Twenty-Four #2
That night the coat wasn’t in my dream, but watching Craig stand in my bathroom doorway I wondered if he was cold and needed it. Even under his gaze I felt entirely at ease on the corner of the bed as I put on my bra. I was going to see him again.
I took the gift, still in its bag, to school with me in the morning.
Even if I resisted curling up in the coat, I couldn’t let it out of my sight.
It rested under my desk and I snuck peaks at it throughout the day.
The morning passed, and Craig still hadn’t called.
He’d said he would. He asked if he could.
Men are supposed to make the calls. But he’d chatted me up at the gym.
And asked me out for the play. What had I done, ask for his address to register him for a CPR class? That was real sexy.
As the students shuffled out of fifth period I checked my phone again.
Nothing. The waiting had been painful before, but with the jacket from my dreams under my desk it was now torture.
Olivia Minor giggled on her way out the door as she slipped her arm through Eddie Ramos’s, pulling him closer.
Why not? I’m a modern woman. I can chase a guy as well as any of these teens.
Before I could think better of it I swiped out a message and sent it.
ME: I said you could call me but thought maybe it was my turn. Are you up for coffee this afternoon?
A few heartbeats thundered in my head before the reply arrived.
CRAIG: I am free.
CRAIG: I’d like that. Where and when?
Pondering an answer, my nervous breath whistled through my teeth, drawing the attention of the incoming students.
I quickly sent a reply and put my phone away.
Now to keep my mind on biology. Teaching Biology.
Teaching my students biology. Teaching my high school students biology. My train of thought was a mess.
Keeping my head during the rest of the day was impossible. I settled on being half distracted and glancing at the shopping bag under my desk only twice per period. When Maggie tried to wave me down in the press of afterschool students, I ignored her on my dash out the door.
All the way to the coffee shop I fretted.
This meetup hadn’t been part of the plan.
I was in ugly flats, and my hair had been pulled back all day.
If I let it down it would have that unsightly kink from the tie.
In the rearview mirror I brushed out part and left it half up, maybe the line wasn’t too obvious.
Checking my teeth I got out of the car and found a table.
The place was mostly empty, and the bearded barista came out from his station to take my order. “Two coffees. One black, the other with cream and sugar.”
Despite the fun drinks here, I couldn’t handle fun, I needed just regular coffee.
My hands were already shaking without the caffeine.
I should have ordered decaf. Waiting, my foot drifted to touch the shopping bag under the table, just checking in.
The barista came back with a pair of mugs and I quickly grabbed mine, seeking something physical to hold onto.
This was very very stupid. Craig and I had seen each other just a few times and now I was giving him a present with a lot of expectation.
Expectation leads to disappointment. This was a mistake.
A colossal career ending life destroying mistake.
As I set my drink down to run, now grateful for my practical flats, Craig walked in the door.
His short hair was sharp and clean, shining with the faint hint of product, a contrast against the three–day scruff that blurred the firm line of his jaw.
A jaw that slid into a wide smile, a smile that crinkled his eyes, crinkles that drew my gaze up and into his baby blues.
His face was a whirlpool that I couldn’t get away from, every time I tried to look somewhere else it sent me to another part of him.
“You clean up well,” he chuckled before lowering into the high-backed chair.
Oh god, he still is hung up on the car wreck. How couldn’t he be, it was a disaster. He still had on his brown jacket, and it was blotchy with stains and dirt rubbed into the elbows with a smear of mud ground into the shoulder. The coat was an unsightly wreck. We had been such a mess.
Tamping down the feeling that I should run I muttered, “I’m sorry about that. Took me two baths to get the mud out.”
The bath, I mentioned the bath! Something deep stirred in me as I tried to keep my mind off lying in the bath, thinking about him.
“You were pretty dirty yourself,” I managed and then instantly regretted it.
Was I telling him I felt dirty? Or was I rubbing in the fact that he’d been a knight in shining armor and rolled in the actual dirt for me.
Time to get on with this before I said something really embarrassing.
Reaching under the table I pulled the gift bag out.
“I feel really terrible about how that all went down. So, I got you something.”
Silently he took the bag and slid out the jacket and held it up. I couldn’t see his face, just the grain of the leather on the back of the coat. Was he still smiling? Had those eye crinkles smoothed away in disappointment?
His voice traveled the distance the light of his face couldn’t, “This is really expensive.”
Had I left the tag on? No, I could feel the hard corner of the tag in my own coat pocket. Someone like Craig probably knew all about these coats.
“I feel terrible about last weekend and I can see the mud didn’t come out of your coat. It’s ruined, and all because of me.” The words were a thick jumble in my mouth. Before I said something stupid I added, “This is just me saying thank you.”
Lowering the coat, Craig’s face was a swirl of emotions, his brow wrinkled, one side of his mouth curved in a grin, the other still flat.
But those happy eye crinkles were still there.
In my past crow’s feet and blue eyes were usually accompanied by deception, and lies, and sometimes violence.
A cocktail that had ended my parent’s marriage and my relationship with my dad.
But the maelstrom of emotions on Craig’s face was so honest. No hiding the conflicting mixture, no calculation, just emotional waves and winds crashing against themselves, churning into a confusion that hadn’t reached an equilibrium.
I wanted to reach out and gather all of it up in my arms and hold it until the rolling churn settled into truth.
Instead, I said, “Put it on.”
Obliging me, Craig slipped off his old jacket and hung it over the back of his chair.
Then he slipped his right arm in the sleeve of the new jacket.
I watched his scarred hand emerge from the sleeve, the white lines of trauma washed out by the brilliance of the fleece.
When the other hand emerged from the left sleeve Craig shrugged his shoulders, letting the weight of the coat rest on him.
Sucking in a gasp of air to cool the heat in my chest I admitted, “It looks nice on you.”
His shoulders filled the jacket better than the store mannequin could ever dream to.
It suited him, like Craig had put on a second skin, but one that still let me see his soul because his insides now matched his outsides.
The width of his chest held the front of the coat open, as he fingered the brass buttons.
Finally meeting my gaze, I thought I saw a bit of moisture collecting in the corner of his eyes. “I don’t know what to say,” he said.
“Say you’ll have dinner with me on Friday.”
I said it before I meant it, and then I wanted him. Wanted him in my house. Wanted him at my table. Wanted him walking out of my bathroom. “I’ll cook,” I added hurriedly. The request hung there as if he hadn’t expected it. As if I’d asked him for something he wasn’t ready to give.
Finally, he answered, “I could eat,” his voice cracking like a twelve-year-old’s. His candid nervousness stoked the heat building in my belly.
This was the right thing. My dreams were telling me what to do, giving me a path to happiness. One where Craig was there with me. “Great. Do you remember where I live?”
He didn’t, which was understandable. It had been dark, and rainy, and we’d both been tired.
Even the fact he hadn’t committed to memory the way to my house at the first opportunity in a creepy stalkerish way was endearing and kind.
I texted him my address, now he had permission and no reason not to know how to find me.
Then before I could change my mind I stood to go.
Looking up he was standing there, expectantly, wearing the skin I’d found for him and knew would fit him.
He looked comfortable and solid, like a mountain that had come to rest after an earthquake.
Leaning into him, resting on the softness of the fleece and the firmness of his body, I let my thumb feel the whiskers on his jaw while my fingers traced a line to the back of his neck, fingering his hairline. Then my lips were on his.
His lips were cool against the flushed heat that possessed me, but accepting. He returned the kiss, but I pulled away when I remembered I was in a downtown coffee shop in public.
“Come by around five thirty,” I breathed and then ran for the door.
I was absolutely crazy. Now I had to plan something to cook.