Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
R ORY DECIDED ON the green dress for her date. Because the black one just felt too sexy in the end, and she didn’t want to lead with sexy. She couldn’t explain that. Especially not after what she had sort of thought she wanted from this whole thing.
But the last two days had thrown her off-kilter. The whole thing with Gideon was a knot she was having difficulty untangling.
I would fucking kiss you.
Did he want to kiss her?
The heat in his eyes had been undeniable, but what did she know about heat? She’d been honest in what she’d said to him. No one had ever been nice to her just for the sake of it outside of her family or best friend.
But he was being nice. And then he’d gone and said that and it had been like someone had flipped the light switch on inside her, and she had seen all these things lit up clearly.
Kissing and sex and desire.
When she’d had a crush on Gideon, she’d been a kid. Her crush had not been about sex. It hadn’t even been about a kiss.
She just thought he was beautiful. She just wanted to marry him, and at thirteen that had been divorced entirely from the physical—at least it had been for her.
Now it was all rattling around inside her, and she was having difficulty sorting her thoughts out.
She and Mike were meeting in Mapleton at Jack’s Grill because she had just thought that committing to driving that far with a guy she had only shared a very brief conversation with was not the best idea.
And she just wanted to have her own car. Just in case.
She had trust issues. She came by them honestly.
Fia gave her the whole be-careful speech, and she waved her off as she went down to the car, and started another drive to Mapleton. It felt like too many back-to-back.
But driving with Gideon had been different than driving by herself, and while she was on the road alone, she had no choice but to replay every interaction she had had with him since yesterday.
They were going on that camping trip tomorrow.
She was obsessing about that. About him. And she didn’t stop, even as she pulled into the parking lot at the restaurant.
She got out and walked up toward the front, where she saw Mike standing at the end of the sidewalk. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he responded.
He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
It was warm because his skin was warm, but not for any other reason. When Gideon’s fingers had touched hers, it had been like a lightning bolt had gone off through her body.
This was just regular old ninety-eight point six meeting skin of the same temperature.
There was nothing deeper. Nothing that affected her beyond that simple contact.
It was all very weird.
She realized it was vaguely gross to have somebody’s mouth on your skin when they didn’t light you up inside.
If I said I was going to kiss you...
I would fucking kiss you.
“I thought I might get a hamburger. I mean, they look like they’re pretty good hamburgers. I checked the menu online.”
Wow. Way to convince the guy she wasn’t a weirdo.
“Well. I didn’t look.”
Check the menu online. How could anyone live with themselves going to a restaurant when they didn’t know what they would find? Maybe that was anxiety. But honestly, she just thought it was sensible.
“Well, what else did you think looked good?” he said, seeming to recover from the awkwardness of her introduction.
“The flatbread. The fried cauliflower as an appetizer. I like sweet potato fries.”
“Great.”
He didn’t sound like he thought it was great. He sounded a bit bored, actually.
They walked into the restaurant and were seated by their host. “So, real estate.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“How did you get into that?”
He started talking in way too much detail for her to ever retain any of the information, and honestly she was never going to care.
It was funny how she and Gideon could talk about anything and she felt like she cared a lot.
“And you’re moving to Boston?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
It was weird how distant that felt now. And it was closer. It was just that all of these things with Gideon had been looming large in her mind. This mission to become some sort of legend.
It somehow seemed a little bit smaller. Which was silly. Because it was the reason she was doing all this.
“I’m going to be building manager. In the north end. It’s this really beautiful historic place, and I am just so excited for a fresh start.”
“Yeah.”
About that time the check came.
“You’re just looking for something casual,” he said.
“Yeah. Casual.”
Except she knew she wasn’t looking for anything. Not with him.
He walked her out to her car, and when she got to the driver’s side, she saw the way that he was standing. Looking at her. Expectantly.
Then he started to lean in. And without thinking, she took a step back.
“I had a great time,” she said.
“Me, too. Do you want to... You can come back to my place.”
“I’m very religious,” she said. “And it’s important to me that I guard my heart. In this season. And my... My chastity . So. I shouldn’t. I enjoyed our courtship. Tonight.” Everything that came out of her mouth sounded stilted and ridiculous, but she was panicking. And it seemed like maybe the nicest way to let him down. What could he say if it was against her religious convictions to go back with him? It wasn’t. And she felt a little bad about that. A little bit like a lightning bolt might hit her. But surely God would understand. She needed to try and extricate herself without hurting his feelings. Or making him mad.
“I...didn’t get the impression that you were?”
“I had a conversion experience. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“I’m good,” he said.
He took a physical step back.
“Well. Good luck selling houses. I probably won’t see you before I go to Boston.”
She got in her car quickly, and pulled out of the parking lot feeling like an absolute idiot.
What the hell was that all about? What the hell had she done?
It was just that she couldn’t kiss him. Not for the sake of it. She wasn’t going to be able to have sex with him if she couldn’t even kiss him.
She had been thinking of those things as something to get over. As something she needed to accomplish. As markers that she was a coward.
A quitter.
But it wasn’t any better to do something just to check it off. Just to get back at people. That didn’t make her free. That didn’t make her anything but that same scared girl doing things because of the bullies in her life. Who were still by extension controlling her.
She hadn’t even brought any of that out. She hadn’t even taken this opportunity to harm or embarrass him.
She just couldn’t care. Right now it was so hard to care because she was spending time with Gideon. Because he was taking her camping tomorrow. So what did any of that matter?
Yeah, Mike and so many of the others had been hideously mean.
Mike had moved on and changed more or less, because while he was a little bit of an opportunist who had been hoping for easy sex, he hadn’t been rude or insistent, and at no point had he been mean.
She was moving to Boston. And she was friends with Gideon. They were friends. Except...
If I said I was going to kiss you...
Right. Well. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was the future.
And that she learned something.
Maybe Gideon was right.
She was looking for a parade when the big change needed to happen inside her.
She was looking for a parade when it didn’t matter. What mattered was what she wanted.
An image of Gideon swam before her.
She swallowed hard.
Tomorrow they were climbing a mountain.
So who knew what else she might find the courage to do?
That almost scared her.
She was scaring herself.
She laughed. In the emptiness of her car, she laughed.
Her own audacity was a little bit disconcerting. And that might be a good thing.
Maybe that was what it was all about.
If she could terrify herself and show up anyway, if she could throw caution to the wind and see where it blew her, maybe that was what might make her truly legendary. To herself.
And maybe that was all that mattered.