Twenty
Sometimes there’s nothing better than zoning out over a task.
Just doing something mindless can be more relaxing than almost anything else.
So I didn’t mind that I had been nominated to do the dishes after dinner while everyone else sat around and vegged.
Besides, my friend Paul told me that his kitchen never looked better than after I cleaned it up.
He had just left me, telling me to hurry up because they were about to start playing board games.
I wasn’t surprised when my phone beeped and I saw Dane’s number on the display. This was inevitable.
“Remind me to kill you,” he said instead of hello.
“Hi.” I tried not to even smile because he’d hear my face move over the phone. “How are you? Having fun?”
“You did this on purpose.”
“Whatever do you mean?” I cackled.
“Payback is hell.”
“Again I ask, are we having fun? How’s the date?”
“You’re such an ass,” Dane assured me.
“What? Art walk no good?”
Long silence. “You knew it was this big romantic deal.”
I was so glad he couldn’t see me. “Did I? Are you certain?”
He was on the date I’d set him up on with one of my coworkers, and I’d assured him that I would take care of everything.
All he had to do was show up. True to my word, I had set up the date from heaven.
I’d wanted to show him something off the beaten track since he was getting a little jaded doing the same old thing, and had ended up really outdoing myself.
They were on an art walk in Oak Park through some Frank Lloyd Wright homes but also other private residences, where they were looking at personal collections.
There were strolling musicians, a silent estate sale where trunks could be purchased that were possibly filled with treasures, or at least really old books that would look cool in a bookcase.
There were different courses of meals in each home, starting with wine and cheese and ending with champagne or spiced cider.
It had sounded wonderful, and I had guessed at, but not asked about, the romantic component.
“I can hear you smiling,” he accused me, his voice flat.
“You can’t hear a smile.” I was fairly certain that if anyone could hear face muscles moving over the phone, it would in fact be Dane Harcourt. “Besides, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. It sounded wonderful on the website.”
“Oh did it?”
“I’ve got hot-air ballooning for you to do next.”
He hung up on me, and I was still laughing when I heard the quiet cough behind me. I turned and saw a guy had slipped into the kitchen, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking at me.
“Hey.” I smiled at him.
Slight smile, like he was uncertain. “Paul said to come in here and you’d feed me even though I’m super late and it was really rude of me not to call.”
I chuckled. “Paul’s words.”
His grin was crooked and he had dimples. “Yeah, Paul’s words.”
“Don’t let him make you feel bad. It’s not like he’s the poster boy for etiquette himself.”
He moved farther into the room, closer to me. “I know, right? And it’s not like I could’ve called anyway. I mean, I was in the bug room and—”
My brows furrowed. “Bug room?”
He chuckled, leaning on the counter. “You should see your face.”
“Sorry.”
The smile I was getting made his dark eyes glow. I’d never actually seen golden-brown eyes before, but I was certain now that I had. His straight, shoulder-length hair, long lashes, and eyebrows were all that same raven-wing black.
“So can I eat?” he asked, because I was staring and not moving.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“No, no,” he said gently, reaching out to touch my shoulder to stop me from opening the refrigerator. “You can stand there and look at me all night if you want.”
I nodded, arching one eyebrow as I turned to get out the food I had just put away.
He laughed softly behind me. “What’s your name?”
“Jory,” I said as I put bowls on the counter. “You?”
“Kai.”
“And what do you do, Kai, that takes you to a bug room?”
His smile was wide as he passed me a plate from the cabinet next to his head. He obviously knew his way around Paul’s kitchen. They had to be close friends. “I work at the Field Museum, and I was in the bug room where we keep these beetles that basically eat the flesh off stuff.”
“Are you sure you can eat?” I asked, squinting at him.
His laughter came from way down deep. “Yeah. Maybe you’d like to come with me sometime and see it?”
My eyes widened. “Go with you to the bug room?”
“Yeah. What do you say?”
“Okay.” I grinned at him. “Sure.”
“When?”
“I dunno. When do you want me?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“I know.”
I shrugged. “What time?”
“How ’bout we get lunch? I know this great little Italian place. We can have—”
“Actually, I gotta have brunch with my brother, then I can meet you.”
“You have Sunday brunch with your brother?” he asked skeptically, one brow raised.
“Yeah. Why?”
“No reason. That’s awesome.”
“Why is it awesome?” I asked because of the way he was smiling.
“It’s just nice. I like it.”
“Whatever, man.” I scoffed. “Maybe we can go another—”
“I’ll meet you after brunch,” he rushed out, brushing past my attempt to reschedule. “Do you know where the Field Museum is?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there lots of times. I can’t wait to see the T. rex once they put it out on display. How cool is that?”
“Uh,” he groaned. “You so don’t wanna get me started on the damn dinosaur. All that money could have been directed into other research programs that—”
I put up my hands. “I’ll meet you by the store inside?”
His eyes twinkled. “Don’t wanna hear my usual rant?”
“No, thanks.”
“Okay so…by the store at say, one?”
“One’s good.”
He sighed. “Good. Can I get your number in case I get hit by a bus or something?”
“And how’re you calling if you get hit by a bus?”
“I’ll gasp out that somebody needs to call you before I die.” He smiled, his eyes locking on my mouth. “Is that okay?”
I stared into all that darkness. “It’s okay.”
He leaned on the counter, pulling out his cell phone. “Give it to me.”
We stood in the kitchen, me leaning against the sink while he ate standing up.
I told him to go sit down in the living room, but he preferred to stay where he was and talk to me.
I asked more questions about the museum and he explained that, with his doctorate in biology, he worked in the Division of Mammals in the Zoology Department.
He had me laughing over the phone calls that came in from people in the city.
“This lady called the other day and described this animal to me over the phone, and when I asked her what she thought it was, she said she thought it was a yeti.”
“As in the yeti. The abominable snowman.”
“That would be the one.”
I smiled at him. “And you said?”
“I explained that it probably wasn’t but that maybe she should call animal control.”
“Why?”
“I dunno. Maybe she’s got a rabid Samoyed in her backyard for all I know.”
“I see.”
“You have a great smile, Jory.”
I looked up at him. “Thanks. You too.”
He took a shaky breath. “So tell me more about working at a PR firm.”
I shrugged. “It’s not that exciting.”
“Okay. Tell me how old you are.”
“Twenty-three. You?”
“Thirty-one.”
I tilted my head as I looked at him. “I’m too old for you, right? You like eighteen-year-olds?”
His jaw clenched. “No. Age doesn’t mean anything. I’ve dated guys in their forties and fifties and guys younger than me. I go where my interest draws me.”
“That’s a slick answer.”
“What?” he asked innocently.
I coughed softly. “So these beetles that eat flesh—what kind do that? Not, like, ladybugs, right?”
He smiled at me. “No, they’re called dermestid beetles.”
“Okay.”
“Like you care.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t interested. I have all sorts of odd pieces of knowledge in my head.”
He reached out and touched the hem of my shirt. “If you have time tomorrow, maybe after I show you the museum, we could take a walk.”
“That sounds nice.”
His eyes flicked up to mine and locked there. “I wish it was tomorrow.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“J!”
We both turned as Paul came into the kitchen.
“Hunter’s here and he wants to go dancing instead of sitting around playing board games. Everybody else is in. What do you say?”
I looked at Kai. “Do you wanna go?”
“I don’t care as long as I get to hang with you.” He smiled quickly.
“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Paul said, giving me a look before he walked back out.
“That was very nice,” I told Kai.
“Well, thanks, but so you know, I am a crappy dancer. You’re gonna cry.”
“You think?”
“Oh yeah.” He chuckled. “My sister, Grace, wouldn’t let me dance at her wedding because she was so scared I’d freak people out.”
I laughed at him as he sighed deeply and touched the collar of my shirt. “You look really good. Maybe you can take a look at my wardrobe and give me some pointers.”
“You look fine to me,” I said, my eyes sliding over his long, lean frame.
He looked good with his pocket T-shirt clinging tightly to the sinewy muscles in his arms, chest, and abdomen.
His faded 501 jeans fit well and his beat-up hiking boots had seen better days—all of it gave the impression of a man who was both solid and strong.
He wasn’t strikingly beautiful or the kind of guy you noticed instantly, he was the kind of guy who grew on you, because in the two hours that we had been talking in the kitchen, I had become a great admirer of his eyes, his shoulders, the veins in his hands, the way he smiled, and the soft, gentle tone of his voice.
He radiated a sort of soothing quiet, like he was comfortable in his own skin.
“Yeah? I look okay?”
“You do.” I smiled at him. “What kind of music do you like?”
“Why?”
“There’s a jazz club by my apartment that’s really good if you maybe wanted to go listen to some instead of going dancing.”
“I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the opportunity to hear a lot of jazz, but I would much rather listen to music with you than show you how poorly my body moves.”
“I’m sure your body moves just fine.”
His voice bottomed out. “Why don’t we go now?”
He helped me clean Paul’s kitchen back up, and when we left together there were a lot of catcalls and comments, and Hunter’s final “Be careful, you two!” was probably the most obvious.
Out on the street, Kai pointed at an ancient Volkswagen van.
“Is that yours?”
“Yeah. I know, it’s—”
“It’s awesome,” I breathed out, walking over to it, peering in the windows. “What is this, like, a sixty-five? Sixty-seven?”
He chuckled behind me, and I turned to look at him.
“Big aficionado of VW vans, are you?”
“I just love old stuff, period.”
He smiled at me. “You know, you are not at all what I expected.”
“How d’ya mean?”
“Jory, you must know… I mean, I go in the kitchen and there you are and you’re so…beautiful…and the smile and…and you just…you like my old, ugly van. It’s amazing.”
“Why?”
“You look like you’d be the kind of guy that needs a guy with money.”
I snorted out a laugh. “I have my own money, and what I don’t have my brother has. I’m good.”
He looked into my eyes. “Would you like to drive my piece of junk?”
“Really?”
He laughed out loud. “God, you sound so excited. Hell yes. Come get the keys.”
I drove us to the jazz club across the street from my apartment and we talked and laughed and listened, and he gave me a nod that let me know he liked both the music and the company. I offered him a cup of tea after the last set and he draped an arm around my neck as he crossed the street with me.
He liked my apartment—the wooden framed windows, exposed beams, and the ceiling fans that looked like they were as old as the building itself.
Content to sit on the counter and watch me make tea, I asked when his last long-term relationship had been.
He explained about the two-year love affair with a veterinarian that had ended six months ago.
“What happened?” I prodded as I poured the water into the teapot so it could steep.
“He didn’t want to move in with me.” He sighed heavily. “I asked him to after three months and he said it was too soon, but when we hit two years and he was still saying no…it became painfully obvious that he was waiting for someone better to come along.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. He didn’t get that my love was a gift, and if somebody doesn’t appreciate the value of being loved…not a lot you can do.”
“True.”
“And your last love affair, as you put it?”
“It was five months ago, but it wasn’t anything long-term like yours. I thought it was gonna be, but the guy… It turned out he wasn’t as into me as I thought he was.”
“No?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“I think it was hard for him since he wasn’t out, ya know?”
“Oh yeah, I do know. I’ve been there.”
“Tell me.”
“I dated this guy for six months and his family had no idea he was gay. His friends all thought he was this big ladies’ man and—shit, what a mess.”
“Bad, right?”
He laughed at me. “So much worse than bad. I mean, he still calls sometimes and asks if he can see me and could I just give him some time and… It’ll never change, but he seems to have deluded himself into thinking that one of these days he’s gonna come out of the closet.”
“My guy’s a cop.”
“Oh shit! You know that’s so never gonna happen, right?”
“I know.” I nodded, exhaling slowly. “It was just tough to let go of.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder.
I shrugged. “What’re ya gonna do?”
“All I wanna do is meet somebody and settle down and just be done with this whole dating mess.” He smiled at me.
And for whatever reason, my libido turned off and my brain turned on.
“Jory?”
I stepped back and looked at him.
“What?”
“This is gonna sound really weird, like crazy woo-woo weird,” I began excitedly. “But you gotta go with it and not get mad. You need to open up your mind to the possibility that I’m not the end of your journey, but merely a signpost along the way.”
He scowled at me. “I knew you were too pretty to be sane.”
I laughed at him.
“Oh God.” He sounded worried.
“I’m a big believer in signs.”
“I bet you’re into Ouija boards and tarot cards too, aren’t you?”
“Make fun if you like, but I have the perfect guy for you.”
He grinned wide. “Actually, Jory, I think you’re the guy for me.”
But I wasn’t. We were in different places in our lives, which had nothing at all to do with our ages.
I wasn’t ready to settle down with anyone but Sam Kage, and since that wasn’t happening…
I was off the table. The thing was, though, I knew somebody who was in the exact same place he was.
“Will you just do me a favor and let me set you up on a blind date?”
“You’re seriously disturbed.”
“Please. You won’t be sorry, and I think I—”
“If you wanna get rid of me, just—”
“No, no, no, it’s not like that. Just c’mon, Kai. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll go wherever you want, do whatever. Just open your mind.”
“Deal.” He smiled at me, holding out his hand. “Shake on it. You’re mine if whatever you’ve got planned goes badly.”
I clasped the hand tight because there was no way in hell I didn’t have the greatest matchmaking skills in the history of the world. I would stake my life on it. I was Cupid in the flesh.