18. Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Riley
W e weren’t very good at sticking to the rule of limiting the amount of time we spent together. At my suggestion he started coming over every day after school to cook with me, or if Emery insisted on cooking that night, he would just hang out with us and help me with the cleanup. It wasn’t an open “hey you should come over every night” invite. It was me asking him if he wanted to come over after school during our morning phone call every morning. Or Emery asking him each night if we would be over the next day so she could plan dinner.
If I thought too much about it I would panic, tell myself that I need to press the brakes. Take a couple of days off from seeing him. Then each morning I would wake up thinking about how I couldn’t wait to see him.
The weekends become a time when we would swap out whose place we were at to get chores done that were neglected through the week. We had fallen into the pattern easily, spending almost all our free time together.
“I want to take you on another date,” Matt said, wiping down the counter as I loaded the dishwasher. Last week Emery asked Matt what one of his favorite comfort foods was because she wanted a new challenge of adapting something to fit her restrictions. Dinner had been chicken pot pie with kitchen sink cookies for dessert. She watched him like a hawk asking detailed questions about the flavors and textures, taking notes of every little reaction. It was still unclear if his feedback helped any considering that Matt was the least picky eater we’ve ever met.
“You say that like we don’t have dates all the time.” I rested my back against the counter and watched the way his arm flexed as he worked, the way his shirt clung to his chest. The sleeve of his t-shirt had ridden up enough to show the bottom of the lowest placed note of his tattoo. “We’ve seen each other every day since Labor Day.”
“Sweetheart, that’s just doing life together. I want to take you on a real date again.”
“It’s spending time together. Isn’t that all a date is?” What my partner and I did during a date never really mattered to me in the past, I’ve always been the kind of person that preferred the small moments over the big ones. Quality time was quality time regardless of what we were doing. Every moment spent with Matt felt more important, more meaningful than even bigger moments of romance from my past. Helping each other with lesson plans, watching movies while cuddled up on the couch, cooking together – those were all dates to me. No pressure for romance, just time together.
Matt reached for the trash can and raked a pile of flour into it. It looked like Emery dumped more flour on the counters than she had used for the pie. She claimed she had cleaned as she worked, but the evidence stated otherwise. She lived in denial about how messy of a cook she was.
“Name the last time we went out,” he said.
“On Sunday we went grocery shopping and had a dance party while we cleaned the house.” I smiled at the memory of walking hand in hand down the aisles while he pushed the cart. Emery gave us the list of everything she needed for what she had planned this week and we filled in the blanks with our plans for our nights to cook. Sure, it felt a lot like treading too close to making things real. I kept catching myself thinking about how one day it could be us shopping just for the two of us. The two of us cleaning our house, dividing up the chores. I’d pick up the things that had been scattered around through the week because he hated it and always ended up distracted by something else during the process. He’d sweep and mop because it was my least favorite. We’d clean out the refrigerator together as we made our weekly meal plan. It would always be fun because it was the two of us.
It was all so easy to picture.
He laughed and shook his head, his hair falling onto his forehead. “Riley, that isn’t a date.”
I crossed my arms. “A date is spending time together and having fun. We did both. I don’t understand how it’s not a date.” Any time spent with him was the time of my life. Even if it was just us on the couch, his head in my lap so I could play with his hair while he told me about his day at work. I wanted to know every detail about his day and he was always willing to share.
Matt laughed again and stepped closer to me, pressing me against the counter. His long fingers stroked the hair that had fallen from my clip at the side of my face. “Have I told you how much I love spending time with you?”
I gulped as my heart started to race. “I think you’ve mentioned it.” I love spending time with you too, it’s the best part of my day. We didn’t live together, we weren’t even a real couple, but for the past couple weeks it felt like we were pretending we were. The past couple of weeks were perfect. I pressed my hands into the counter behind me, the edge biting into my palms keeping my thoughts from spiraling.
“It doesn’t matter what we’re doing as long as I get to spend time with you. I’m happy with the little things, but I really want to take you on dates too.” He trailed his hands down my arms until he reached my hands, taking them into his. “I promise I won’t get us lost in the woods again.” He lifted our hands to his mouth, flipping them so he could press a kiss against my palms. “Do I need to get on my knees and beg?”
I rolled my eyes. “What kind of date do you have in mind?”
“We’re going to start by getting dressed up and going to dinner somewhere,” he said, placing my arms around his neck. He pulled me away from the counter to the middle of the kitchen and started swaying to a song in his head. “After dinner we can flip a coin to pick our next destination or activity.” It was clear he’d been putting a lot of thought into this already. Normally Matt processed everything out loud, telling me half formed plans in bits and pieces until he worked out all the details. Often he would start mid thought leaving me scrambling to catch up. He moved one of my hands from around his neck and swung me out, following up with a tug to spin me back into him. His free hand tapped against his thigh.
“I have a question I need to ask you,” I told him. He moved his hand to my back and lowered me into a dip, his fingers tapping against my back now. “Why are you always tapping your fingers in patterns like that?”
His fingers froze and he knitted his brows together. “I don’t even notice I’m doing it most of the time.”
“Are you playing along to the song in your head?” I knew enough about ADHD to know that it was probably his go to stimming behavior. I had also watched him talk about work enough, let him start teaching me to play different instruments for long enough to recognize that sometimes the tapping happened in patterns similar to the finger placements on them.
He tilted his head and bit his lip as he thought, the tips of his fingers moved slowly against my back. “I guess so,” he finally said. He moved my arms back around his neck and started swaying again. “Now answer my question. Can I take my beautiful girl on a date?”
“Matt, I’m not –”
He cut me off with a finger pressed against my lips followed by another dip. “You don’t have to say anything. Please, just let me call you mine for a little while.” He pulled me back into him, wrapping his arms around me in a tight hug. “I’m yours, whenever you’re ready to let me.”