Still looking at the photo, Natalie found she didn't have a single rejoinder.
Chapter Seven
Natalie scanned her day's calendar and didn't censor herself before texting Evan: "I've got a closing near Black Gold at eleven. You free for coffee this morning?"
She hit 'send,' telling herself her only aim was to clear up her role in his dad's son stalking. They hadn't talked since the day her mom's photo of the Lees rode roughshod over her emotions.
He replied. "You sell a house? Kudos! I was going that way about ten anyway. See you there."
She got held up answering an agency email that boiled down, as so many did, to Carter's undermining everyone in the sneaky way that made him hard to pin down. He had an innocent explanation for everything, and a gross smirk for anyone who challenged him. Natalie typed every message to him with an abundance of caution and a curdled stomach.
Seeing Evan standing inside the door of Black Gold, watching the foot traffic pass by, lightened her mood. Especially when his crow's feet crinkled up as he spotted her. She floundered to explain her sudden cheer, and decided it was because she'd escaped from one of the biggest stressors in her life and he was symbolic of her temporary freedom from dealing with office politics.
It was plausible.
"Did I keep you waiting? Sorry, I should have texted."
"No worries. I've just been here a minute." He leaned in and kissed her cheek.
He'd never done that before.
She kissed his cheek in return.
She'd never done that before, either.
It appeared to be a day for new things.
Since it was a day for new things, things like the lingering warmth on her cheek from his lips, and the knowledge his shave was very close indeed, Natalie went with the flow when Evan's hand landed on her lower back to guide her to the counter. Who was she to object to new things?
Evan proved to be the man of routine he'd promised. He ordered a Cubano and admitted he'd been in at least twice a week for the same thing since she first introduced him to the coffee shop. "I'll make a point of not sharing my orange scone with you, then, in case you can't resist next time, and end up blaming me for the extra calories in your diet."
He snorted. "What makes you think I'm on a diet?"
"People have diets without being on diets, Evan. Even if they don't think about it much, they still consume food. There's no insult in admitting it."
"I'm not insulted."
"You sound insulted." Damn but he was fun to bait. They found a vacant table and sat.
"I don't count my calories. Is there something wrong in saying so?"
She relented. "Well, it's a good thing you didn't admit it to my mom, but no, of course not."
"Your mom's tiny, though."
Yeah. She'd noticed. She'd outweighed her mom since her sixth grade growth spurt.
He chewed his cheek a second then added, "I don't mean anything rude."
Natalie settled back in her chair and kept eye contact while she took a large bite of her scone, watching to see how much he squirmed. Funny how quickly her plan to give him a break had broken.
Evan reached over, broke off a corner of her pastry, and popped it into his mouth, not looking away as his cheeks bulged.
Natalie's eyes narrowed and she bit half of what was left. Before she managed to put the remainder on her plate, Evan had snatched it and crammed it in his mouth. He had crumbs on his lower lip and chin. By rights, it shouldn't have been endearing. They made exaggerated chewing motions at each other, real cow-with-cud acting, and she could barely swallow the food, much less the laughter bubbling up inside her. Grabbing a napkin before she ended up spewing scone across the table, Nat shoved the empty plate across the table at him.
The woman was hilarious. She'd ruined her glossy lipstick wiping away the crumbs, and Evan realized it was the first time he'd seen their natural plummy shade. He liked it.
He liked her. Good thing he wasn't looking to date and could just enjoy her friendship. He could think of her like one of his sisters-in-law: great company, objectively attractive, but not a swimmer in his dating waters. Ha. As if Ben's wife Tara or Danny's wife DJ would let him get away with such blatant lies to himself. Take away the parental interference, the smart-ass siblings, and his lingering sense Natalie wasn't quite honest with herself about not having a five-year plan, and he'd be asking her out on a real date.
But since none of that had disapparated, Evan grinned and asked, "Should I get another?"
"Nah. That hit the spot. And I get to leave knowing you have to buy a scone every time you come here, which is more satisfying than any baked good."
"Remind me to invite your mom over more often. I like this manic side of you she brings out."
Natalie slumped and picked up her coffee, rotating the cup slowly between her hands. "So. That's the reason I wanted to meet you today."
He winced inwardly at her subdued tone. After the constant teasing they'd been doing, he hadn't thought his comment about Elaine would be so sharp a barb. While her mom had been manipulative, Evan had figured he and Natalie both knew the score going in. "I like her, you know. Your mom. I'm glad my parents met her. They spent so many years focused on raising the five of us, and working, and becoming grandparents. They neglected to go outside our enclosed world. It's fun to see them developing friendships now they're semi-retired."
Natalie glanced up from her drink. The amused glint in her eyes was gone, but her spine had relaxed a fraction. "Thanks. I like Marisa and Koray, too. They were a little overboard about--well, you know, about us--but so was Elaine. When we got off that topic, I enjoyed talking to them. Your dad was so funny about my shoes. Did you hear about them?"
Evan shook his head. His parents had emailed frequently from Turkey with reports on their tour, sending photos and the occasional dictate to Ben about taking care of their house. Told everyone the story of visiting the Mevlevi Dervish Monastery on their anniversary, with pictures of the book of Rumi's poetry Natalie had everyone inscribe for them. And they'd gossiped about the others in their tour group, not just Natalie and Elaine. There'd been two middle-aged married couples who apparently took their swinging lifestyle on the road. Evan now knew far more than he'd ever hoped to about his dad's unflappability. A couple called Drew and Leo had colonized the back of the bus with the Easts and the Lees. Drew had loaned Natalie one of his Bahaman shirts when her luggage was lost--Chloe's text offering a makeover arrived on the heels of an email showing Natalie in the borrowed shirt. Most of their emails mentioned Natalie, though none discussed shoes.
"Okay," Natalie said, sitting forward and returning her cup to the table. "So my suitcase was stuck in Paris, and we were hopping from village to town, with surprisingly limited shopping options. A couple of my mom's things almost fit, and I bought or borrowed some shirts, but the more of Cappadocia we explored, the more the slip-ons I'd worn for the flight fell apart. And Mom's feet are way smaller than mine. I don't know why I hadn't thought to get new shoes in Istanbul. I guess it was fuzzy thinking from jet lag and the foolish hope my own stuff would show up soon. When we got to this one town, Hacibektas, Zaide, our guide, took part of the group hot-air ballooning while the rest of us explored the town. So Mom and I were strolling, and your dad came hustling out from some side street. Do you speak Turkish?"
He waggled his hand. "A tiny bit. I understand more than I speak. The twins are almost fluent. Suck ups."
Natalie laughed. Her storytelling was enchanting. She kept gesturing with her left hand, but her right arm rested immobile on the table. It was like she was half-contained, half-wild. Evan commanded his thoughts to go no further along those lines.
"Well, I'm sure they'd have been impressed with your dad in Hacibektas. He'd found a shoe shop. It was tiny, but it had tennis shoes. And socks! I was so pleased to have socks of my own. Can you picture spending a week wearing borrowed socks? It's not tragic, I know, but somehow it galled me. So I managed to select some new socks by
myself, but my Turkish is, like, 'evet' and 'hayir' and 'teşekkür ederim.' Koray, though, was in his element, chatting away. He even explained about my high arches. I mean, I speak decent Spanish, but could I ask for zapatos con arch support? No way."
He smiled at the thought of Natalie negotiating her way through a village market saying "thanks" and "no." She would beguile vendors with her brisk cheer, and emerge with everything she wanted.
"Your dad kept claiming his Turkish was rusty. I wouldn't know the difference, but Zaide always understood him. I do know I floated through the four-hour hike through a Tufa rock canyon that afternoon. Hang on. Koray got Marisa to take a picture of us with the shoe salesman." She slipped her phone out of her handbag and started navigating through it. "We deleted a lot of the photos of me from the early part of the trip. Some of them were excruciating. But since you've basically seen me at my worst in all those emails from your parents, I can bear to show you this one."
Chapter Eight
He took the phone. Nat resisted the urge to snatch it back. She knew she focused overmuch on her appearance. On turning the mass of her hair smooth and elegant, on contouring her face with cosmetics, on tailoring her clothes and updating her accessories. In that regard, the Turkey trip had been an epic fail. But the most surprising aspect of her often-bedraggled state during the trip was Elaine's reaction.
Natalie's earliest memory was preschool picture day. Elaine pulled her out of bed early and made her stand, head dangling over the kitchen sink, to have her hair scrubbed with baby shampoo. Then she sat Nat on the breakfast table and sprayed each section of damp hair with detangler before raking through it with a fine-toothed comb. In those days, her hair was curly, but not thick. If it was dripping wet, Elaine could secure it in French braids that pressed tight to her scalp. It was Natalie's job to sit still, not complain about the water seeping through her nightgown, and pass back bobby pins and elastic ties on command.
They'd been late to school, making Natalie miss story time. She was sneaky enough to wait until Elaine had driven off before taking her anger out on the pink and yellow plaid hair ribbon which matched both her dress and the photographer's springtime bouquet prop. Natalie never asked, but she didn't put it past Elaine to have discovered the color scheme in advance. At pick-up she'd lied, telling Elaine the bow got dirty and mangled during afternoon playtime. A week or so later, the photographer's proofs were in Natalie's cubby, and they hadn't made it as far as the porch before Elaine was dragging her back inside to talk to the director. Nothing Ms. Menefee said calmed the purple rage on her mother's face.
Natalie didn't remember the exact conversation about losing sweets for the rest of the school year, or precisely what her mom said when she hung the eleven by fourteen inch print of Natalie's mulish face and half-askew braids beside the full-length mirror in Natalie's bedroom. But Elaine so consistently ended her tucking-in routine with a pause to give the photo a light thump right on her four-year-old forehead that Nat had to climb out of bed and thump it herself if her mom forgot. It was part of how she put the day behind her.
At eleven, the year she grew taller than Elaine, Natalie hid the photo under her bed. The next year, her feet had outgrown her mother's. By high school, she weighed more, and Elaine stopped stocking carbs and sugar in the house. She ensured her daughter's clothes and hair were impeccable. And as the gallery of Natalie aged five to eighteen lining her mother's hallway attested, she photographed beautifully. She'd learned back in tenth grade to be vigilant when she and Elaine were shot together. Standing side-by-side, Natalie loomed over Elaine like some sort of inflated doppelganger, but if they sat for photos, or if Natalie stood behind a seated Elaine, the inevitable comparisons weren't tinged with pity.
They looked too much alike, was the problem. Elaine's hair was a hell of a lot sleeker than the mane of crazy Natalie had inherited from her dad, but otherwise they had the same coloring, the same triangle face, the same general build. So Natalie was a younger version of Elaine, but on steroids. Five inches taller and two sizes wider.
It had taken a good bit of her twenties to get there, but Natalie had accepted her build. No amount of cardio, freaking out, or dieting would shrink her down to Elaine proportions. How fitting that once she accepted their disparity, Natalie got stuck in Asia with a single change of clothes.
Her mom tried, in her way, to help. She unpacked every item from her suitcase, considering each but setting aside only a few things, and ignoring Nat's expression when she thrust the leggings and two shirts at her.
"Mom."
"I know, I know. But try them on."
"Mom, they're never going to fit."
Elaine ran a soothing hand over the pants. "You'll be fine. These are roomy, and they have an elastic waistband."
"Which is only useful if they go over my hips."
"Natalie. Try. The. Pants. On."
"Fine." She took them and headed to the hotel bathroom. "But only so you'll stop using Mom Voice on me."
She squeezed into the leggings. They were not flattering. In the least. But she could breathe, and crouch down, and none of the seams got too personal with her privates. She couldn't button the shirts, she'd found a t-shirt from Istanbul's bazaar that covered her butt. Natalie wasn't sure anyone in Turkey was prepared for the sight of her ridiculous mismatched outfit, but it gave her another day's respite from the laundry.
So it's what she'd been wearing while buying the neon orange sneakers. But she'd been unable to resist Koray's request they pose with the salesman in front of the store, showing off their new shoes. The whole experience had been too fun and unique and silly for even Elaine to suggest deleting the photo.
They uploaded the day's photos before bed each night, eliminating duplicates and unflattering shots. Most of the latter were of Natalie, who'd spent the entire trip regretting her failure to get her hair straightened before departure. But not once, scrolling through the Turkey photos together, had Elaine thumped any of Natalie's digitized foreheads.
Evan took Natalie's phone and felt his face split wide in a grin to mirror the one his dad wore in the photo. Koray looked delighted with himself, one arm around Natalie and the other around a man slightly younger than him, whose smile was almost hidden by his large mustache.
He traced his finger along the picture of Natalie's upraised chin and cheeks curved in pleasure. How had he missed, in earlier photos, the green of her eyes? Even in her shapeless Istanbul! shirt, with wild hair he had yet to see untamed in person, her bright smile and brighter eyes were, well, the brightest things about the pic. Even brighter than her new shoes. "You're adorable," he said before thinking twice about his words.
She grabbed back her phone. "Very funny."
At her sharp retort, Evan examined her expression. "I mean, don't let my parents know I said so, but I was serious. You have to know you're attractive."
Her narrowed eyes tightened into a proper glower. "I clean up well. But my vision's twenty-twenty. I know how I looked on that trip. Even after my luggage arrived, it took days for my damn mess of hair to settle down. So don't bullshit me."
Evan sat back, never breaking eye contact while the gears turned in his head. Since their first phone call, he'd known Natalie teemed with land mines. Problem was, they'd started getting along so well, he'd let down his guard. Time to put the guard back on active duty.
"Full disclosure," he said. "I'll admit I was superficial and questioned my parents' choice when they started emailing about you during the trip. They made you out to be kind and smart and easy to talk to, which you are, but didn't explain about the lost suitcase. I get I shouldn't judge, and fashion sense isn't important next to all your other good qualities, and I was being a jerk. So I wasn't open to the idea of us dating from the start. Not that I'd have been open if I'd seen you as you are now. The whole matchmaking parents situation means we can't go there. Point is, much as I admire the cut of those trousers and your hot power heels, you don't need the sleek exterior for me to think you're
adorable. I like the photo because you're laughing in it, I can see it in your eyes, and you draw me in. Would I ask you out if I met you now, if not for the interference? Hell, yes. Would I have asked you if I'd met the version of you in that picture? I think that answer is yes, too. I mean, I won't, not with your mom around to watch our every move, but don't doubt me. You're hot. We're just friends, so I won't tell you all the crude things I've thought about you, but a cheesy tourist t-shirt isn't nearly enough to silence my baser self."
He could only look at her for three seconds before directing his embarrassed attention to his coffee. Idiot. What kind of horny asshole tells a friend he has crude thoughts about her? It had been too long since his last fling.
Natalie, though, softened towards him. Her shoulders settled down and she unpursed those gloss-free lips. "Okay. Thanks. I won't bother returning the favor. You know exactly how well you wear those fine suits of yours, and I've no doubt you'd have still been sexy in too-tight shirts and bed-head if you were the one with lost luggage."
He waited, but she didn't go on. Didn't say anything about his featuring in her sex fantasies. Didn't elaborate on her opinion of his wardrobe. Shame. He'd have enjoyed a little oversharing about Natalie's crude thoughts, the chance to compare and contrast to his.
She kept it classy, though. "Getting back to my original point--and sorry for derailing with my self-image issues--I need to apologize to you. Back in Turkey, like I told you, I set up an alert for your dad. I didn't realize I was crossing a boundary you might have established, since it was modifying what he'd already done."
Evan shook his head. "Look, it's no problem. Don't think twice about it. Dad's snooping is legendary in my family. He's not interfering or mean. I think he hates to be the last to know anything, especially about his kids, so it's one way to keep himself in front of the story. We're lucky most of our childhoods were pre-internet."
Eye of the Tiger Page 6