by Mimi Strong
He stepped in closer to me, as though getting ready to kiss me. I stepped back, saying, “I was dumped at the … um, I went through a bad breakup recently. Someone hurt me.”
“Who would do such a thing?”
“Doesn't matter. The past few weeks have been like a roller coaster.”
“I can imagine.” He kept his distance. “Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it.”
I turned and whistled for the dogs, who were getting a little far away for my liking. Princess came galloping back, her floppy ears flattened by speed.
“This is nice,” I said. “Talking. Walking the dogs. If you were serious about being friends, I could be your friend. Don't tell me you're one of those guys who can't be friends with a woman.”
“I have many women friends.” The grin returned, and the dimples.
“I bet you do.”
For the next two weeks, I saw Zach nearly every night. We didn't plan or discuss it, but he'd be waiting or walking by my apartment building when I came out with Princess for the last walk of the evening, around ten. Instead of a pair of sweatpants, I started glamming up my dog-walking outfits, until I was spending more time getting ready for the dog walk than I did on getting ready for work in the morning.
True to the promise I'd made myself on my honeymoon, I'd been wearing more bright colors, including some of the sexy, stretch-knit dresses from work. Zach always complimented my attire and let his eyes drink me in. If he didn't stare at my mouth, neck, and breasts, I'd be quiet and moody for half the walk.
On the second Friday of our budding friendship, he had a picnic basket with him, and a small bottle of ice wine.
We sat in the dog park and drank the sweet wine as the dogs played. The stars were shining above us. He didn't try to kiss me, and for the first time, I wished he would.
That Russian accent of his got inside my head. He'd moved to America at the age of ten, so he'd been speaking English most of his life, and the accent was not thick. It was, however, just enough to make his voice sound unlike any voice I'd ever heard. For hours after talking with him, I'd hear the sound bouncing around in my consciousness. I'd read a newspaper headline and hear it with Zach's voice.
At night, I'd rub my fingers over top of my panties and I'd think about his lips.
And still, despite all the desire I felt for him, our friendship growing over the last two weeks, he didn't try to kiss me.
I started to wonder what was wrong with me, or him.
He looked up at the stars and said, “Nice and sharp. The stars here are my favorite.”
I thought about grabbing his face with my hands and kissing him myself. I'd been the one who'd insisted we be friends before anything, and grabbing his face would send him a clear signal that it was time for the next step. With the last guy I'd been interested in—Shawn—I'd been so forward, so flirtatious. Being in that small seaside town, far away from home, had made me bold, but the boldness hadn't stuck. Even if I had some friends in Columbus to dress me up in a wig and fancy dress from a Dolly Parton auction, that probably wouldn't be enough to get me past my shyness.
I tried to move toward him, to kiss him, but my body wouldn't move. Perhaps it was the natural effect of being dumped twice within the span of a month; perhaps the constant rejection had made me cautious, and for good reason.
Zach started to gather the wine glasses and snack plates into his basket. I needed a longer amount of time with him, so I could work up the courage.
“I'm painting my apartment tomorrow,” I said. “Got permission from the landlord. Nothing too fancy, just something fresh and pastel.”
“Like an ice cream shade. Sounds good.”
We called the dogs in and started walking back. He lived in a building a block away from mine, and he always walked me home, then doubled back to his place.
I said, “Of course, I've never painted before, so it might be a disaster.”
We walked for a moment in silence.
“I could help!” he said.
“Oh?” I pretended that hadn't been exactly why I'd brought it up.
We made arrangements for him to come over Saturday morning. He'd take Princess over to his apartment so the dogs wouldn't be in the way, and we'd spend the entire day together.
The entire day! I'd been imagining the possibility for the last week. I was excited, but getting a new coat of paint on the apartment was just a tiny part of my excitement.
The apartment was a one bedroom, and it was a compromise. I'd wanted a place with lots of natural light, Lars had demanded space for all his electronics, and this apartment had some light and some wall space for a giant television. We'd passed on a gorgeous corner unit because Lars hated the angled rooms, and between the fireplace and many windows, his television wouldn't fit.
As I tidied the place on Saturday morning, before Zach came over, I caught myself glaring at the enormous flat-screen. When Lars moved his things out after our canceled nuptials, he'd left it behind, as some sort of consolation prize. I felt like smashing the thing, just to spite him, but it was a high-definition screen, and I had to admit movies were better with the surround sound speakers.
Zach arrived at nine in the morning, like a clock striking the hour.
My mouth was dry and I could hear my dry tongue making noises in my mouth as I showed him around the place. I was especially nervous in the bedroom, rushing him back out again. I brought him over to the wall by the kitchen window for an opinion on the paint samples.
Princess sniffed his legs and futzed around his feet until he paid her some attention, even picking her up for some kisses. Lucky girl.
Zach wore sunglasses, aviator style, and when he didn't take them off inside the apartment, it made me even more nervous, like I was talking to a rock star. As he examined the patches of color I'd painted onto the wall by the window, he pushed the sunglasses up on top of his cropped, dark hair, then turned to me. Those pale blue eyes, so icy and ringed by thick dark lashes, took my breath away. He was there, in my apartment. Had I put away all the embarrassing girlie things in my bathroom?
“The brown is a bit dull, in my opinion,” he said. “I'll do brown, if it's what your heart desires, but my money is on this shade.” He ran his fingertips over the pink, which had been my second choice, after the blue.
“Passion it is, then.” I licked my lips with my dry, nervous tongue. “That's the name of the color.”
He gave me a sly smile, the edges of his gorgeous eyes crinkling. “It's the exact same shade as your lips. That must be why I'm drawn to it.”
I gulped.
He pulled the sunglasses back down onto the high bridge of his nose, and we were off, with him leading the way out the door.
We took Princess with us and went to the little paint store that was just a few blocks away.
Zach brought the paint swatch up to the counter and said, “This is the color. I have everything set up, under Mikhelson.”
The young woman at the counter held her hand out to us. “I'll just need the keys, or will there be someone there to let the crew in?”
Zach held up one finger. “Just a moment,” he said, then he turned to me.
“Laura, I was thinking. I've never painted an apartment, and I didn't want you to think any less of me, so I've hired professional painters for the day. We can go back to your place with the painters, and get in their way and make a mess on our clothes, or we can go for a nice drive. We can have lunch, do some shopping, and return to your painted apartment.”
His lips kept moving, assuring me the company painters were bonded and insured, and would do a much better job than we would, both of us being novice painters.
I was so surprised he'd arranged this, but I was also equal parts annoyed.
I said, “This is you acting like a CEO, isn't it?”
His eyes were still hiding behind those mirrored sunglasses. He grinned and said, “Delegating tasks is very important.” I saw my face reflected in his lenses, realized I was scowling, and decided to
put on a friendly smile instead.
“That's very kind of you, but I don't know if I want strangers in my house.”
“Then we'll go to your place and help, as best we can.” He nodded. “I completely understand.”
I pulled out my wallet to pay for the paint, and asked what the painting service was going to cost, but the woman at the counter told me it had all been taken care of.
She seemed amused by the whole situation, and more than a little taken by Zach.
As was I.
With a sigh, I said, “I suppose, since you've gone to the trouble of surprising me with all of this, I should be gracious and accept the gesture.”
He peered at me over the top of the aviator sunglasses. “Lunch and shopping it is, then.”
I took the painting crew of three people over to my apartment and gave them instructions. We'd picked out a bright, cream color for the chipped, beige-painted wood trim around the windows as well as the crown molding. In case they finished before I returned, I gave them the spare key to lock up and slip back under the door.
It felt funny, to leave people working in my apartment, but also liberating. I wondered if that was how Delphinia felt at work, when she dropped a pile of work on my desk and went to a long “lunch,” coming back with a different color on her long fingernails.
I stepped outside, the summer sun making me sneeze.
Zach was waiting in front of my building, in a gorgeous little yellow convertible with the top down. He had the aviator sunglasses on and looked cool as all get-out. Duke sat in the back, happy tongue lolling and wearing the most adorable yellow bandana, matching the flashy sports car. Princess cuddled right up to him and settled in for a ride.
“Nice wheels,” I said as I buckled up and put on my own sunglasses.
“I know. And the car's not bad either.” He tapped the steering wheel. “Ba-dum-dum.”
“Mr. CEO's also a comedian. Interesting.”
Zach revved the engine and pulled out onto the road.
The day was gorgeous—warm, but with enough cloud cover that I wasn't dying for air conditioning. The yellow car turned heads, and I felt like a celebrity, with all the attention. I stared at Zach while he was driving, noting that his temples were flecked with a smattering of gray. His eyes had some small lines at the edges, even when he wasn't grinning, and I wondered how old he actually was. The dimples made him look twenty-five, but the gray made me wonder if he wasn't closer to forty.
By the time we'd gotten to Grandview Heights, I'd worked up the nerve to ask. Sorta.
I said, “What year did your family move to America?”
“I'm thirty-eight,” he said with a chuckle. “That is what you're trying to figure out, is it not?”
“You got me!”
“And?”
“I'm twenty-seven,” I said.
“Perfect!” he said, and that was good enough for me. If he didn't have a problem with eleven years, neither did I.
We parked in front of some quaint little Grandview Heights shops, in a spot with shade for the dogs. We took them out for a stroll and a drink of water, then secured them in the car and started shopping.
I found some hand-made pottery that perfectly matched the paint chip in my pocket. Zach insisted on holding the mugs up to my lips for his own personal color match.
“Mine and yours,” he said, and insisted on paying for the two mugs.
We had lunch at a dodgy-looking restaurant tucked in along a side street. Everything about the place looked run-down, but it was crammed full of people. The food was incredible, and I stuffed myself with my sandwich and salad, plus all the tastes Zach insisted I have of his meal.
After lunch, we wandered around some more, in and out of gift shops and antique flea markets. Zach seemed to actually enjoy walking and shopping, and not just humoring me. He didn't pull out his phone or check the time once.
My ex, Lars, would have regarded the entire day out in Grandview Heights as a personal favor to me. In fact, he would have referred to the outing as a “three-blowjob-date,” meaning I'd owe him. Lars was kind of a dick.
With great self-restraint, I did not mention Lars at all.
We visited “the competition,” a little ice cream shop. The tiny store with the old-fashioned awning and the vintage jukebox inside reminded me of Shawn. To my surprise, however, the memory gave me a good feeling, not a sad one. He wasn't the boy who dumped me; he was the boy who'd given me incredible sex on the beach and made me believe I could love again. He'd reminded me that being with a guy, starting a new relationship, could feel exhilarating.
I tasted a sample of lemon-flavored ice cream on a plastic, paddle-shaped spoon. Zesty and rich, it was nearly as good as Shawn's. I wondered what he was doing, but then Zach grabbed my hand and put the remaining bit of ice cream on my spoon into his mouth, holding my fingers in his. His touch was invigorating, and I didn't think about Shawn again for several hours.
Zach took his time with each flavor sample, closing his eyes first to smell the ice cream, opening his eyes to give it a visual inspection, and then closing them again when he tasted. With his eyes shut, I took the opportunity to stare at his beautiful mouth and think about kissing him.
We both agreed the fruit flavors were the best ones on offer, and I ordered kiwi for myself, while Zach had strawberry-mango, the color of it not unlike what was being painted on my walls back home.
After the ice cream, we took the dogs to a nearby park, and they had fun sniffing around a new territory and meeting other pups.
“So, why Columbus?” I asked. “Why open Butter Spoons in Ohio and not in, say, New York?”
Zach was sitting next to me on a bench overlooking the duck pond. “It's one of America's most typical cities. A lot of restaurant chains roll out test menus in Columbus, as market research. That's changing now, but it's still a good place to try new things.”
He turned toward me and traced his finger along the top side of my arm. His touch was electric, pulling all my focus to a few inches of skin on my arm. I stared at his lips, and instead of my mouth going dry with nerves, it watered with the desire to kiss him.
“What about you?” he said. “Why aren't you in New York, working in the fashion industry there?”
I laughed, and then stopped, perplexed. Why, indeed? “I don't know,” I said.
Up until recently, the answer had been because Lars would never want to move. His family was in Columbus, and he ran a business installing custom car stereos. He never wanted to leave, and until Zach asked me, overlooking the duck pond, I hadn't realized I was still following his plan, not mine.
Zach's fingers ran up my arm and then down again. The late afternoon sunshine was on us, dappled by the large tree's leaves overhead. I was energized by the walking and fresh air, and was he ever going to kiss me?
He pushed his sunglasses up onto his head and gave me a serious look, first at my eyes, then at my lips. He leaned in and kissed me, so lightly I could barely feel it over the distraction of my pulse pounding in my head.
People milled around us, riding their bicycles and walking their dogs, unaware that it was happening. Zach and I were having our very first kiss.
His lips were sweet, still imbued with strawberry and mango. I melted into him, allowing his lips and tongue to do anything they wanted to mine.
I was wearing shorts, and his hands came to rest on my bare thighs, his palms hot and heavy. I moaned into his lips and kissed him back, not caring that we were in public. His fingertips moved up my legs, sliding under the loose hem of my shorts, stroking the soft skin of my inner thighs.
The feminine parts within my panties became hot and swollen, tingling and sending ideas and images to my mind. My thighs parted of their own will, inviting those hands to travel up, to explore. Fingers grazed the hem of my cotton panties, and then moved over them, finding that place, that special place, just over top of the swollen nub. Over the panties, his fingers stroked me, up and down, then gently pressed down and
rolled in tiny circles. An electrical surge radiated out from the spot, as though I was plugged directly into pleasure, mainlining it.
I gasped and pulled back from him, moving a foot away on the bench.
He glanced around and shifted his position, crossing one leg over the other.
“Look over there,” he said, gesturing with his chin.
I followed his gaze to another bench, also along the edge of the duck pond. Two teenagers were making out, the girl straddling the boy's lap and grinding against him. My eyebrows shot up and I clapped my hand over my mouth.
“Good thing you pulled back,” he said. “Or I'd have you giving me a lap dance like those two.”
“Never,” I said, laughing, but … I did envy those two teens. They really didn't care about anything but their own pleasure.
Zach asked if I was ready to go home. I was nervous about what might happen when we found ourselves in private. The scared part of me wanted to run away from him, avoiding the possibility of being hurt, but those few seconds of him touching me were seared into my brain and my body's memory. I wanted him to touch me again. All over. I wanted him to touch my breasts and lick my nipples, closing his eyes with the same sensual enjoyment he had when tasting ice cream.
When we walked into my apartment, I actually thought for an instant I was in the wrong place. The space looked incredible with the addition of Passion, the new paint color that was the same shade of pink as my lips. The paint was quick-drying and low-VOC. With the windows open, I could barely smell a hint of it.
The crew had put the furniture back in the wrong spaces, with everything oriented to the picture window instead of the big television. The new layout looked incredible. I was shocked and a little embarrassed I hadn't figured out that furniture arrangement myself.
A big vase of flowers sat on the living room coffee table. They were only cheap and cheerful daisies, but they brought life to the space, which was exactly what I'd wanted.
No sooner had I set down my purse and taken an admiring look around than Zach had me in his arms. We kissed again, and it was like the kiss in the park, only better, because we didn't have to stop out of propriety.