Mentally, I try to command him to move. At some point between the airing of the second episode and now, he has had his hair cut. I miss the way the tips would curl. Neither of us has moved. While I search his appearance for changes from the last time I saw him, he smiles patiently at me.
He needs to move. Clearly, I need to invest more time trying to become telekinetic. He’s near enough to smell. If the cologne he wears ever considers rebranding itself, I will recommend desire as its new name. He needs to move or speak, mainly move. I’m between a door and a hard body.
He breaks the silence. “I missed you.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted to touch another human being as much in my life. How do I know he won’t pop like a bubble and disappear?
I should have replied by now. I know this. He knows this.
Taking a step back, he allows a greater expanse of distance to separate us. As much as I wish him near me, his presence overwhelms me. The distance, though bittersweet, is necessary.
It is when I step down, and my vision focuses on not just Luke but the rest of the world around him, that I see his car.
Pointing, I exclaim, “Is that the same car?”
Luke beams, stepping off the sidewalk to caress the hood. “Yep, my buddy, Clay, worked on her while I was away.”
The dull, various toned, primer gray finish has been covered with a shiny navy blue paint job. Where the chrome details were lost before, now they stand out beautifully.
“It looks amazing,” I gush.
“Should we go for a ride?”
My mouth drops. Go, as in away from my house-sized security blanket?
He’s eyes soften, my panic clear, even to him.
“That wasn’t my plan for today.” He steps back onto the sidewalk. “Let’s go for a walk.”
I can do a walk.
The last time we walked, it was side by side. We had worked our way up to that nearness. After a month of not being physically near him, it is almost too much to walk beside him. Matching his stride to mine, he does not let me fall behind him. There clearly will be no going back.
The sound of people, children, hits my ears before we reach the mouth to the field. I glance up at Luke, confused.
“We don’t have to get near anyone, but I think you might enjoy this,” he remarks, cryptically.
As the field becomes visible, the volume grows. There’s a soccer game in progress. One mighty pint-sized team versus another. Each sideline is packed with parents and siblings in folding camp chairs.
“My nephew plays peewee soccer and I’ve always had fun watching him play. I thought you might enjoy it as well.”
I freeze, and stammer, “Is your nephew one of these players?”
He shakes his head, gulping before quickly explaining he knows none of the players, or people here today. We are completely anonymous spectators here to watch the hijinks of four year olds trying to play soccer. For a split second, I was terrified he wanted me to meet his family. I can barely handle his presence.
He leads us closer to the field, but away from most of the people. Unzipping his hoodie, he pulls out a small blanket.
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he admits, explaining why he hid it.
Laying it onto the ground, he motions for me to sit down. If I sit first, how will I know where he will sit? Purposefully, I sit near the very edge of one corner. Luke quirks an eyebrow at me but doesn’t call me out on it.
Before long, I’m captivated by these tiny players. Their movements are so enduringly clumsy. Having no connection to either team, I’m free to cheer for them both, silently of course, as to not draw any attention to myself.
The blanket, while soft, does little to cushion my rear from the hard ground. Needing to reposition myself, I unwittingly move closer to Luke. Two things alert me to my potential mistake. First, I can smell him again, over the scent of freshly cut grass that had before blocked the allure of his scent; and secondly, he shifts infinitesimally toward me.
I stiffen, hyperaware of the exact distance between his hand and mine. All of my other senses dull as touch, or lack of, overwhelms me. My fingers flex and straighten as though willing themselves to lengthen and meet his. My face turns, as his does the same, away from the field, to focus on his eyes instead.
If he were to kiss me right now, would I stop him?
A loud shout breaks our spell. Luke’s head turns first before he jumps out, knocking a ball from my path. We both watch as the ball moves back toward the field. After a moment, the game resumes. Luke stands, looking down at me before sitting again.
He wipes his hand across his face, keeping his eyes on the field. “It would have seriously sucked if that ball had hit you.”
I can’t help but laugh. It’s a nervous burst; I don’t truly find his words funny. It struck me how awful it must be for him to worry and feel responsible for my every moment outside of my house. The pressure he has to feel, wondering if one mistake will send me back in to my home never to venture out again.
The way I’m reacting, allowing fear to invade our time together is unfair to him. Once he called me brave, it’s about time I started acting like it. Giving myself a brief mental pep talk of you can do it, I move. To the casual observer my movement is most likely unnoticed. To Luke, it is not. The second my pinkie finger touches his; he drops his head and inhales.
It’s the first time in over nine years I am skin to skin with someone I’m attracted to. I experience every cliché imaginable, my skin tingles, my heart races, a horde of butterflies take flight in my gut, my throat tightens, and my vision is hazy. Even with all of these reactions, I’m afraid.
I have hidden from people as a way to protect myself for so long, out of fear. Now that I’ve decided to try to trust Luke, I’m more scared than I’ve ever been. He has coiled himself so tightly into my life, that were he to leave, I would be torn apart. So much so, I might never recover.
The warmth of not only his fingertip, but also his gaze, makes the risk seem worth it.
“Close your eyes.”
My eyes widen instead.
I gulp. “Why?”
“I won’t hurt you. Trust me on this,” he urges.
It’s not as though he intends to blindfold me. If anything makes me uncomfortable, I can reopen them. My eyes hold his. Silently, he waits for me to relent. As my eyes slowly close, I focus on the beauty of the sunlight on his face.
The black behind my lids holds no interest in comparison to what I could be looking at.
“Does the game seem louder now?” he asks.
At his question, my focus drifts from what I can’t see to what I can hear. There’s laughter, cheering, chatter, and grunts coming from the field. There’s birdsong and a subtle whoosh of a breeze moving around us.
“It does.”
“Did you ever think you could be sitting this close to a group of strangers?”
Shaking my head, I open my eyes.
Two rows of bright white teeth are revealed as he grins at me. “Did I say you could open your eyes?”
Blushing, I close them again.
“What are you thinking?”
Before his question, I was innocently thinking his smile was beautiful, and different from any other smile I’ve ever seen from him. It was so genuine, bringing his entire face into the act, lines crinkling around his eyes. After my eyes closed, the image of his face so fresh in my mind, I wondered if he would kiss me.
“Are you going to answer me?”
“You have a beautiful smile,” I blurt.
“Thank you.” The tip of his finger moves back and forth gently against mine.
Half of an inch of skin against mine and powerful enough to make me shiver.
“Are you cold?”
“I lied.”
My eyes open, locking on his. “I wasn’t thinking about your smile when you asked that question. I was wondering if you would kiss me.”
All of the sounds around us fade away as his smile drops. His
eyes move back and forth from my mouth to my eyes as he wets his lips. The butterflies that moments ago fluttered in my stomach have now melted together into a solid mass that drops like a weight in my gut. The only thing keeping me from squirming is the fear of losing our connection.
He lifts his other hand, reaching toward my face before pausing his hand midair, and then dropping it back to his side.
“Do you want me to kiss you?”
The ability to speak leaves me as my throat tightens and my mouth drops.
He smiles again, only this one is half the intensity as his other smile. This smile is his way of admitting defeat.
“When you’re ready to be kissed, you’ll kiss me.”
“Me?” I squeak.
He nods, his eyes crinkling as he lifts his brows.
“But—” I start to argue.
He shakes his head, looking very pleased with himself.
“What if I can’t?”
He turns to look back at the game, my eyes following his as they land on a young player who has fallen on the field. Together we watch as a player from the other team helps him stand back up.
“What you can and can’t do is up to you, Lindsay. Either way, I’ll be here.”
Lifting my hand, losing his contact, I pull my knees to my chest and hug myself. “Until you get bored and find another girl to fix.”
His face snaps toward mine. “Where’s this coming from?”
I shrug. “Why else would you be interested in me?”
Dragging his hand across his face, he groans. “I thought we were past this.”
Despite her assurances, I could tell we weren’t past her insecurities when it came to my feelings for her. When the soccer game ended, after folding up the blanket I brought, I walked her back to her house.
“I was thinking we could try going out to dinner for our next date.”
Standing outside her doorway, I wait for her body to react. With her reunion coming up, she needs to get more comfortable around strangers if she is ever going to go. I could find a small restaurant nearby, since I’m not sure how she would feel about riding in the car.
She hesitates before nodding in agreement. The fact this beautiful woman trusts me does something to me. I’m her protector, her guardian; I’d slay dragons for her. I want to kiss her, pull her into my arms, and mold her body to mine.
It’s too soon for that though. I’ll take the victory of her fingertips reaching out to touch mine and be content with that. Her affection for me will be earned and freely given, not taken.
“I’ll have to check online, but if there aren’t any restaurants within walking distance, are you okay with me driving to one?”
She wets her lips, her eyes sliding past me to my car. “I’d like to go for a car ride, but could we stay nearby?”
Her eyes meet mine again; my fingers itch to brush a strand of her wheat blonde hair behind her ear. “Of course.”
She relaxes, smiling brightly. “You know what I should and shouldn’t eat, so it’ll be fun to go out to dinner.”
No fear, only excitement at going out with me. If she’ll let me, someday I want to be the man who erases all her fears and self-doubt.
“Does Wednesday night work?”
“It’s a date,” she beams.
Time slows as I can do nothing but look at her. She is so different from the women at the gym. There is no illusion or falseness to her.
On my drive home, Sasha calls.
“Hey, Sash.”
“Dad emailed me.”
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “Excuse me.”
She gulps. “He saw you on TV and wants to reconnect with us.”
“Bull.”
“Luke, he’s only asking for us to meet him for coffee.”
It took me weeks after he left finally to accept he wasn’t coming back. I had been so sure his love for us could not have kept him away. Growing up I had been his shadow. After he left, it killed me becoming his replacement. I did everything in my power to fill the void he left in our family.
“Why now?” I snap.
“He’s sick.”
Karma.
“He gets to leave us high and dry; and now he’s sick, he wants our forgiveness?”
“Holding a grudge isn’t going to make you feel any better.”
“He lied to all of us. What makes you think he isn’t lying right now by telling you he’s sick?”
“I want to meet him. Please, will you come with me? He wants both of us there.”
“Both of us? What about Nat, Jenn, or Melissa? Does he even know he’s a grandfather?”
“His email only mentioned us. I don’t know if he’s already tried contacting them separately.”
“Have you said anything to Mom?”
She gasps. “Of course not.”
This conversation has me so distracted I almost miss my exit. “That’s the thing. You shouldn’t feel like that. Did he tell you not to tell Mom he contacted you?”
There’s a long pause. “He did say he didn’t want to hurt her.”
“Too late for that, and he didn’t only hurt her; he hurt all of us.”
How quickly an afternoon could change. With one phone call, I’ve gone from the high I felt being with Lindsay to being that abandoned small boy all over again. If you leave your family, you shouldn’t turn up years later because you’re sick.
This is his selfish nature shining through. This isn’t about us. If he is actually sick, then this is some personal attempt at clearing his conscience. He’s worrying about himself, not us. If he cared one iota about us, he would have stayed gone.
I can’t let her face him alone though. Sasha was so young when he left; I get why seeing him would be important to her. I won’t know what his true reason for trying to come back into our lives is until I see him face to face. Even though that’s the last thing I want to do, I’ll do it for Sasha.
“I’ll go, but promise me you’ll trust me if I get a bad vibe from him.”
I can practically hear her smile through the phone. “Thank you, Luke.”
I’m parking by the time we hang up. She’s my baby sister. I’d do anything for her.
After walking Loki, I spend the rest of my afternoon searching places I could take Lindsay on Wednesday. I don’t want it to be anywhere crowded, but the food needs to be good. I check out reviews on a few places before texting her to see if she’d be up for sushi.
She replies immediately that sushi sounds good. I email her the link to the restaurant so she can look at pictures of it online. My hope is that if she has a chance to familiarize herself with it before we get there, it will be less scary.
It’s been years since I’ve gone out on an actual date. I’ve met up with women, hung out with women, and gone home with women plenty of times. It’s clear to me now something was missing in all of those interactions. I had been lazy in my pursuit, and they had deserved better than me.
There’s no way I could treat Lindsay the same way I have treated other women in the past, not that I mistreated them. Nothing about them made me work to spend time with them. My time with Lindsay takes planning; it takes the intention on my part to make it happen. Whatever walls she’s built around herself make the time we spend together my responsibility to create.
There’s a balance I have to respect as well. I don’t want to push her; I want to encourage her to come to me instead. I’m no virgin, but the simple brush of her fingertip against mine was one of the most erotic experiences of my life. There was no accident in her movement. She touched me.
Not long before bed, I get the text from Sasha with when and where we’re meeting our dad for coffee. It’s this Tuesday night. I text her back to let her know I’m calling Mom. Sasha doesn’t want to tell her we’re meeting him, but if our mom ends up finding out from someone other than us, it’ll hurt her.
She still loves our dad, or at least I assume she does. When he left, she was heartbroken; but not once in all of the
time he’s been gone, has she ever spoken one word against him. That’s all I have to go on. If she hated him, I figure we would have known about it.
She doesn’t answer her cell or her home phone. I leave a message for her at home. She thinks her cell phone is only for emergencies, so she rarely turns it on unless she has to call someone. My sisters and I have tried to explain to her when she turns it off we can’t call her.
She doesn’t return my call until the next day.
“Dad contacted Sasha, and I’m going with her to meet him for coffee on Tuesday.”
There’s a long pause. I’m about to see if she’s still there when she answers.
“How long has your father been in touch?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think long.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No, but I told Sasha I’d go with her, for her. I have no desire to see him.”
“Will you call me afterward?”
I close my eyes. “If you want me to.”
“I do.”
I decide to change the subject. “I’m taking Lindsay out to dinner Wednesday.”
“Sasha’s friend?”
My mom never forgets a thing. “Yes, but I’m not sure if Sasha knows.”
“Why wouldn’t Sasha know? Is it a secret?”
“It’s not a secret. I’m telling you, aren’t I? I don’t know what Lindsay and Sasha talk about.”
“You must really like this girl.”
“I do; she’s incredible.”
“When will I get to meet her?”
“This will be our second date, Mom. If I don’t scare her off, I’ll see if I can talk her into driving out with me for a visit.”
“Scare her off?”
“Lindsay is shy. Strangers make her nervous.”
“How can she be shy and be friends with your sister? Your sister doesn’t have a shy bone in her body.”
“Maybe they complement each other.”
After we hang up, I do the usual; eat, sleep, walk Loki, work, and do my best to kill time until it’s finally Tuesday night.
Nerves, which make no sense, plague me about seeing my dad again. I have this fear he’ll say it was my fault. That I was the reason he left all of us. Logically, as an adult I get that it had to have been more complicated than that. It doesn’t stop the hurt little kid inside me from fearing it.
Yesterday's Half Truths Page 18