What the heck? Playing along, I sang, “Who is it?”
“Myles Donovan.”
“Myles Donovan, who? We don’t open the door for solicitors,” I joked. His laughter crept through the crack in the door.
“The wedding photographer for Lena.”
When I opened the door, Myles introduced himself, sincerely as if it were the first time we’d met.
“Nice to meet you, Myles. I’m Laila Smart, sister of the bride and maid of honor.” Extending my hand to his already outstretched toward me, the warmth traveled through my body. Quickly, I released his firm grip and welcomed him inside.
“Mrs. Smart—” he started, but corrected himself disapprovingly, with the shaking of my head. “Ms. Smart,” he began again, seeking approval. “The pleasure is all mine.” Then, getting back to our plan, “Care to accompany me on a late afternoon stroll?”
“Mr. Donovan, I would be delighted.”
Even with our mock reintroduction, awkwardness and forced cordiality hovered around us. But, I didn’t mind the silence. Inside, a new me was awakening, more aware of my surroundings than ever before. My senses were renewed. The vibrant oranges and solemn blues of the sun setting, painted picturesque vistas across the mountains in the distance, like the world was a canvas. Gentle breezes whispered lullabies and blew the sweet perfume of summer blossoms through the warm air. As the streetlights came on and the ebbing sounds of children playing were drowned out by cars pulling into driveways, I knew it was what I wanted.
For so long, wanting anything tangible was taboo. The last time I’d let myself truly yearn for something was when I planned on happily ever after with Ethan. But, I’d found out that the aching in my soul for happily ever after was not contingent upon Ethan. I still wanted the home and the kids. The daily routines and family vacations that I had growing up. Sure, I wasn’t crazy about minivans, but I would take it if it meant having all the rest.
Walking in tandem with Myles only confirmed it. I wanted the long walks, holding hands with my husband where no words were required because the most important words had already been spoken. Thinking back to that day at the bridal shop, I remembered how I felt when he turned and looked at me. I felt like the only person in the room that mattered to him, even though I knew he was there with his fiancée. She must’ve been the same woman Mom saw at the post office. Flawless and every bit his perfect match.
I wanted that—the promise to love and be loved. There on the street he was mine, if only for those few stolen moments. We were just enjoying each other’s company and feeling blessed to be with one another. Images of family movie nights with fresh buttery popcorn and warm blankets, or me sitting on a chaise lounge with our daughter, warm, reading good books came to mind. Myles would be watching the game across the room with our son, bonding in father-son time. Or, I could be with our son and he with our daughter. I noticed him staring and instantly I got nervous that I might’ve said all of that aloud.
“This is nice,” he said as if he’d been listening to my thoughts.
“It is,” I safely agreed. “I love this time of year, before it gets too hot.”
“Me, too.” He looked over at me and smiled. “Want to let me in on it?”
“In on what?”
“Whatever you’re over there thinking about—smiling about.”
“Was I smiling?” I asked, embarrassed. I hadn’t realized that I’d let the way I was feeling, show on the outside. Looking down at my jeans, I dusted off a piece of lint, stalling. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“This. All of this!” Winding my hands in a circle between us.
“What about this?” His face softened and my insides melted.
“Everything really. Walking. The air. The color of the sky. The warmth. It’s all so…romantic.” He looked at me, and I tried to recover, hoping I hadn’t overstepped my boundary. “Not you, just everything around us. I mean, I hope to do this with someone one day.” Hurt colored his face and I could feel him withdrawing. Hardening. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying. You’re great, really.” The look remained and there went my foot-in-mouth disease flaring up. “I should just shut up.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.” He wouldn’t even look at me.
Stopping, I turned him toward me. “Please, Myles. Don’t look like that.”
“Look like what?” He blankly stared through me, but fire blazed in his eyes.
“Like you hate me.” Still holding his arms, I peered up at him. “Myles. I’m at a loss here. First, I hated you because of the phone calls, then I saw you at the bridal salon and you were, well, you. Standing there, gorgeous and perfect with your leather jacket and those jeans that fit, in all the right places.”
He smiled.
“I still wanted to hate you there, but I didn’t expect you. Not, that I should have been looking at you in the first place. A bridal salon is not really the place to meet a guy, considering he’s kind of already got wedding plans with someone else.”
“But, Laila—”
“Just let me finish.” I placed my hand gently over his mouth as he resigned to let me. “Then, you show up in my dream. I’ve had this dream a million times and suddenly there you are. Next thing I know, my mother’s trying to fix me up with some creepy photographer she met at the post office and then it turns out you’re the photographer.” Out of breath, I was relieved to get it off my chest. “Phew. I’m sorry. I know you’re engaged and I don’t have the right to be feeling this way or telling you all this, but I just had to let it out. You just keep popping up everywhere.”
“You about done?” We still faced each other, but I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eyes. Gently, he lifted my chin, raising my eyes to his. “Laila. I’m not engaged.”
“What? I saw your fiancée in the dressing room and Mom saw her at the post office.”
And with that, his top blew. “You women are crazy, you know that.” He walked off, throwing his hands up, fingering through his hair, in exasperation. “Somehow, you manage to fabricate your own little stories and truth. Don’t know something? Just make it up. Give yourself a reason to be upset.” He kept pacing back and forth. “I’m a phone-stalker, then I’m engaged. You complain that we don’t know how to ask for directions, but what about you guys? Is it really that hard to ask the question, if you really want to know? Huh? Is it?”
The questions weren’t rhetorical anymore, he’s waited for me to answer, “Uh, no?”
Marching back up to me, with both hands he cupped my face as if we’d known each other for years instead of an hour. “No, Laila. It’s not.” Trying to regain his composure, he exhaled, and began again with a level tone. “I’m not engaged. The woman you and your mother saw, assumed to be my fiancée, that’s Elle, my sister.” His sexy silvery eyes, glazed over. “I’m giving her away at her wedding, since we lost our parents. She’s the only family I’ve got.”
“Myles, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“That’s right, you couldn’t have known. I’m just asking you not to jump to conclusions.” The softness returned to his face and warmed me.
“Okay,” I sincerely agreed.
“Now…” The sexy grin intact. “Tell me about this dream you had about me.”
ELEVEN
Hours flew by like seconds. Cars passed in a blur, like the smeared directions of our conversation. I was completely open. With Myles, I felt the comfort of home and hope. Like dreaming in the midst of good sleep, and five more minutes just wouldn’t cut it. We kept walking, hanging on to the last few sands in the hourglass. Time wasn’t much of a factor for me, but I knew Mom would be expecting us back soon. We were supposed to be focused on Lena’s wedding.
It scared me to be so familiar with someone who was a stranger, in every way. I should’ve been on guard, alert, thinking about what his intentions might be. Still, I remained carefree and oblivious to my surroundings because being near him was the closest thing I�
�d felt to being alive.
Bypassing his question about my dream, we talked about The Sweet Tooth and the reopening. Joy flooded my heart as I spoke about the business and the journey that nearly depleted me. Mostly, we talked about business and family. Lena and her pictures popped into the conversation, off and on. My plans to set up the candy station for her reception seemed to actually pique his interest, as he played twenty questions around it. We tiptoed around every subject that came to mind, but I only wanted to hear about him.
Myles spoke about the time he served with the Marines. Candidly, he told me of all the tours of duty that he’d completed. Life for him had been as mundane as punching the clock. Then, 9/11 launched him into full active duty. I was listening, but I kept zoning out, thinking of how selfish I’d been, moping over my measly little broken heart while he had broken bodies surrounding him daily. He risked his life in the middle of a war fighting for the freedom that I should’ve been enjoying. I hung on every word with urgency. A melancholy undertone laced his voice as he reminisced about the years that had passed. My eyes followed his off into the distance. They told me that he wanted to be more than a name on a memorial monument. If not for himself, for the guys that fought alongside him. Amazingly, he exuded optimism. The sincerest smile lit up his face as he twisted the cross-body strap around to get his camera. Myles slipped and told me the Nikon was the same camera his dad had carried everywhere he went. Though, I was dying to know, I didn’t dare broach the subject of his parents. He scrolled through the camera roll. He and his friends were toasting beers, sharing laughs, building bonds. Only a few people in his squad had survived, and anyone could see that their bond had transcended camaraderie into family.
To listen to him speak, was to watch his gestures and expressions. He was animated and vivacious. Hands flailed about, mimicking and shaping his words into visuals. Creating pictures with his tone, I was in tune with his process, the vision that he used for his photos. It was as if he saw the world in stills, and glimpses of moments, compartmentalizing his memories to be accessed on a whim or in a flashback. From a distance, it was the smile I saw, but as I began to analyze him closely, engraved between the creases were worry and hardship woven into those laugh lines. And, I wanted to know the history behind each one.
Myles noticed me eying him and the focus of my line of vision. “Oh this?” he touched a tenured scar on his right jawbone with his index finger. “I was eight. Christmas day. I got a brand new skateboard and I couldn’t wait to get outside and show off my moves. Of course, Mom made me eat breakfast, shower, and put on warm clothes first.” Envisioning the scene, I nodded along. I knew those days well.
“Finally, I’d made it out there. The street was clear of cars, but all the kids were out there in their new clothes with bikes, scooters, skates, and Big Wheels. So, when I showed up with my Santa Cruz skateboard, in all its silver and black glory and a skull smack dab in the middle of the deck, they thought I was pretty hardcore. Heck, I thought I was hardcore.” We snickered together. Every kid remembers the day when his or her new toy won the cool factor of the neighborhood. “To make a long story short, let’s just say I didn’t end up looking that way when I went home crying.”
“Oh no you don’t. You’re not getting off that easy. What happened?”
“Come on, you don’t need all the details. I’m a man. Let me keep a little of my dignity,” he joked, giving me puppy dog eyes and a pouted lip as he continued.
“Okay. It was just like those old westerns. All the kids scurried to the sidewalks. There might’ve even been whistling winds blowing tumbleweeds down the road. No one dared make a peep, for fear of dealing with me. With the crowd waiting, first I did a regular ollie—”
Confusion must have colored my face, because he defined it for me. “That’s when you jump with the skateboard still attached to your feet. Then, I went into something a little more complicated, the heelflip, when you flip the skateboard over and land with it back in its original position. The intensity was building and I might as well have been on cloud nine because there were little groupies cheering me on and—”
I rolled my eyes, calling his bluff.
“No, seriously.” He chuckled. “Then it happened. I felt so good, I decided to attempt, key word attempt, ‘the grind.’ The plan was to slide along the edge of the curb and ride off into the sunset, while their jaws lay on the ground behind me. What actually happened was me getting the board to the curb and falling forward into one of the bikes on the sideline, leaving a gigantic gash requiring stitches. Man, their jaws were on the ground all right, rolling with laughter. Yeah, but my ego was hurt the worst.”
When I finally caught my breath, I had to add a little gasoline to the fire. “That’s quite the story. I think you missed your calling telling tales around campfires at Crystal Lake.”
In an effort to quickly change the subject and divert attention from himself, he rushed me along. “Your turn.”
“Really? Are we doing this?”
“Yep!”
“All right, but I’m not a raconteur like you. See this scar here on my elbow?” I twisted my arm into a more advantageous angle for him to see. “You may not believe me, but it came from powder-puff football.” I paused to detect any sarcastic disbelief on his part, but he was listening attentively, so I continued. “I played one year, before I was accused of exuding unsportsmanlike conduct because I rammed Monica Ponce. It was on purpose though,” clarifying.
“Jeez. I better watch out.”
“It was right after she asked my boyfriend to junior prom, promising him that she would put out. I was so mad I called her a whore in the middle of the field, and when she tried to retaliate, that was when I tackled her and her jagged vampire teeth ended up scraping my elbow.”
“Uh, Rambo, I don’t have anything close to that. Just a cut here from being stupid enough to be the peacemaker in a bar fight.” He patted at the lower left side of his back.
“Aren’t you the saint,” I teased him. Then I got another playful idea for my turn of compare-the-battle-wounds. “Look closely here at my neck.” I instructed him toward the nape of my neck. “Do you see it?”
“No,” Myles said.
“It’s okay, touch right here. It’s probably easier to feel it.” I pointed at the nook just above my collarbone.”
As he reached to stroke my wound, I could barely contain myself, feeling shameful given his genuine interest. Just as his finger landed, I let out a robust bark, scaring the bejeezus out of him. We both erupted with laughter at his startled jolt.
“That’s not funny.” He grinned, holding his hand over his chest, feigning a heart attack.
His phone rang, then I was the one jumping with jitters.
“Just a second.” Myles answered the call. “Hey there. I was wondering what happened to you,” he said flirtatiously. Smiling back at me, I noticed a quickening in his pace, creating a bit of distance between us. “Listen, I’m a little busy at the moment…that sounds great…see you there around six. Bye.”
Without warning, an awkward silence fell over us. Myles fumbled over his words, as if he hoped we could pick up where we left off. “Uh, that was a friend of mine I hadn’t seen since high school. Heard I was back and she…my friend wants to get together. Can’t beat Fine Line tickets,” he muttered, looking away. Jealousy crept under my skin.
“Sounds cool. Heard they’re really good in concert.”
“Yeah.”
“Well…” I began, not so subtly. I needed to be anywhere else.
“What? You’re ready to head back? What happened to our conversation? We were really getting to know each other.”
“Ah, I’m just tired, that’s all. Long day.” I lied.
Recognition read all over his face. He knew the truth, but I saw in his eyes that he wouldn’t acknowledge it. Not that he owed me anything. The fact that he felt an urge at all to shield me from a conversation that he had with an alleged friend told me that he felt the same fleeting fl
icker between us, too.
Walking back to my mother’s, drenched in thick silence, he slyly slipped his hand in mine, and though I was conflicted and inclined to swipe it away, a tiny nudge in my heart left me holding on.
At the door, his longing eyes reached out, as if begging not to let the night end, but I couldn’t look him in the eyes. With one hand extending for the doorknob and the other holding on to the night, I paused. It wasn’t Myles’ fault. I was the naïve one. Only, having my heart shattered into a million pieces gave me the luxury of being sage rather than just a bitter skeptic. All the sparks and tingles of the Fourth of July would never equal happily ever after. Far more often, it was just the opposite. And so, the nice walk would have to be just another fleeting fancy. A hint of hope? Yes. Another shimmer in a room of darkness. But, love? Not, likely.
Myles cautiously laid his hand over mine, still gripped on the knob. My searching eyes settled on the crimson door, wishing I were safe on the other side. With his other hand, he gently lifted my chin to angle my face toward his. I couldn’t bear to let him look into to my eyes. Mom always said I’d never make a good liar with my telling eyes. So, when he pleaded for me to look at him, I did so hesitantly, praying my eyes could keep a secret.
“There you are,” he said, softly. Just what I was afraid of, he saw through me. “Please don’t go in yet. Let me explain.”
“Really, Myles, you don’t need to say anything. You don’t owe me any explanation. I’m fine. Just tired.”
“I know that I don’t know you yet, but I don’t believe you, Laila.”
The sound of my name coming from his mouth was like hearing it for the first time. I wanted him to say it again. I needed him to say it again. “Say it again.” I whispered.
“I don’t believe you, Laila.”
“No, just my name,” I asked, breathlessly.”
“Laila?”
“Yes. But without a question.”
“Laila.” It whispered from his mouth and lingered on the tip of his tongue. My eyes closed to savor the sweetness. This was crazy. Insane. I’d been good long enough. I just wanted to live in the moment. Forget about the regrets that would inevitably come with morning. Reveling in the pleasure of my delusion, every sense in my body awakened when his lips covered mine.
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