19
“You like this guy.” David had been planking for what felt like a ridiculous amount of time. I was sweating just watching him.
“What makes you think that?” I asked, putting away the containers of enchiladas, twice-baked potatoes, and everything he would need for a killer steak sandwich in the refrigerator. And cookies. There were always cookies.
“You want me to meet him. When have I ever met one of your dudes?”
“There haven’t been that many dudes since I’ve known you, David. Just Bentley Preston, really, and I wasn’t exactly going to bring him over here.”
“You took him to the freaking Celtics game, Dev. Courtesy of me.”
“I just said two tickets! I didn’t tell you who I was bringing. And we were sort of disguised. Those were terrible tickets, by the way.”
“You said you wanted something out of the way, lady. So, that’s what I gave you. Obstructed view,” he drawled in his southern accent. “Besides, he had to show an ID with you when you picked up the tickets. I have my ways. I asked who you brought.”
I had to laugh. “You went all FBI on me? Why’d you want to know so badly who I was bringing?”
“Okay, Dev, you ask for tickets somewhere kinda hidden. That is not normal. Even this hermit of a basketball boy knows that,” he said, shifting into downward dog. “I’ve taken up yoga, baby! It’s changed my life.”
Yoga might be a good idea for him , I thought to myself as I pulled together the ingredients for a smoothie. I had started doing this on my weekly visits, and he slurped it right down without saying a word. I knew his mother was entrusting him to me, and I felt almost maternal toward him. Or perhaps like an overprotective older sister. “Yoga can be very grounding, or so I hear,” I said. “I’ve never had enough patience for it, but maybe I’ll try again.”
“Bring ambulance boy down here for some yoga,” he said, pulling back into child’s pose. “You still haven’t answered my question about Rich Man Preston, but I’ll move on.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing that David probably had as much disposable income as Bentley did.
“Why should I meet this guy? The candy one?”
“Heath? Tam thinks you are a good judge of who is a match for me.”
“Ha!” he said, standing up and taking the smoothie out of my hand. “That’s funny. I’ve never met her, but I watch her on TV. Tamara Sparks is one interesting lady.” He took a big glug from the glass. “But maybe she’s right. Maybe, just maybe, I see things from a different perspective. Like, I know you in a unique way. And I’ll be more objective.”
“She said something along those lines.”
“But here’s my question, Dev,” he said, putting the glass down on an end table and sliding down into the cobra position. “Why all these opinions? Why don’t you just go out with him and see where it goes? Something’s holding you back.”
“You know, David, if you were this open and talkative with the press, they’d say much nicer things about you.” It was true; they only labeled him as a sullen and standoffish individual, and with good reason, considering how he acted toward them. Hardly anyone saw the David I knew.
“You’re avoiding the question again, Dev. What’s going on?” He sat cross-legged, which made me smile as I watched him contort his very long legs into a seated position favored by preschoolers.
I sighed. He probably needed to know the whole story. “There’s a teacher at the school,” I began.
“I knew it!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. “I knew there was more to this story!”
“He’s also a soccer coach—was a soccer player when I first met him in college. I’m not sure what your thoughts are on soccer.”
“Soccer is a respectable sport,” he replied. “What position did he play?”
“Goalie.”
“That’s cerebral, ya know?” he posed, tapping the side of his head. “So, he’s a thinker. Probably smart.”
“Very smart. Could tell you anything you ever wanted to know about any president. He also talks a ridiculous amount. It can be exhausting—charming, but exhausting.”
“Well, I can’t relate to that because, as you know, I don’t say much. Only to you.” I rolled my eyes and laughed. “But you knew him in college? Don’t take this the wrong way—because you’re not old at all—but that’s a long time ago.”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” I said. “We had a one-night encounter— if you know what I mean. But after we had talked for like a million hours. It was almost like one of those pods on Love is Blind , where they spend forever talking to each other.” He nodded; I knew that David secretly loved watching dating shows on TV even though he never dated anyone. “And then we both left the next morning, me for DC, him for London. And we never saw each other again, not until this fall.”
“And how was that? Did you hop right back in the sack again?”
I swatted his arm. “No, no, we did not. We talked about everything that happened and slowly got to know each other again. Hung out as friends. It was really nice, actually. He’s a good guy to hang out with—an interesting person who sincerely cares about me. He’s divorced with an amazing ten-year-old daughter, so he’s got some past stuff going on. And it’s more than that. He ditched me once before, so many years ago, as you pointed out. I tried to get in touch with him when he was in London, but he got involved with someone there almost immediately. So that’s always in the back of my mind, sort of a trust issue. But he’s a great guy.”
“So, why don’t you just go out with him? Sounds like you enjoy his company and all that. The London stuff was forever ago. Hell, I was only nine if it was fifteen years ago!”
I looked at the extremely tall adult basketball player sitting before me and imagined him as a nine-year-old shooting hoops in his Georgia driveway. “You’re right. It was a long time ago. And if I hadn’t met Heath, you and I may be having a very different conversation right now.”
“You want me to meet Heath and tell you what I think.”
“Yes, David. I do.”
“And do I get to meet soccer boy, too?”
“Let’s focus on the paramedic for now.”
...
“Professor Plum, I presume?” I extended my hand to the tall man in wire-rimmed glasses standing in front of me.
“I aspire to look like Christopher Lloyd circa 85,” he responded, shaking my hand.
“He’s seen the movie?” I asked Tam as he and Heath introduced themselves.
“My complete indoctrination of him into all things eighties and nineties movies is almost complete. We watched Clue last month,” she said. “Heath?”
“Yeah, nice to meet you,” he said with his warm, easy manner, and I couldn’t help but smile at the handsome specimen of a man I had brought with me to dinner in Newburyport. Since my strange but thought-provoking conversation with David a few days earlier, I still didn’t know what to think, but I had decided not to stress about it for the time being. Heath was fun to hang out with and even better to look at, so I tried not to put too much pressure on myself.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” said Tam. “Shall we sit?”
Agave was a good spot for us to gather, as I always found that tacos were common ground for many people. You could usually find a variety to meet your personal tastes and dietary needs. Tam was a vegetarian and had suggested it both for the food and the midpoint location for us to meet, and I loved the idea of something not too stuffy. Tacos it was.
“So, Professor Plum, or Ellis, I should say, what do you teach?” I asked as we settled into our table.
“I’m in the history department. My area of focus is the twentieth-century American presidency.”
All I could think of was Kyle and how much he would enjoy this. Instead, I was sitting next to someone who did amazing things all day—he saved people’s lives, for God’s sake—but he probably would not have as much to talk to a history professor about. I felt an uneasiness that I quickly tried to shake off. “Very cool,” I said.
“I don’t know how cool it is. Some people think history is super boring. I try to convince them otherwise, but I’m not sure how good of a job I do at it.”
“I heard a really good story once about Calvin Coolidge’s pets,” I said. “That people kept sending him random animals. Like a bear, a bobcat, some lion cubs.”
“He and his wife kept the raccoon!” Ellis exclaimed, obviously glad someone seemed interested in what he loved.
“That’s right. The raccoon was named Rebecca.”
Tam shook her head and took a sip from her margarita. “How on earth did you know all this?” she asked me.
“I have a friend at Rockwood who teaches history,” I said flatly, trying not to give anything away, even though I knew Tam saw right through me.
She made a face and shifted her attention toward Heath. “So, Heath. Can you tell us a good paramedic story? I’m sure a lot is confidential, but there’s got to be something you can share.”
Heath took a swig of his Dos Equis. “Oh, yeah, how’s this one? We get a call that a twenty-eight-year-old female named Trixie is about to give birth in the kitchen of her house. We race over there, and it’s a chocolate lab. We end up assisting with a litter of six puppies.”
“Twenty-eight-years-old?” Ellis asks.
“In dog years,” Heath answers. “She was really four.”
“That’s amazing,” said Tam. “Were the dogs okay?”
“They were adorable,” he said. “Let me find a picture.” He scrolled through his phone for a moment and then showed us a few photos of firefighters and paramedics with cute little puppies. “This is when we went back to visit them a few weeks later. Two of them were adopted by firefighters.” I watched Tam’s heart melt into a puddle at images of good-looking men and little fur babies.
“Exactly my point,” said Ellis with a chuckle. “History professor telling Calvin Coolidge stories versus hunky emergency responders cradling adorable puppies. I’m boring.”
Heath reached across the table to fist-bump Ellis. “Thanks for the compliment, bro,” he said, and everyone laughed.
After we had finished eating, Tam and I retreated to the bathroom; I was dying to hear her thoughts on the evening.
“I really like him,” she said from the next stall over. “He’s so cute and has a sweet way about him. He looks at you with a mix of admiration and awe. It’s refreshing to see a man so smitten.”
“Professor Plum seems to like him, too. And I’m a fan, by the way. This is a good match for you. I mean, anyone who can get you to stop discarding men the way I go through bags of chocolate chips in the dining hall kitchen…”
“Noted,” she said while washing her hands at the sink. “But we’re focusing on you right now since it seems to be urgent. I agree; Plum loves him. I think they really are going to a hockey game together, and Ellis doesn’t even like sports that much.”
“But,” I began, not finishing my thought as I took out lipstick from my purse.
She sighed. “So, back to my weird, You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle analogies because I can’t give those up. You’re right. He’s not a Frank. Definitely more of a Walter,” she said, referring once again to Meg Ryan’s love interest played by Bill Pullman.
“He luckily doesn’t sleep with a big noisy humidifier on the nightstand.”
“It’s not technically winter yet. You never know.” She applied lip gloss and then turned to me. “You’re not in love with him, Devon. Professor Plum might be, but I don’t think you are.”
“We just started dating a few weeks ago. It’s very early. How long did it take you to know Plum was the one?”
Tam opened the door to the restaurant. “I went back to my old apartment in the Seaport after our date and couldn’t sleep, so I watched Love Actually .”
“One of your favorites. Even if it’s from the early 2000s.”
“I do prefer the eighties and nineties. But I got such Jamie vibes from Ellis.”
“Colin Firth’s character. The author. I love it when his pages end up in the pond. Who would let that happen? But so charming.”
“Yes. Then, I started craving every scene in all my movies where the characters realize they need to be together. So, I got onto YouTube and watched them all. When Harry Met Sally , Notting Hill , While You Were Sleeping , you name it. I still couldn’t sleep. By then, it was four in the morning.”
We stood by the front door to the restaurant and saw the men waiting for us outside on the sidewalk. “What did you do then?” I asked.
“I had been searching high and low for the perfect romantic moments when I realized I could live my own. Finally. So, I took a shower and figured out where he lived and bought sticky buns from Flour.”
“Those are incredible.” My mouth watered at the thought of the Boston-area bakery favorite.
“They are. And I got on the red line and took it to Porter Square and walked through the rain for like five blocks. I pressed the buzzer, and luckily, he was home.”
“Probably because it was like six in the morning.”
“Seven. Flour in Beacon Hill didn’t open until six-thirty.”
“Okay, continue.”
“And I met him outside his apartment, soaking wet. Because my life has become a rom-com. And I said, ‘I thought you might want breakfast.’”
I clutched my chest, somewhat joking but also loving this story. “I’m guessing that was it for both of you. Because this is, indeed, a rom-com.”
“We’ve spent every night together since.”
We opened the door and said our goodbyes, with Heath and Ellis promising to be in touch about future plans. And then Heath took my hand, and we silently walked to his truck. As I opened the door, I could have sworn I saw the flash of a camera.