25. Michelle
Chapter 25
Michelle
B y the time I slink over to Cliff’s house, it’s nearly ten o’clock.
I tucked my very drunk sister into my bed. Dad stared at the nightly news until finally shuffling up to the free guest room. I cleaned the dishes, staring down at the soap suds popping and fizzing while my mind whirled. I tried to look over the budget, but I couldn’t focus. No faxes have come in from work either. I feel in the dark about too many things.
After turning off all the lights, I slipped on my house shoes, grabbed Rocket’s leash, and traipsed through the bushes between my house and Cliff’s. The rose bushes are where he finds me.
“Michelle?” Cliff asks with that familiar laugh.
“Hey,” I whisper. “Are you awake?”
He crunches through the brush until he grabs the crook of my elbow and tugs me out.
“Clearly,” he answers. “What are you doing?”
“Coming over to talk.” I look at him for a moment. “Wait, why are you out here?”
He looks so different this late. In the glow of his porch light, his hair is messier. He wears checkered pajama pants and a baggy, faded Chicago Bulls tee. There are small dips under his eyes, but over them are round, wire-rimmed glasses.
I bite my bottom lip to hold in my laughter. “You wear glasses?”
He takes the glasses off, examines them, then puts them back on. “I do?”
“Ha-ha.”
He smirks. “My vision is terrible.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t need you to know I was imperfect,” he teases.
I roll my eyes. “Why are you up?”
He shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep. You?”
“Finding you. Want to go on a walk?” I ask.
He examines my now-muddy blue slippers and chuckles. “Sure. I’ll go on a walk with you.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and coaxes me back to the driveway and down to the sidewalk. Rocket trails beside us, bopping down the street with his nose wiggling into each plant.
“So, be honest with me—how was dinner?” I ask.
“It was?—”
“Terrible? Terrible, right?”
“Terrible?” he echoes in mock surprise. “No, absolutely not.”
I shove his shoulder, and he laughs.
“Oh, watch for that branch there. God, you’re gonna hurt yourself.” He shifts me closer to the yard and himself to the outside of the sidewalk. “This is worse than when you cook.”
“You said I’d gotten better,” I counter, louder than I should in a sleepy neighborhood.
His palm covers my mouth as he quietly chuckles with a, “Shh.”
The last time he cupped my mouth was on Halloween, and he had gloves on. I’ve never felt his bare skin against my lips. They’re warm. Rough, working hands. Large and spanning between both sides of my jaw. My chest burns.
He removes it, and I finally feel like I can breathe.
“Your baking is good,” he says, his voice low and husky, attempting to be quiet among the crickets and near-silent wind. “The roast?” He holds out his palm and moves it side to side. “Questionable.”
“Rude.”
“Honest.” He narrows his eyes. “I thought you appreciated honesty.”
“I do.”
He kicks an errant rock and looks up at the sky. It’s pitch-black. The streetlamps are spread out, illuminating every ten feet with blurry golden circles of light. When we pass beneath one, it casts his face into contrast. High cheekbones. The little checks beside his eyes when he smiles. The crease beside his lips. We keep walking and are again plunged into the darkness of night.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” he says.
“What?”
“Seeing your sister here. I’m sure it’s like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel or something. You’re probably itching to go back.”
I swallow. “Yeah. A little.” I laugh. “I want to be back in my corner office. I miss my morning runs. I miss my coffee shop down the street. I miss how loud the city is.”
“Still can’t sleep?”
“No. And, God”—I let out a frustrated groan—“I want to know what the hell is going on with my client because I know Mark is messing it up out there.”
“Damn Mark,” Cliff says with a grin.
I sigh. “I miss it all. But … I knew what I was doing, coming out here.”
“What were you doing exactly?”
I shrug. “You don’t take a leave of absence as long as mine and expect to come back to the same job. But I did what needed to be done, and I’ll do what needs to be done when I get back too.”
“Bet you’ll love every minute of it too, huh?”
“Of course I will. It’ll be tough, but I’ve always liked a challenge.”
“I know you do.”
Cliff chuckles, scuffing his sneakers on the ground. I’ll miss his occasional bashfulness. I’ll miss the events in the square. I’ll even miss Winston’s yard, now decorated with a giant turkey standee smack dab in the middle. But these feelings will all pass—everything does—like the seasons do.
“So, uh, what were you coming over to talk about?” Cliff asks in the silence.
I freeze. “Oh. I was …” And suddenly, this conversation feels more fitting. I am leaving, aren’t I? “I was gonna talk to you about my sister actually.”
“What about her?”
“She thinks you’re cute,” I say matter-of-factly, sliding my pendant down the thin chain.
“That’s nice of her.” He says it so quickly that we both laugh before fading into quiet once more.
“I, uh …” I tilt my head to the side and twist my lips. I’m pulling so hard on my chain that it’s cutting into my neck. “Well, I told her I’d set you two up.”
Cliff’s steps slow down significantly, coming to almost a lull before picking up again. It’s so dark that I can’t see his expression.
Finally, he murmurs, “Why?”
“I think it’d be good for you.”
“Huh.”
We slowly walk back into the circle of light, and I watch his face come into view. No lines. Not a smile in sight.
“We were talking about you getting back out there,” I quickly explain. “This would be perfect. I know you. I know my sister. You’re both really happy people.”
He snorts. “Is that the recipe for a good date?”
“Maybe. You’re the baker, aren’t you?”
He huffs out a half laugh. His shoes scratch on the concrete as he lingers in the last bit of darkness before the next lamppost. I stop a few paces ahead of him. My fingers won’t leave my necklace.
I hear him sigh. “Why are you pushing this whole getting out there thing, Michelle?”
My lips part as I think, but I can’t find the proper words. I must take too long because what starts as a pause in conversation turns into awkward silence, and Cliff isn’t covering it like he usually might. He wants an answer.
“Because you deserve a chance at happiness,” I finally breathe out.
His palms shift in his pockets. His foot scuffs on the concrete.
It’s painfully quiet, so I finally add, “She’s your type.”
Cliff hisses in a breath, and slowly, he starts taking steps toward me. One. Then another. I’m breathless as he stalks closer, crossing into the beam of light above us. I can finally see him again. His eyebrows are tilted inward. His chest is suddenly only inches from mine.
“Uh-huh,” he muses, his voice low as his blue eyes flick between mine. “And what is my type, Michelle?”
I straighten my spine. “Blonde. Bubbly.”
He tongues his cheek. He looks irritated, but that only makes me stand taller. He’s never been like this with me, and I don’t know what to do with it.
“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Blonde. Bubbly. That pretty perfectly describes the woman I divorced.”
The words ooze with disdain. It’s like getting shot in the chest, puncturing into my heart so swiftly that I didn’t see it coming.
“Are you mad at me now?” I ask sharply.
Cliff exhales, some of the tension in his shoulders releasing, as if he just realized he was stressed at all. He threads his fingers through his hair, letting the strands drop back into place. “I don’t think this is a great idea. I barely know her.”
“That’s the point of a date, isn’t it?”
His jaw tics as he looks off to the side. “I don’t know, Michelle …”
“Don’t you want to finally move on?” I ask.
He blinks, staring at me. Staring through me.
“I’ll think about it,” he murmurs.
“Good.”
“Good.”
Rocket tugs on the leash, pacing ahead like he wants out of this conversation as much as I do.
We continue our walk, and Cliff is only tense for half a block before we’re talking normally again. Sort of laughing. Pretending like the conversation didn’t happen. But there’s a small edge to every word. A sharp cut.
I don’t address his attitude because there’s no point.
I know what I did, and it isn’t worth it to start an argument I know I’d lose.