Chapter 20 Then
Fall isn’t here yet, but there’s a tinge of crisp cool in the air that makes me eager for it. It’s been five weeks since the endorphin-soaked almost-kiss, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Every time I see Alex, I find myself staring at his mouth, asking myself, What if?
I have to stop. I just don’t know how to.
I try to line up my hangouts with Alex so that they’re on Mia days. It’s easier to trust I won’t throw myself at him and do something reckless with his daughter around. But even that isn’t helping as much as I’d hoped.
Because watching a man be a good dad—especially when your dad was largely absent and when present didn’t seem particularly happy about it—is deeply attractive.
Today, though, it’s even easier than normal not to think about kissing Alex, to watch him as he pushes Mia in her swing and not feel that sensual tug drawing me toward him. Because today, I’m pathetically sad.
No Fried Food and French Wine Friday with Lauren will happen tonight, not even via FaceTime.
Lauren is spending her birthday, and the anniversary of her mother’s passing, without cell service, at an on-site consult for a cutting-edge one-with-nature home design project somewhere in the Southwest. I still sent her a Happy Birthday text followed by what I hoped was a few comforting words about missing her mom today.
The texts haven’t shown as delivered. I keep checking my phone, hoping they will.
“Everything okay?” Alex asks.
I shove my phone back in my jeans pocket. “Yep.”
He’s looking at me closely, still somehow perfectly timing his pushes on Mia’s back to send her soaring up to the sky in the basket swing she crammed herself into. “You sure?” he says.
“It’s Lauren’s birthday today,” I admit. “And the anniversary of her mom’s death.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Shit.”
“Daddy!” Mia yells. “Bad word!”
“Sorry, honey” he says.
“Gotta give me a pennyyyy!” she yells, the last word stretching out until it morphs into a shriek of delight as he sends her flying upward again.
“Add it to my tab,” Alex tells her. Then he says to me, “So you reached out to her?”
I nod. “She’s somewhere for work with no cell service, and it makes me antsy. I want to be sure she gets my messages.”
“She will,” he says. “And even if she doesn’t today, she knows you love her, Ted.”
My nose stings. I will not cry today. “How do you know?”
“Because, based on everything you’ve told me about your friendship with her, Lauren would have no reason to question how much you love her or that you’re thinking about her today, even if you can’t reach her.
Because, since I’ve met you, all I’ve seen is that you show the people in your life how much you care about them.
There’s no room for doubt. Your coworkers.
Your friends from the library. That crank who owns your building—”
“Mr. Fleischer,” I tell him.
“Mr. Fleischer, that’s right.” Alex smiles. “That guy is a trip.”
“He’s lucky he’s cute,” I mutter. “And a decent landlord, now that he knows it’s me upstairs and I keep him well stocked with baked-good leftovers from the store’s coffee bar.”
“Why’s that?” Alex asks. “The lucky-he’s-cute part.”
“The man listens to the TV in his living room, right beneath me, so loud that I can hear the newscasters breathing.”
Alex laughs. “My dad’s like that, too, with the morning news. He’s not even that old or hard of hearing, either. I think he just does it because it gets my sister out of his hair every day from eight to nine.”
I smile. “Which sister?”
“Sophia. The oldest. She lives with my parents, and she’s always on Dad about taking his meds and busting him sneaking—” He mimes drawing on a cigarette, as he pushes Mia up into the air.
“Thea!” Mia yells.
“Mia!” I yell back.
Mia smiles my way, a web of dark waves cast across her face. “Push me!”
“Please,” Alex reminds her.
She rolls her eyes. “Daddy, I know that.”
“Mia.” He tickles her as she drifts back in her swing. “So say that.”
She wriggles in her basket swing, shoving off his tickles as she shrieks, “Thea, please push me!”
“Gladly,” I tell her, stepping in as Alex moves aside.
We’re quiet for a minute, except for Mia, whose happy squeals ring out in the air. I glance over at Alex and catch him staring at me.
I must be staring back at him, too, because suddenly Mia’s swing is about to barrel into me. I leap back just in time not to get clobbered, pushing her up in the air again.
Alex asks, “What’s your favorite food?”
I do a double take his way, but I’m careful this time to bring my gaze back to Mia. “I don’t know,” I tell him.
His brow furrows. “Why not?”
“Same way I don’t know what my favorite book is, either. I’m not done yet. How could I know what’s my favorite, before I am?”
The furrow deepens. “But when you’re done reading or… eating, won’t that mean you’re dead?”
“Yep!” I tell him.
“Ted, that is morbid.”
“I guess. But I can’t stand the idea of saying something’s my favorite, that this is the best a book can be, when there’s so much left to read.” I shrug. “Same with food. Actually more so with food. I’ve eaten a lot less great food than I’ve read great books.”
He watches me for a beat, then says, “I know a guy who could fix that.”
“Fix what? The existential bleakness underpinning my philosophy on favorites?” I shake my head. “I’m way too German for that to ever be fixed. It’s hardwired in my DNA.”
He cracks a smile. “I meant, the part where you said you’ve eaten a lot less great food than you’ve read great books.”
“Oh.” Warmth spills through me. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
I turn back to Mia, pushing her again, higher, like she asks. “It just seems like a lot of hassle.”
“Ted.” He laughs dryly. “Cooking is my passion. And my job. Which means, sometimes, I lose all passion for it and hate that it’s my job. Basically, it’s already a hassle. Cooking for the people I care about… helps.”
I glance his way. “How so, Chef?”
He leans against one of the metal poles anchoring the playground swing set, arms folded across his chest. “Why do you give me books, Ms. Bookseller?”
My cheeks heat. “I’ve only given you a couple.”
“Even higher, Thea!” Mia yells.
“Please,” Alex reminds her, but his eyes stay fixed on me.
“Please!” Mia shrieks.
Dutifully, I give her a strong push, sending her flying up, squealing with happiness.
“Because I love reading,” I tell him, “and I love that it’s my job to help the right book find the right reader, but sometimes my job is also a bunch of other grubby tasks that make me love my job a lot less and feel… distanced from what got me doing that work in the first place…”
“And?” he prompts.
A shiver runs down my spine. Sometimes I feel like Alex can read my mind, like he knows exactly where I’m going when I’m talking to him, almost before I do.
Or maybe it’s that he listens closely, in a way I’ve never encountered in anyone else before, intensely focused, tracking every word.
Maybe it’s simply unfamiliar to me not only to be listened to, but to feel heard.
“Giving books to people I care about,” I tell him, “it’s…
a way to show people I care, that I’m thinking about them and hopefully giving them something that makes their lives better, even if only for a couple hundred pages.
And maybe it’s selfish, but it helps me…
fall in love again.” A beat passes, before I realize it’s probably best if I clarify. “In love with reading. Again.”
“So,” Alex says, “what you’re saying is, when you share your gift with the people who matter to you, it reminds you why you loved that gift in the first place. Is that right?”
“Yes,” I tell him quietly.
Alex pushes off the swing set, his gaze holding mine. “Then let me cook for you,” he says. “Because I care about you. And because… it’ll help me fall in love, too. With cooking. Again.”
Maybe he’s teasing me a little, mimicking my words, but it doesn’t sound like teasing. It sounds there’s something deeper beneath the surface of what he’s said; it feels that way, as he steps closer, until we’re shoulder to shoulder.
For a moment, we stand there, side by side, watching Mia, wild-haired, legs kicking, full of joy, swinging up into the sky.
Alex glances my way and says, “Please?”
“Well, all right.” I lean into him, just the slightest, my shoulder pressed to his, and smile. “Since you asked nicely.”
My body is that delicious strain of sleepy from a taking a little too much sun and eating a little too much good food. I sit, elbows on Alex’s kitchen table, a handful of playing cards fanned in front of my face as I stare at Alex across from me.
Mia snores through the baby monitor, and I smile behind my cards. Her first snore was halfway through my first verse of the “I Am Here” StoryTime song.
“That kid was worn out,” I tell Alex.
“Took her long enough,” he says. “I spent so much energy wearing her out today, I am worn out.”
I laugh. “Same. I’ll bring Argos next time. They can wear each other out instead.”
“Deal,” he says.
“Thanks again,” I tell him, “for dinner.”
“Thanks for doing all those dishes,” he says appreciatively.
“Happy to.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t mean that. No one is happy to do the dishes.”
“I am,” I admit. “I find it relaxing.”
He leans in, eyes wide, cards pressed to his chest. “Relaxing?”
I lean in with my cards against my chest, eyes wide, mirroring him. “I am just as incredulous that you find cooking enjoyable.”
“Strange,” he says.
“Agreed.”
We both sit up, eyes back on our cards. Alex just explained the rules of two-person euchre to me five minutes ago—for the second time—and I’ve already forgotten them.
Other thoughts have been bouncing around my mind tonight, loud and insistent, taking up so much space that I can’t hold on to anything else.