Chapter 10
DEJA
Ifollowed Colin out of the diner with absolutely no idea what we were going to do next. Normally, I liked having a plan, but it was mostly because my days were usually so jam-packed that going without one meant something important would slip through the cracks.
Checking my calendar was such an integral part of my daily routine that it felt blissfully rebellious to just hand over the reins and let him decide.
On the other hand, Colin had grinned and paid our check after I’d told him I wanted to see everything, but he also didn’t seem completely certain about what that meant.
As we climbed into his car, I buckled up and turned to face him. “What do you usually do on Saturdays? I wouldn’t mind just getting to experience an ordinary weekend in your life.”
“Trust me, you don’t want that,” he said as he turned over the engine, a thoughtful sort of glimmer in his eyes before he covered them with his sunglasses. “Unless you want to gain an in-depth knowledge of the financial workings of Thayer Steelworks, that is.”
Both of my eyebrows jumped in. “Does that mean what I think it means? You usually spend your Saturdays playing golf and then going back to work?”
“That’s exactly what it means.” He laughed. “At least it pays well. Other people spend money on weekends. I make it.”
“That’s tragic.”
“I won’t argue with you on that one, but I’m a creature of habit.”
“Your habit being work.”
“Yep.” He glanced at me as we pulled up to a red traffic light. “I’m willing to bet you often do the same thing.”
I paused, wanting to tell him that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t do that without lying—and I didn’t really want to lie to him. The man had let me crash his alone time, he’d taken me to lunch, and now, he was sacrificing the rest of his day for me.
The least I could do was be honest.
“Fine.” I sighed. “Maybe I do also work often on weekends, but when I’m not working, I’m either spending time with my family or I’m browsing the markets.”
“The flower markets?”
My nose wrinkled. “Yes.”
“So that’s also for work.”
“Well, yes.”
He chuckled but let it go, obviously not feeling the need to drive his point home after making it. Instead, he pointed toward what appeared to be a stadium in the distance. “Have you ever been to a ballgame?”
“What kind of ballgame?”
“Baseball.”
“No.” I felt excitement swell from deep within, though. “I’m not really a sports person, but that feels like an experience I’d like to have.”
“Then we shall have it,” he said easily.
An hour later, we were seated in a stadium filled with thousands of people dressed in matching colors.
I didn’t quite understand what was happening on the field, or pitch, or whatever it was called, but absolutely everyone around me seemed to be intensely emotionally invested in the events unfolding below.
It was impossible not to enjoy the atmosphere, though.
Music drifted through the stands and the crowd buzzed with energy.
Vendors wound their way up and down the stands, shouting about peanuts and beer while children waved oversized foam fingers.
Colin appeared to be entirely at home, tensing when one thing happened on the field and cheering at another.
It was incredible to watch—him, not the game.
Baseball was kind of whatever to me. I still didn’t know a thing about it, but Colin was somehow simultaneously enraptured by what was happening on the field and attentive to me.
At what I suspected was the half-time mark, or perhaps not, he suddenly stood up.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
As I watched, he disappeared into the crowd, and I appreciated the view from behind as he left. The man truly was well built, with broad shoulders, a tall frame, and slightly trimmer hips.
Today, he wore beige slacks with a pale blue golf shirt, and although the outfit was terribly posh, it was still more casual than the suits he usually wore.
It also had the added benefit of providing him with less layers of fabric to hide behind and I’d been genuinely surprised at the lean muscle in his forearms.
For a man who worked in an office behind a computer, he was much fitter than I’d have thought he would be. Perhaps it’s all the golf.
Before I could even begin to work out if golf could provide muscle, he was back—and carrying food. I eyed it suspiciously when he held a little tray out toward me. “What’s all this?”
“It’s your first Chicago dog.”
I took the tray, suspicious of how many ingredients the supposed hotdog had on top of it. “Where’s the hotdog?”
Colin chuckled and shook his head. “Try it. I know it probably doesn’t look particularly appetizing, but it’s a rite of passage.”
I held his gaze for another beat. “Thank you.”
Something in his eyes softened, transforming his features from stern and imposing to warm and open. “You’re welcome.”
My heart fluttered just a little bit as I kept looking at him until I finally realized I was staring. Then I averted my gaze and shifted my focus back to the hotdog. “Alright. I wanted to experience everything. Let’s do this.”
He lifted his own dog in its bun and held it out slightly toward me.
With a bit more effort than it had taken him, I finally managed to lift my hotdog off the tray with half the toppings sliding off, and I tapped it lightly against his before I smiled.
“Don’t judge me for how messy this is going to be. ”
“I’ll only judge you for how messy it’s not,” he said, winking before he brought the food to his lips and took a massive, inelegant bite that immediately prompted me to do the same.
As soon as it hit my tongue, I realized that there was a reason these were so iconic.
I chewed my first bite and immediately took another, following it up with yet another.
When I’d finally washed that down with a sip of the drink he’d brought me, I pointed at my hotdog. “It’s ridiculous how good this is.”
“I know.”
“Don’t be smug,” I teased. “It’s just really good, and very unexpected.”
He pumped his dark eyebrows at me, those eyes glittering with amusement. “I’m not smug. I’m just saying, I told you so.”
I groaned but turned my attention back to the game when another roar of excitement carried through the crowd. Squinting at the tiny men running around on the lawn below, I finally decided to at least try to understand.
“Why do they keep throwing the ball away from the person holding the bat?” I asked. “Isn’t it his job to hit the ball? Also, why was everyone cheering when no one is moving? Oh, why is that one running now?”
Colin chuckled but then answered every question with remarkable patience. When the game finally ended, I still didn’t fully understand the rules, but I couldn’t deny that I did understand why people seem to love it so much.
“That was fun,” I said as we left our seats. “I really enjoyed it. Thank you for bringing me.”
“You’re very welcome.” He slid his hands into his pockets, leading me back to his car. “I think I have an idea of what we could do next. This might be more your speed, but if you’d rather call it a day, I understand.”
“No,” I said quickly, without giving it so much as a second of thought. “Let’s go do this other thing. I’m curious now.”
“Don’t get too excited. I might’ve misjudged this one a bit.”
We arrived at an art museum a few minutes after finally winding our way through the traffic to get out of the parking lot at the stadium.
I grinned at him. “This is definitely more my speed.”
Unfortunately, it turned out I hadn’t accounted for the fact that this was a modern art museum, which wasn’t really my thing. We stopped in front of a massive white canvas and I stared at it, searching for any sign of anything else but finding none.
“What is it supposed to be?” Colin asked from my side. “Am I missing something?”
“If you are, then so am I,” I admitted. “Perhaps we’re not evolved enough to understand.”
“I thought you said this was more your speed?” he said, his lips tugging into a slight smile. “Doesn’t that mean you should be explaining that canvas to me? I explained baseball to you. It seems only fair.”
“I would explain if I had any clue how to explain something I genuinely don’t understand myself. To be honest, modern art has never made much sense to me.”
He grinned. “Well, then that’s something we have in common.”
We moved through to the next exhibit, finding an entire room dedicated to what appeared to be no more than three traffic cones arranged in a circle.
Colin folded his arms after walking around the display a couple times.
“You know, I think we’ve accidentally produced art more meaningful than this in some of our manufacturing processes. ”
I burst out laughing. “You should open a gallery.”
“I’d probably make millions,” he joked dryly, then forced a straight face when our comments drew a disapproving glance from another patron.
The next exhibit consisted of tangled extension cords hanging from the ceiling and another was simply a television displaying static. When we reached even a chair masquerading as art, Colin became visibly amused.
“Do you think someone accidentally left it behind while they were arranging the displays?” he asked. “I’m genuinely not sure if it’s supposed to be art or if it’s simply part of the gallery’s furniture.”
“Neither am I,” I agreed, laughing again. “Can you imagine if someone just used it to have a break while they were setting up displays and now people are going to spend months trying to work out the meaning of it?”
Colin rolled his lips into his mouth to keep from laughing when we drew more disapproving stares, but it was also at that point that we decided to leave the museum. We emerged onto the sidewalk still laughing, neither of us able to keep a straight face now that we’d escaped.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that we don’t appreciate modern art,” he said as we strode back to his car, people hurrying past us on the sideways carrying coffees, briefcases, or shopping bags.
Colin didn’t even seem to notice, but I slowed, suddenly realizing that the late afternoon light was painting the city in warm shades of orange and gold. He matched my pace without hesitating, suddenly looking around himself.
“You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve noticed the sunset.”
I glanced at him. “Life gets busy. It’s easy to miss the glimmers.”
“Glimmers?”
I shrugged. “It’s just something I read. It’s basically a small, everyday moment of beauty, or peace, or joy. Too often in our lives, we don’t even notice them because we’re always on the move, but they’re there, just quietly waiting for us to open our eyes and appreciate them.”
To my surprise, he nodded slowly instead of laughing me off or dismissing the notion. “Glimmers. I like that. I’m going to try to remember it.”
“So will I,” I promised both him and myself.
Contrary to how it might sound right now, I didn’t take enough time to notice them on a day-to-day basis either. It was simply easier now because I was on vacation and in a beautiful, unfamiliar city where everything was interesting and new.
Colin showed me around the path beside the lake. We meandered through a park and even stopped for coffee before ending up in a bookstore. This was the kind of exploring on foot I’d been wanting to do since I’d gotten here and it was even better having his company while I did it.
We spoke almost the whole time, the conversation flowing naturally and easily as the late afternoon progressed. As we strolled down a tree-lined street, both us with several new books in paper bags he was carrying, I finally glanced up at him again. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
He looked genuinely surprised by the question. “I don’t think anyone has asked me that in at least twenty years.”
“That’s only because adults stop asking the interesting, important questions.”
He laughed. “That’s a fair point. We do tend to get caught up in the boring stuff, don’t we?”
“It’s a real pity,” I lamented, not even really joking. “It’s like you turn thirteen, and suddenly, your imagination just dies.”
“It’s probably the hormones,” he said, humor twinkling in his eyes. “We get so flooded with teenage angst and lust that it eats up our imaginations.”
“Lust, huh?” I nudged him with my shoulder. “It’s hard to imagine you being hopped up on that. You’re always so controlled, but we’ll get to that later. For now, you’re not getting out of answering my question.”
A slight flush appeared at the very tops of his cheeks again. “Let’s not get back to that later, and I wanted to be a pilot. It was a brief phase, but it was either that or an astronaut. You?”
“Oh, mine changed every few months, but it was always in the same line I’m in now. Design. I went through a phase where I wanted it to be houses and another that I thought I might design fashion, but I think I always knew I’d end up designing something.”
As the afternoon light started fading, we walked along the river. The city lights gradually flickered on around us. Colin checked his watch, looking surprised when he looked up again.
“It’s almost eight.”
“How?” I asked, genuinely surprised myself, but my own watch confirmed the same thing.
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m trying to figure it out, but it looks like we accidentally spent an entire day together.”
“It was fun,” I said, meaning it. “We should probably get home, though. I’m surprised Ashanti hasn’t called yet, but I have a feeling she’s going to start getting worried soon.”
Colin led me back to his car and drove straight to Khaled’s house. When we reached it, I felt a stab of disappointment about the day being over already, but here we were, pulling into the driveway.
A few moments later, he was opening my door, and while it should’ve felt unnecessary and old-fashioned, it felt very much like him instead. We walked up the front path together, and as we reached the front door, I turned to face him.
“Thank you for a wonderful day.”
His smile was warm and real. “I should be thanking you.”
I tilted my head. “Why?”
“Because it was completely unexpected, but exactly what I needed,” he said quietly. “Even if I didn’t realize it.”
The porch light cast a soft glow over his face, making his eyes look more blue than gray. Or maybe it was just because I was closer to him than usual, but as I stared up into those eyes, I found myself moving closer.
At the same time, he seemed to do the same thing, the distance between us slowly disappearing. My pulse started racing. His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth before he jerked it back up to my eyes.
I was imagining what his lips would feel like on mine, but the next thing I knew, the front door swung open and we jumped apart. As soon as I turned, the almost-kiss fled from my mind in the space between one wanting heartbeat and the next.
Because instead of it being Ashanti or Gabrielle who’d found us like this, it was my father, and he definitely knew he’d interrupted something.