Chapter 13 #2
I pour cream into it from the pot in the middle of the nook’s table, feeling Nora’s bemused gaze on me the whole time, and then sit down across from Nathaniel. “I’m so sorry this happened, Nathaniel. I should have told Nora I was sending you over.”
“Aw, that’s all right,” he says easily, as if it were a misunderstanding about the recycling schedule. “I don’t mind a little excitement, and Nora here’s offered to help me weed my garden to make up for—”
“Pepper-spraying you in the face,” I finish, incredulous.
Nathaniel must like dangerous women as much as I do.
I glance at her, eyebrows raised.
Her cheeks flush. “I said I was sorry. I am sorry. It was an honest misunderstanding. He climbed up there with those creepy goggles on, holding a baseball bat, and—”
“You might want to hold off on writing that letter, Nathaniel,” I say. “It sounds like the goggles were a contributing factor.”
He touts his tongue. “But they do help you see in the dark. I saw the threat coming, clear as day. Your girl’s got some good reflexes.”
“I told you it’s a fake relationship, Nathaniel,” Nora says with a tired, halfhearted eye roll.
“You told him about our secret fake relationship?” I ask in disbelief.
“We were in the waiting room for two hours, and Nathaniel has this thing against cell phones.” Her lips scrunch to the side as if she can’t even imagine how anyone could dislike the devices that have robbed us all of our attention spans.
“They did have some magazines, but the pages were discolored. They probably had fifty different types of bacteria and a dozen viruses on them.”
“Viruses are more common than bacteria,” I mutter.
She rewards me with a sigh. “Anyway…it seemed like the least I could do was entertain him with my misery.”
Knowing Nathaniel, she was probably trying to put a halt to his endless stories.
She tilts her head, eyeing me. “I should have asked you before saying anything about our agreement. I know you probably haven’t told anyone.”
I think of the guys in the band and the not-so-little-and-old ladies, who sent me half a dozen texts yesterday, all of them about aftershave. Dottie and Ann disagreed about which scent would be the “most compelling” to Nora; I disagreed that I needed any.
Dottie told me she’d be delivering a bottle of her favored choice prior to the double date. I was confident nothing I could say or do would prevent it from showing up, so I stopped trying.
I gulp the terrible coffee and cringe. “Well…there may be a couple of other people who know.”
“You told the guys?” She picks a toasted bagel up off a plate on the counter and takes a bite. “That’s okay. My friends know too.”
“Uh…yeah. And Dottie and Ann and a couple of their friends. But they’ve promised not to say anything to our parents.”
She drops the rest of the bagel onto the floor, and Cookie lunges forward and races off with it. I put up a token protest and call out her name, but she doesn’t so much as pause in her flight down the hall.
“You didn’t even know Dottie,” Nora says haltingly. “You called her a little old lady.”
“Oh, that’s not something you should ever call a woman, son,” Nathaniel proclaims with a chuckle. “Even if she’s lying on her deathbed. Don’t call ’em ma’am either. I could have told you that.”
“Next time I meet an elderly woman, I’ll be sure to give you a call.”
“Please do. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a lady in my life.”
“You might want to wait until…” I gesture to his pink rash with the pale holes for eyes.
“Cormac.” Nora cups a hand around my shoulder. I turn in my chair and find her face close to mine. She keeps her hand curled around me, her fingers warm through my thin T-shirt.
I draw in a deep breath and get another hint of ginger. “I didn’t know Dottie, but she saw me…”
I glance at Nathaniel, who waves cheerfully.
I gulp air. But the feeling of Nora’s hand, still wrapped around my shoulder as if she forgot she left it there, is all I can think about.
“Cormac?” she repeats.
“She saw me kiss you outside The Ginger Station.”
“Whoa-ho-ho,” Nathaniel says with a booming laugh. “You didn’t mention that part.”
“He kissed me on the side of my mouth,” she says. “It was only for show.”
“That’s what I said, but Dottie was convinced we were in a secret relationship, so I had to tell her everything, and…well…she wanted to help.”
“She hasn’t said anything to me,” she murmurs.
“Maybe she didn’t want to overwhelm us.”
“That doesn’t sound like her.”
It doesn’t. But I’m not about to tell Nora the reason Dottie is helping me, not her, is that she thinks I still like her.
Knows.
Because the way I felt earlier, when I was on the phone with Nora, unable to help her other than by calling in Nathaniel, tells me everything I need to know.
More than a decade after high school, Nora Leigh is still driving me crazy.
“Well, she’s not going to tell our parents or anything, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Ugh, fine.” Nora finally removes her hand from my shoulder. “But we can’t keep telling people. The more people who know, the messier this will get.”
“Now, you don’t need to worry on my account,” Nathaniel says, leaning back in his chair. I glance at him, register the strange pink rash, and quickly look away. “I’ve only told two people.”
“When did you have a chance to tell anyone?” Nora demands, incredulous.
“I had to explain it to the doctor, now didn’t I? He wanted to know why you’d sprayed me. And there was a student doctor helping out. I couldn’t exactly ask her to leave.”
She rubs her temples, and a smile spreads across my face.
Nora sits beside me and nudges my foot under the table. “What are you smiling about?”
But she’s trying not to smile too. I see it at the sides of her mouth.
“I’m smiling about you. And thinking about what you’ll look like weeding Nathaniel’s gnarly garden.”
Her foot slides against mine again. “Already taken care of. I’m going to borrow one of your gamer T-shirts. I’m gonna get it super sweaty too.”
“All right, but you should feel no obligation to give it back.”
The look on her face says she thinks I’m messing around, but I like the thought of her having one of my shirts. Wearing it, even if it’s just for weeding.
“Ooh.” Nathaniel snaps his fingers. “You can wear it to the double date next week, too.”
Nora raises her eyebrows at me, her expression purely saucy, and I feel a tug of longing.
“I’ll only wear his if he wears one of mine. Now, who wants to lounge on the couch with me and watch the Shirtless Chef?”
“That sounds unsanitary,” I point out.
“That’s definitely not why over a million people watch it. This hot Italian guy with ridiculous abs prepares food on camera. Actually, I don’t know that he’s hot, because his face is never on camera, but he sounds hot.”
I meet Nathaniel’s eyes. “Women are strange,” I say.
Nora gives me a little kick under the table.