Chapter Twenty #3
His lips part. I snap to attention and set George’s glasses on his face.
I do it cautiously and quickly, not meeting his eyes.
But even still, I feel his breath against my wrist. I feel his gaze on my face.
I feel his curls skimming against my knuckles as I place the arms of his glasses behind his ears.
When we were kids, his buzz cut grew into thick, turbulent waves, and he’d call me out for staring or get annoyed when I couldn’t contain myself and reached out to touch them.
“If you want a partner, it’ll happen,” I say. When George decides to go after something, he never fails. “You’ll find her.”
“Or,” he says, “maybe she’ll find me.”
He’s so earnest it pricks at me in a way that feels a lot like envy. There’s never been a woman in George’s life who I felt was more important to him than me. I think a tiny, ugly part of me took comfort in that.
“Can you send out an emergency flare for that sort of thing?” I joke.
“If only it were that easy.”
“I guess it’s hard to make it work when you travel so much. Maybe you need to come back to Toronto for more than a few days here and there. Hint, hint.”
“I don’t think that’s the problem.”
“No?”
He shakes his head, his eyes on mine. “No.”
“Well, what does your dating profile look like? Maybe you’re unintentionally attracting the wrong sort of person.”
“I don’t have a dating profile.”
“How is that possible? You’re constantly…dating.”
A smug little grin forms on his mouth, and before he answers, I say, “Never mind. With your face-hair-ass combo, I bet you do fine without apps.”
A dark brow arches above his glasses. “I’m sorry, my what combo?”
“Oh, please,” I say. “You know how you look.” My best course of action is to call it for what it is.
“I do know how I look,” he says, his smile growing ever cockier. “But how would you describe the way I look?”
“Right now? A little arrogant.”
He laughs and lays back with his hands cradling his head, staring up at the sky. The blanket has slipped down to his waist, and my eyes are drawn to his tattoo and then up toward the muscles popping in his arms.
“Are you flexing?” I ask.
He grins at me. “Maybe a little.”
“You’re shameless, but hold that pose. I have an idea.”
I climb out of the hammock and fetch my phone, opening the camera. I snap a few photos of George while he’s not paying attention.
“Remember when we used to pretend we were a king and queen and that the Big House was our castle?” he asks, still gazing at the sky.
“Of course.” We found a purple taffeta skirt in one of Mimi’s trunks that I wore as a dress and a red wool cape for George. There was even a fur stole that I hung around my shoulders and a cane George used as a scepter.
“We made ourselves a kingdom,” I say.
The cupboard was where we put our prisoners.
We staged beheadings beneath the apple tree and held court in the ballroom.
The creek became our moat. Baryshnikov the cat was our court jester.
Mimi sewed him a cap with bells, but he’d howled when she put it on him.
We spent a week collecting sticks to map out a labyrinth in Mimi’s rambling yard.
By August, the grass had grown so long, my dad used his mower to cut a winding path for us to follow, a round opening at its center.
I remember lying on our backs, the grass whispering in the breeze.
I remember arguing about what a proper labyrinth should have in its middle, and who would be the monarch, and who’d be the subject.
I remember George saying, “What if I’m the king and you’re the queen—that way we’ll both be in charge? ”
“Gross,” I said. “That means we’d kiss and stuff!”
“Not if we don’t want to. The king and queen make their own rules.”
“I like that,” I told him. “You’ll be a wise and noble ruler.”
He smiled, and it felt like a coronation.
Now George hums, still looking at the sky. “We’re good at that.”
“Building kingdoms?”
I capture the gentle curve of his lips before he turns to me. He slits his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you.”
“And with what are you helping me, Francesca?”
“You know I hate it when you call me that.”
“Mmm.”
“I’m going to make a dating profile for you,” I say, thumbing through the pictures. God, he looks good. But he also looks like himself. Nature-y. Intelligent. Confident.
George gets to his feet. “No, you’re not.”
I hold up the phone to him. “This is an emergency flare. You’re telling me you don’t want to even try?”
He takes a step closer, sliding the phone from my hand and closing the screen. “I’m telling you there’s no one on any app I want to date.”
The way his gaze holds mine makes my heart drum faster.
“That seems a bit judgy,” I say as the wind kicks up, blowing my hair in my face.
“It’s not a judgment about people who date online. But I know who I am and what I want, and I’m telling you, I’ll never find her there.”
“How can you be so sure?”
I hold my breath as George reaches up, sweeping the wayward strands of hair from my cheeks.
Before he replies, the rumble of an engine cuts through the quiet. We both turn in the direction of the sound. The Nautical but Nice is approaching slowly, just like Derek promised.