Chapter Three
“He’s dedicating his whole Christmas season to this bet of yours?” Celeste’s friend and coworker, Lucy, had been asking her about the Holiday Bucket List all day. “He is totally into you, Celeste.”
Lucy was more than fifteen years younger than Celeste, which somehow made her both more authoritative on these things and less. She leaned on Celeste’s desk. “He likes your kids. He’s a nice guy. And I’ve seen him, Celeste. He’s hot— for an old guy.”
Celeste tapped her pencil on the desktop. “How do I do this bucket list challenge without giving him the wrong idea?”
“The wrong idea? You mean that you like him?”
“Right. I don’t want to ruin our friendship by making him think I feel more for him than I do.” It had, in fact, been a worry of hers for a couple of years, ever since he started looking at her in the way he did.
“He’s not blind,” Lucy said. “He can probably tell that you like him.”
“I don’t.”
Lucy rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Sure, you don’t.”
This was getting out of hand. “I didn’t bring this up to have you analyze my feelings. I need to know the name of that secondhand shop where you get your vintage clothes.”
“Second Time Around. It’s on 22nd,” Lucy said. “Do you really think your bucket list outfits are going to be in a vintage shop?”
Celeste sighed loudly. “I’m getting old.”
Her cell chimed, signaling the arrival of a text. She grabbed it and checked. Mike.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Lucy asked.
“How did you—”
“You only smile like that when he calls or texts or comes by.” She rolled her eyes again— Lucy was an unapologetic eye-roller— and shook her head. “But, of course, you don’t like him.”
She ignored Lucy and read the text.
Mike: 1, Celeste: 0
What did that mean? Her phone chimed again. A picture text this time. The moment it came up on screen, she laughed out loud. She couldn’t help it.
“What?” Lucy asked.
Celeste showed her the photo: Mike holding up a long, black trench coat. “I don’t know how he found them already.”
“I do,” Lucy said. “He’s at Second Time Around. That place is amazing.”
Celeste looked at the picture again. Mike had always had a nice smile, and he was one of the happiest people she’d ever known. She liked that about him. “I am really going to have to step up my game. He checked something off on the first day.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t come to your house and model it for you.” Lucy walked to Celeste’s office door. “Maybe you'll get lucky, and he still will.” She left, with a grin, on that parting shot.
Lucy had been teasing, but she’d had a point.
Celeste grabbed her cell again and texted Mike back. You have to wear it where I can see or it doesn’t count.
Her kids texted shockingly fast. Mike, however, wasn’t any faster than she was. She’d set down her phone and taken up her papers again before the next chime sounded.
Humiliation was part of our bet?
She sent back, Our agreement included specific clauses re: witnessing each item’s check-off. Her kids were always telling her she texted like an old person, too wordy and formal.
Another chime. I never argue semantics with an attorney. Mike also texted like an old person.
My place. Tonight. Wear the trench coat or it doesn’t count. That was a little more youthful. Kristina would probably be proud.
Mike answered, You’re killing me.
She scrolled back up to the picture of him holding the coat. The goofy look on his face brought a smile to hers. Lucy had said Celeste always smiled when Mike was involved. How could she help it?
***
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Mike’s arms were a little too long for the trench coat he was wearing. Rather than looking like a throwback, he looked like an idiot.
Still, Celeste would laugh with him over it, and the sight of her smiling eyes was worth almost any amount of discomfort. He rang her doorbell and did his best to look like a confident, competent adult who happened to be dressed like a child in hand-me-downs from a younger sibling.
For a split second after she opened the door, Celeste’s expression was completely normal. Then her eyes pulled wide and her mouth dropped open a bit. The corners of her mouth twitched upward.
“Does this meet the demands of our bet?” Mike asked.
She laughed. “Definitely.”
“You don’t have to enjoy this so much, you know.”
She waved him in. “Come in before you scare someone.”
“Too late. I already scared myself.”
She closed the door behind him. “I cannot believe you ever desperately chased this look.”
“I wanted a trench coat that fit and made me look hardcore.” He tugged at one of the too-short sleeves. “You’d think, with how long the coat is, they could have made the sleeves a little longer.”
She walked right next to him, her arm swinging beside his.
It would be the most natural thing to slip his hand around hers.
He never knew, though, how she would respond.
Sometimes she threaded her fingers through his and welcomed the connection.
Other times, she pulled free so quickly that his hand dropped hard against his side.
“I should tell you that I’m also crossing something off my bucket list tonight,” she said.
“Really?” He eyed her T-shirt and jeans, her usual post-work attire.
She shook her head. “Not the clothes. The secondhand shop had some low-rise, flared jeans, but none that I could fit into without divine intervention.”
“So what are you checking off?” he asked.
They stepped into her living room, and she did a Vanna White-style wave of her hand.
“Poster board and markers?” It was the only thing different about the room.
“We’re going to a concert,” she said.
“What?”
Celeste grinned at him. “‘Going’ isn’t quite the right word. But it will be an epic concert.”
“Epic?” He laughed to hear the very word Kristina used so often.
She motioned him over to the sofa. As she sat, she pulled her laptop over. “I made a YouTube playlist of live performances from Destiny’s Child and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. We can stream it to the TV.”
“Okay. That is pretty epic. Especially since I get to check another thing off my list too.”
She smiled. “See how nice I am?”
He nudged the poster board on the coffee table. “What is this for?”
“Fan posters, of course.”
Awesome. “So, I’ll Chili Pepper mine, and you’ll Destiny’s Child yours?”
“Exactly.”
The smell of markers soon filled the air. They razzed each other about their posters, inquired after each other’s kids, and talked about their work, and all with complete ease. How could she not see how perfect they were together?
Just as they were putting the finishing touches on their signs, Celeste’s phone rang.
She glanced at the screen. “It’s Kristina.
” She tapped the screen, then held the phone to her ear.
“Hi, hon.” Her expression grew instantly more concerned.
“He is, actually.” Another pause as she listened. “I’ll put you on speaker.”
She set the phone on the coffee table. “She sounds stressed.”
Kristina was pretty level-headed. What had happened?
Celeste tapped the screen. “Okay, Kristina. Go ahead.”
“Yeah. Go ahead,” Mike added.
“So I ran into that creepy guy from Econ today.” Kristina’s tone was not one of casual conversation. Mike was immediately on alert. “Like ten times. He just kept showing up. He wasn’t pushy or weird, really, and he only talked to me a couple of times but… I don’t know.”
“Your gut says something is off,” Mike guessed.
“Exactly.”
Celeste clasped her hands and pressed her lips together. Her brow pulled downward.
“Do you feel threatened?” Mike asked.
“No.”
He was relieved that she didn’t hesitate with that answer. And, yet, she was concerned enough to have called to talk to them about it. “You don’t usually see him around campus that often, I’d guess,” he pressed.
“Until today I only ever saw him in class and that one time at the student union.” Kristina sounded calm but a little unnerved. “I don’t know for sure that he was following me or anything. It just weirded me out, I guess.”
“Have you told anyone?” Celeste asked. “Besides us? Someone there?”
“I don’t even know who I would talk to,” Kristina said. “There’s no law against giving off a creepy vibe.”
“Well, no,” Celeste said, “but it’s still a good idea to make sure someone knows about your concerns.”
“Like who? My roommates know. Should I tell anyone else? Someone more official, I guess? And what would I tell them?”
Mike had two sons. Taking on the role of surrogate father to Celeste’s daughter had shown him just how different the world was for young women than for young men. He worried about her for entirely different reasons than he had with his boys.
“Kristina, I think you should go to the Office of the Dean of Students tomorrow and find out which department is in charge of student safety.” Early in his career, Mike had worked in the IT department at a college.
Though he hadn’t been directly involved in student services, he’d learned a little about them.
“I don’t think I’m actually in danger,” Kristina said.
“I know.” He leaned a little closer to the phone. “And you can make that clear. Just tell them what you told us and ask what the process is for reporting problems should things escalate. This way you have someone who knows what’s going on and there’s a paper trail.”
“I just feel like I might be making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Mike is right, hon. Having someone there who is aware of what’s happening is important.”
Kristina took an audible breath. “I kind of feel stupid.”
“Don’t,” Mike said. “You’re doing what you need to do in order to feel safe. That’s smart, not stupid.”
“Thanks. You too, Mom.”
“Do like Mike suggested,” Celeste said. “And then text us tomorrow. Tell us how it went.”
“I will.”
“Love you, kid,” Mike said. “Always have.”
It was a familiar exchange between them, one Kristina always finished with, “Always will.”
“I love you too, hon,” Celeste added. “Don’t forget to text.”
“Okay.”
Celeste didn’t say anything for a long moment after the call ended. She steepled her hands and pressed her fingers to her lips. “She is not an overreactor, Mike.”
“She’s also not flaky. She’ll follow through on this.”
Celeste didn’t look reassured. “I hate that she’s so far away.”
He threw caution to the wind and set his arm around her shoulders, pulling her up close to him. “When you talk to her tomorrow, if you’re still uneasy, you can call the Dean of Students office yourself.”
Celeste leaned her head on his shoulder. “Kristina would kill me.”
Mike rubbed her arm with his hand. “Probably, but a parent has to do what a parent has to do.”
She slipped her arms around him, something she very seldom did and only, it seemed, when there was a crisis. “Thank you for being a dad to her all of these years. I was more or less enough for the other two, but Kristina needed something more.”
“Give yourself more credit, Celeste. Being a single parent isn’t simple, and it isn’t easy.”
“And it didn’t get easier once they all left home.”
That was the hard truth. “But there is one thing that does get easier,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Enjoying a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert without the kids complaining that the music is old or lame or whatever else they would say.”
She sat up straight once more and gave him a look of teasing disapproval. “This is a Destiny’s Child concert, with special guests The Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
He scooted to the edge of the sofa. “Cue up the concert,” he said, standing up. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
She smiled up at him. “You always do know exactly what I need.”
“That’s because I know you really well.” I know what makes you happy, what you worry about, your wildest dreams and fondest hopes. I know you better than anyone else. Why, then, did she seem to not know him at all?
He pondered that as he made her tea. They weren’t teenagers who were still trying to decide what they wanted in life or needed most in another person. Celeste was not a wishy-washy person who couldn’t make up her mind about things.
If she was so dead set against any kind of relationship, maybe it was time he took her at her word and quit hoping for something more.