15. About a Bench
15
About a Bench
My week fills up with preparation for Corner Books’ first book club, but Mya was reluctant to commit. Luke was the one who came up with the brilliant plan to order snacks from the coffee shop and request that Mya deliver them. For a nonromantic, he isn’t the worst at benevolent conniving.
By Friday afternoon, I’ve finished cleaning the store and arranging then rearranging the chairs for this evening’s club. I eye the vacuum again. I’ve run it three times but a fourth couldn’t hurt.
Gladys darts over and stands in front of it. “I’ve got one nerve left and you’re jumping all over it.”
“I need things to go exactly according to my plans. I know I redid the seating, but maybe—”
“No!” Gladys exclaims loud enough that Uncle Andy comes out from the back. “Andrew. You need to do something. He’s stressing out and it’s getting to me. Neither of you want to deal with a stressed Gladys.”
Uncle Andy unplugs the vacuum and wraps the cord around it. “Bobby,” he says gently.
I throw my hands up. “Fine. I won’t vacuum or rearrange the chairs. If tonight ends up sucking, it won’t be because of me.”
Uncle Andy walks down one of the aisles and comes back with a copy of Pebbles . He holds it out for me to take. “Take this and go for a walk. Get something to eat. Don’t come back before six. Everything is under control.”
“But what if —”
“You’re going for a walk,” Uncle Andy repeats.
“Fine. Whatever.” I take the book and a final look around the store as Uncle Andy guides me to the door and out onto the sidewalk.
“Everything is under control. It will all work out great. See you at six,” he says.
My walk starts as a stomp as I mentally go over every item I checked off on my list for tonight.
“Everything is under control,” I mutter to myself. “It will all work out great.” Famous last words.
I tuck Pebbles into my back pocket and text Luke.
Me: Got banned from Corner Books until tonight.
I’m surprised my phone lights up right away.
Luke: What did you do now?
Me: Nothing! Can you meet me and go over the Jerome and Mya plan one more time?
Luke: I’m on break. Meet me on campus.
I put away my phone. I now have a destination at least and the walk to campus will kill some time and burn off some of my chaotic energy.
I’m going to text Luke to ask him where he is once I near the Athletic Center, but I hear a familiar voice nearby before I get the chance. Evie.
“The Big Summer Reading Festival is going to be the event of the year,” I hear her tell someone. “You’re new here but it’s a big deal and I’m the one in charge.”
I duck behind a tree to eavesdrop more. Who is Evie lying to and trying to impress?
Luke, a book tucked under his arm, is standing beside Evie. She tosses her hair and laughs at whatever it is he says. I can’t hear his part of the conversation, but I see Evie fake a pout before he turns and walks away. Evie heads in the other direction.
Luke is coming right at me. I can’t have him discover me eavesdropping, but there’s nowhere to hide.
Luke looks over his shoulder as he rounds the tree. I try to circle around the trunk but he’s coming too fast. I hold out a hand to stop him from crashing into me. We collide anyway. His arms shoot up around me, keeping me from falling backward. For a second, it’s like we’re hugging. My cheek presses against the firmness of his chest. He smells even better up close. I look up at his golden face and hair and into his eyes. He does that blink of his and the slight smile. His arms tighten around me for a second and the hair on my arms stands on end.
He parts his lips. “Bobby?” he asks. “What do you do? Lurk around Little Elm, waiting for people to trip over you?”
I shove him in the chest, and he steps back. “What do you do? Barrel around town nearly knocking me over?” I bend to retrieve his fallen book.
Luke smooths his hair back. “Sorry. I should pay more attention to where I’m going.”
“I can’t blame you. I’ve wanted to get away from Evie before too.”
“She’s”—he pauses and searches for a word—“driven.”
“That’s a nice way to say pushy .” I hand him The Silver Devil .
“Thanks,” he says, adjusting the bookmark between the pages. “I’m not a fast reader. You probably are.”
“A little bit.”
Luke scratches his arm. “Were you listening in on my conversation with Evie?”
“I would never,” I scoff.
“The lady doth protest,” Luke says. “I guess you heard her telling me how jealous you are of her getting the festival job.”
“What else did she say?”
“Nothing except the Reading Festival is like Christmas. I figured she was exaggerating. But the banners and posters appearing around town are a lot.”
“The festival is Little Elm’s biggest event of the year. How did you not know about it when you applied to go to school here?”
“I came for the business program.”
“Wanda’s doing business and programming. Now that her streaming is gaining popularity, she wants to make a go at a job she loves.”
“She’s smart. She’s good with people when she warms up.”
“Wanda’s good at boundaries.”
“Is that where you two diverge?”
“Hardy-har-har,” I say.
Luke grabs my hand and the hairs on my arm stand on edge again.
“I know you want to talk but I need to show you. I found this awesome bench. It’s my favorite on campus.”
“You’ve got a favorite bench?”
“Don’t you?”
“No one has a favorite bench.”
Luke grins. “Then wait until you try this beauty out. I won’t be the only one to have fallen for it.”
“Sure. I’ve always got time to fall in love,” I say. I feel myself go red before I add, “With a bench.”
Luke leads me to a bricked-in arch set in the side of an older campus building. The masonry forms a ledge on top of which someone placed some weathered boards. The wood is worn and hardly seems like intentional seating.
“This is it? I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t a bench. It’s a half-assed ledge.”
Luke laughs. “No way. Someone put those there on purpose for people to sit on. It’s a bench.”
“Ledge.”
“Be quiet and sit.” Luke stands in front of me and places both hands on my shoulders. It takes him almost no force to give me a little push that makes my knees give way. I have just enough time to pull Pebbles from my back pocket. As I sit, I feel the cool bricks against my back. The sunlight pours through the foliage, dancing back and forth across me as the leaves sway in the breeze. The wood may be old but it’s soft and comfortable and easy to settle in. It’s not a spacious area. When Luke sits beside me, his knee almost presses against mine.
“Tell me it’s not your new favorite bench now,” he says.
“Fine,” I concede. “It’s my new favorite bench despite it being a ledge only because I’ve never had a favorite bench.” In all honesty, I probably would have walked by here a hundred times and never noticed it. If things had gone as planned for me and college, I probably would have been in too much of a rush to get to book club or see Truman to slow down enough to notice it.
Luke stretches and his shirt rides up. There’s a line of hair that goes down from his belly button under the waistband of his swim shorts. I look away as he leans back and makes himself comfortable against the bricks.
“There’s a spot like this back home behind the old city hall where the bricks are always cool even on the hottest days,” he says. “And this shack where a guy feeds all the feral cats in the area.”
“You’re a cat person?” I ask.
“I like them but prefer a big dog. I never had one though. I’m allergic. My skin gets splotchy from petting them and petting cats gives me a rash.”
“That’s a severe reaction. My mom, Cass, isn’t a pet person. It’s a shock she managed to raise a kid.”
“You don’t mind living with her and not going away?”
“Not really. Little Elm is great and Cass isn’t your typical mother. Plus, college is expensive. Was it a big deal for you to move here?”
“I’m used to going between different households because of all the divorces,” Luke says. “I don’t think moving here from North Maple I was prepared for how small-town a small town can be.”
“For example?”
Luke laughs. “The Reading Festival. Everyone knowing one another. The meddling in other people’s business.”
“I don’t meddle.”
“You do meddle. And you’ve sucked me into it too. I’m an accessory to your crime.”
“Or a sidekick to my heroism,” I counter.
“Or a fool who should know better.” Then Luke points at Pebbles and asks the most perfect question a guy could ask me while sitting on a ledge under the shade of the elms. “Want to tell me about that?” He closes his eyes and leans his head back, ready to listen, his face pointing toward the sky. He swallows. The muscles of his throat move, his Adam’s apple bobs. There’s a tiny bit of stubble across his jawline.
So, I tell him about the Baroness and tease the plot of the book. How the two boys never quite seem to be in the same place at the same time to make it work. How the odds are stacked against them. How all seems lost.
Luke pulls his knee near me up and hugs it to his chest as he listens. His lips pull up in an almost-unnoticeable smile.
“It’s just so satisfying,” I finish. “It’s exactly how love should be.”
Luke opens his eyes. “I forgot you’re a Casanova. You must have fallen in love a lot.”
“With every turn of the page.”
We sit in silence, the wind lifting and blowing the heat away from our bodies and the bricks cool on our backs.
After a while, I ask, “What do you like about The Silver Devil ?”
“The passion. The intensity. There’s something primal, a sense of if I don’t have you, I’ll go mad. I don’t believe that’s what love’s like, though.”
“How would you know? Have you fallen in love a lot?”
“Did you forget? You said it yourself, I’m a love Grinch. I’m immune to love.”
“Maybe you haven’t given the right one a chance.” I place my copy of Pebbles on the bench between us. Hesitantly, I reach out to take Luke’s hand. I put it on top of the book. My fingers stay on his for only a second before I yank my hand away, as if shocked by static.
“You should read that,” I say. “See if your inner cynic changes his mind.”
“I’m a realist, not a cynic.” Luke lifts his hand off the book. “This is your favorite. What if I hate it? I don’t want to ruin it for you.”
“You won’t. Trust me like I trusted you with this bench. Even if it is a ledge.”
“Fine. I’ll try to read it fast.”
I shake my head. “Take your time with it. Certain things need to be savored.”
The sun sways across Luke’s face, over his eyes, nose, lips, cheeks, brow. He doesn’t glow gold. He’s just a guy sitting on a bench in the shade. I’m just the guy sitting beside him.
Luke places Pebbles on top of Devil , gripping both in his large hand. “My next shift at the pool starts soon.”
“I’ve still got time to kill. I’ll walk you.”
We don’t say much except about the weather on the short trip. When we get to the doors of the Athletic Center, a minibus pulls up.
The driver opens the doors and calls down the steps. “Sorry. Sorry. We’re running behind. It’s been a day.”
“Don’t worry,” Luke answers. “I’m early. I’ll get them going.”
“You really are a lifesaver, Luke,” the driver says. She moves aside to let Luke onto the bus.
“Luke!” several voices call as he ascends the steps.
In a matter of minutes, Luke returns and assists a line of senior citizens off the bus toward the Athletic Center. He tells each person how great they’re looking as he offers them his arm when they reach the bottom step.
The last to descend is someone I know.
“Bobby!” Mr. Martinez calls, waving me over. “I heard you were working here.”
“Not exactly. I’m downtown at Corner Books,” I say and quickly change subjects to Mr. Martinez’s partner. “How’s Mr. Shah?”
Mr. Martinez grips my hand with both of his. “Playing poker back at the seniors’ residence. He’s a terrible bluffer but he has fun.”
I start to laugh.
Mr. Martinez says to Luke, “I lived on the same block as Ravi for twenty years, never even knowing he was there. And this one”—he motions to me—“spends five minutes with us at a garage sale and convinces us to take a private cooking class together when we both checked out the bakeware. We saw an old casserole dish and he saw a partnership. Next thing we know, he’s got us signed up for cooking classes together. Another do-gooder.”
“Food is a primal love language,” I say.
Mr. Martinez falls behind the other seniors. “Go on ahead. Start without me.”
Luke heads inside while I hold open a door for Mr. Martinez, who is slowly ascending the stairs.
Mr. Martinez points inside with his cane. “Your instincts are right hanging around that Luke. I know he’s not looking for any sort of recognition, but it’s not everyone who gives up their time for a bunch of seniors to do water aerobics.”
I can’t help myself and need to know more. “How did that happen?”
“Our old lifeguard graduated. We only get pool time if a lifeguard volunteers to open the pool for us and supervise. Luke was the only one of the new hires who offered. Stick with him. You don’t want one like that to slip away.”
“It’s not like that between us. Neither of us are looking for love,” I say, knowing that I crossed off a boyfriend from my Summer of Bobby list.
“I wasn’t looking either when you introduced me to Ravi. My only regret is how much time I spent without him when he was right under my nose. Don’t waste your time. Luke is one of the good ones.” Mr. Martinez winks at me before he pulls himself up tall and struts into the building.