shut me up. I felt a trill of fear shoot through me that changed to something far more like excitement as I felt him take me by the hips—yes, his warm, strong hands right there on my hips—and pace me backward. I grabbed on to his wrists and moved with him, looking at his eyes and the sheer determination in them.
I definitely didn’t see the tree because I was looking at him, but I felt us leave the path, felt the dirt under my feet for a few paces, and then I stumbled over roots, but he steadied me and we took another step or two. Then there I was, backed up against a tree, still unsure of what was happening. He didn’t break eye contact, but his hands moved to the sides of my face, gentle and sure, one thumb brushed over my cheekbone, and then he stepped even closer to me, his body a fraction of an inch from mine, and he kissed me.
It wasn’t a soft kiss. It was demanding from the moment our lips met. It was hungry and almost like a confrontation, but one I quickly registered I had been waiting for and responded to with equal hunger. His hands slipped into my hair and he angled my face so he could deepen the kiss. I pulled back just a little to gather my bearings before going back in, and suddenly he was three feet away, somehow teleporting there without moving, his breathing ragged as he put his hands on his hips like he was recovering from a sprint. I rested my head back against the rough bark of the hundred-year-old oak and stared up at the dusky sky, and then closed my eyes, still trying to catch my breath.
“I’m…” he started, and I opened my eyes to see he had moved closer now but was still standing at a safe distance. “I can’t say I’m sorry because I’m just not. I’ve wanted to do that since I was about ten. But I’m sorry if I took you off guard.” He looked at me for a beat, then looked at my lips again. Then, he was in front of me again. He leaned toward me, and I watched him close his eyes as he kissed me one more time, the touch of his lips light but sure before he stepped away.
“I…” yet again, he’d rendered me speechless. All I could think about was how much I wanted him to do that again. “You’re just happy for me about Nashville, huh?” I joked, not sure what else to say.
He smiled and inched closer, resting a hand on the tree next to my shoulder. “Well, yeah.” He smiled brightly—even there in the dusk, it was blinding.
“Because… you know how much I love country music and barbecue?” I asked, trying to pin down where his response came from and also trying to do something other than hope he’d kiss me again. Because wow. Turned out Luke Waterford could kiss. I couldn’t say I never wondered. Because I had. A lot.
“Actually, I do know you love country, or at least you used to. Of course you love barbecue because what good food-loving American doesn’t? But I think the response had something more to do with learning you’ll be in Nashville, which is less than an hour from where I live.” I could see his eyes glittering and a smile playing across his lips and again, I felt my pulse spike.
He shifted his weight and let his hand slide from my shoulder down to my hand. He laced his fingers with mine, sending a shiver through me at his touch. He pulled me with him back onto the path, back toward town and the car. “Come on, it’s getting late. I don’t want you to be late for curfew.”
Chapter Five
I didn’t say much on the walk back or in the car. We were nearing my parents’ house. I had hardly had a coherent thought since he backed me up against that tree. The fact that there had been such an incident in my life, let alone with this man, had evidently short-circuited my brain.
“Did I scare you?” he asked quietly, though his voice sounded loud in the quiet car.
“N-No,” I said, unhappy with the way my response eked out.
Even in the dark I could see him shake his head. “Are you sure? You haven’t said hardly anything since I kissed you.” Hearing him say that made me flush all over again, and I felt thankful for the covering of darkness in the car.
“I’m not scared of you, Luke,” I said, trying my best to make my voice sound clear and not all husky just at the sound of his talking about our kiss.
“That’s good. That would be the opposite of what I’d want.” He pulled up to my front door. My parents’ front door. Because I could not forget, this was like an alternate universe version of my high school dream date and I was feeling so much like eighteen-year-old Alex, all confused and bundled with nerves—it would have been humorous if I wasn’t living through it.
“Well, don’t worry about that,” I said dumbly, unable to say much at all still.
“I’m going to expect you to call me when you get to Nashville. I can help you move in and bring you a potted plant or something. A ‘welcome to the South’ present.” I could hear that he was smiling. It was possible he knew how wrecked my insides were, and he was enjoying it.
Oh sweet baby pineapple, I hoped he didn’t know he’d turned my insides into useless goo.
“Sure, I’ll call you, but you don’t have to help me move,” I said, trying to return to the land of the socially functioning.
“Well I’m helping. I happen to be an expert mover. I’ve had some practice.” He opened his door and stepped out as I slid out of my side of the car. He placed his hand on the small of my back and we walked up the steps to the porch. I felt as nervous as I ever had after a date, if
not more so. I now knew Luke could kiss, and that he might want to kiss me again—at least, I hoped he did—and that I definitely and completely wanted him to kiss me again. And based on my racing heart and sweaty palms, it was freaking my body out just as much as it was freaking out my fairly reasonable although currently hormone-addled brain.
“I’m glad we did this.” I stood facing him, unsure of what to do with my hands or my body or even my stupid lips.
“Me too,” he said.
And I thought, in an alternate version of the story, that would be where he would have kissed me again. He would have backed me up against the storm door and kissed my socks off like I’d been wanting him to do since I figured out what kissing was. But instead, the porch lamp flicked on and I saw my dad fiddling with the door, very much like he had done a decade ago at just exactly the right or wrong time. In this case, it fell very clearly into the wrong time category. Or maybe it was the right time. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
Luke leaned back and offered his hand to my dad as the storm door flew open. “Mr. Moore, good to see you.” He greeted my dad with unexpected but unfeigned enthusiasm. He’d always liked my parents, and they’d always liked him.
“Good to see you, Lukey.” And my dad pulled him from the manly handshake into the one-armed man pat/hug. My dad was smiling broadly at the sight of him. “All grown up, then. And how was it in Afghanistan? Your dad said your unit was in some bad battles.” I winced and searched Luke’s face to gage his response. My dad never did have much tact, and it seemed typically pushy of him to go right to what might be the most sensitive subject.
“There were some tough times, but I think we did what we could with the resources we had,” Luke said diplomatically, his face flashing with something like regret and weariness.
“Well, good on ya. Glad you’re back safe and sound. Glad you’re finally manning up and taking my daughter out. Going again soon, I hope?” My dad patted Luke’s shoulder again, and I could tell by the glint in his eye he knew he was embarrassing me. It was a familiar look, though I hadn’t seen it much since high school.
I rolled my eyes and willed my cheeks not to burst into flames.
“No sir, I head out in the morning. But we’ve discovered that Alex and I will be living just about an hour apart, so I expect to see her a lot in the coming months.” He looked at me, an expression like straight lighter fluid rolling off his face and fanning the flame of my acute awareness of him.
“Alex, I’ll see you in a few weeks, right? You have my number?” He said this casually as he took me gently by the shoulders and leaned in to kiss my cheek. It was chaste and brief and all of those things that a friend could do, but my father was catching the heat between us since he’d already offered me up for another date before the first one had ended.
Subtle. That was my dad.
“Yes. You will, and yes, I do. Bye for now, Luke,” I said and smiled at him as I followed my dad inside, ignoring my dad’s elbow digging into my ribs.
I bit my cheek so I wouldn’t say anything else before Luke was gone. I heard the storm door clatter closed behind us as my dad held on to me while we walked down the hallway into the kitchen where my mom was cooking. I heard Luke’s door shut, and it occurred to me I should have watched him get in and drive away, but I was evidently incapable of basic social graces at this point, and my dad certainly hadn’t made that easier.
“How is handsome Luke tonight?” I heard my mom’s melodic voice through the sizzling of shrimp in a sauté pan on the stove. I breathed in the smells of garlic and red chilies and took a moment to relish the scene that had been the hallmark of my growing up years. My mother stood at the stove, her wooden spoon in her left hand, her right poised to gesticulate whenever she spoke. Her apron wound around her still-thin middle and tied at her lower back. Her dark hair, still as long as mine, was twisted elegantly to the back of her head and a few small flyaways sprouted from the corners of her forehead. The silver streaks only served to make her look more lovely. They’d been there as long as I could remember.
“He’s looking mighty fine. Grown into a sturdy man, I’d say. Wouldn’t you say Alex?” my dad patted me on the back and then walked to the kitchen island where his glass of wine sat. He turned back to me and waited for my response while he sipped.
“He seems like he’s doing well, yes,” I said, my voice raspy. My mom was eyeing me from her station, poking the shrimp in her pan to flip them. Her right hand was turning off the back eye where linguine boiled, and then she was moving, always doing at least three things at once.
“I see your face is flushed, baby girl. Nothing has changed.” Her words were perfect English, and though she’d only spent stints of time in Italy as she grew up, her parents were Italian and I could still hear a slight accent in her vowel sounds. Her smile was knowing as she dumped the pasta water, all but a few tablespoons that she poured into the sauté pan.
“Si, mama. I suppose it hasn’t.” She knew I’d always felt something for Luke, and she and my dad had noticed how I’d very strategically not discussed the time at the coffee shop or how I felt about our impending friend date before I went out that night. I could tell they wanted to ask, but they knew they would only make me more nervous.
“Luke is going to be living near Alex, love. Can you believe that?” my dad asked my mom. His smile was broad, like he’d orchestrated the whole thing.
“Dimmi!” my mother demanded. Her Italian came out whenever she was excited or mad or… really a lot of any emotion. And because she was an emotional woman, this happened often. I grew up hearing and speaking the language and loving it completely. Hearing it felt like home to me, and it was a small pleasure to be home while she was ordering me around in her first language. Her directive to “tell me” was familiar, and I could think of a hundred times over the years she’d given the order.
“The military base where he lives is in a town about an hour away from Nashville.” I tried not to let the fluctuating tremors of fear and excitement show on my face, but I knew they would see it. I walked to the couch and dumped my purse on the back of one dark brown cushion.
“Compared to a decade, an hour isn’t so far,” she said.
Ah, my mother. The philosopher and dreamer.
“No, it’s not. I’m sure I’ll see him.”
“He seems fairly determined about that,” my dad inserted and rocked back on his heels as he sipped his wine again. He nodded his head at my mother when she raised an eyebrow in question, and at this she pursed her full rosy lips in satisfaction.
“I’m just going to… head to bed. I’ll see you guys in the morning.” I couldn’t make sense of their knowing looks, nor could I think about anything just yet, not having had a moment to breathe by myself and sort through my thoughts.
“Goodnight, baby girl,” my dad cooed as though I was but an infant who needed cooing to soothe me. I gave him an exasperated smile and waved them off as I made for my room before they could exchange another round of eerily pleased glances.
What just happened? I leaned back against the door to my childhood bedroom and stared at the textured ceiling. Yet another turn of events to mimic a high school date—I had survived a (admittedly minimal) parental postmortem, and I now had to process internally for a minute in my room, and then I needed to make a call.
Part of me was thrilled at the discovery Luke was, at least on a physical level, attracted to me enough to want to kiss me, and then definitely plan to see me again soon. Another huge part of me was ecstatic that I’d know someone in the vicinity of Nashville.
But as I stood there, trying to sort through what I did feel, a big part of it was a rapidly darkening shade of dread. I felt incredible dread at the thought of trying to be friends and me not handling it, or going on a few dates because it seemed like we should give it a shot, enduring some uncomfortable physical fumblings, and then finally losing touch with Luke for good after he was inevitably assigned somewhere else or deployed again or whatever
it was that happened to soldiers. Or worse, after we realized it had been over a decade since we’d seen each other regularly, more than that since we’d known each other, and now we were incompatible, or as we likely subconsciously knew even back then, were better as friends.
Or the absolute worst—we’d date, fall in love, and make plans to be together, but I’d be incapable of actually loving him enough to want to do anything other than stick to my own life plan, and I’d destroy him like I had my ex, Marcus. I’d prove to myself that I couldn’t have what my parents had, or what Adriana and her husband Jared had.
I dialed Ellie’s number with one hand while slipping out of my jeans with my other. I hopped around as I pulled the leg of my jeans over my ankle and finally whipped them off and sent them to a pile in the corner of the room. The sweet relief of sweatpants layered over my legs while I waited for her to answer. When she finally picked up, I was bursting.
“I just got back from a date with Luke.” I didn’t even wait for her to say hello.
“That was tonight? Why didn’t you text me? How was it? What did he wear? Did you take a picture with him? Because I need to see an updated image of him so I can properly picture him and assess the situation.” She was already launching into a full review.
“He wore jeans and a button-down shirt, and he was exquisitely and painfully handsome. I think he may have gotten even better looking since I saw him yesterday. We went to this little place in my town I’ve always loved, and I got tacos and beer and we did a lot of talking, and he lives like an hour from Nashville, and he kissed me and asked me to let him help me move in when I get to Nashville.” I plopped down on my bed and stared at the ceiling, my toes curling at the memory of his eyes before he kissed me and his matter-of-fact non-apology when it was over. I’ve wanted to do that since I was about ten.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, he kissed you? He lives in Nashville? This is perfect! You’re going to date him and fall in love and get married and have his babies! Ahhhh!” She yelled into the phone. Yes, my adult best friend was yelling enthusiastically about me having babies.