Chapter Ten Care #2
“You are. I know you are. You give so much kindness and sweetness. Right away, when I met you, I thought how lucky your students were. I even thought about how lucky your cat was. Then, later, how lucky I was when I got to spend time with you. When you wanted to see me again.” He stops, sighs, and gives me a rueful half-smile.
“I’m going to be very bad at dating,” Gordon sighs.
“It’s hard... It’s hard to understand nice people when you grew up without them.
It’s always been easier not to talk, but now?
It’s hard to keep quiet sometimes. When I’m near you, I keep thinking of things to say.
” He rolls his eyes heavenward and grumbles under his breath.
“I don’t like that. It’s confusing.” His dark eyes fix on me. “But I like you. And being with you.”
Oh. Oh, my poor Gordon! My heart aches for him, and for those tiny glimpses I get of his past. “I like being with you. I like talking with you, but being quiet with you is nice, too. Come back and curl up with me? We don’t have to talk at all while we’re asleep.”
Relief leaps to his tight jaw, and then vanishes just as fast. “If I roll over on you, you’ll suffocate.” Gordon eyes the bed with a frown. “The floor would be safer.”
“If I wake up without you next to me, I might think this was all a dream,” I pout, which is unfair, but I really don’t care right now. “Then my heart will break all over again.”
Gordon gulps. “Can’t have that. I’ll be right back.”
Right back is a relative definition, I guess, because it seems like forever until Gordon returns in a makeshift teal bedsheet toga-kilt combo, carrying a glass of water and some Tylenol from the medicine cabinet. “Do you want some? For the pain in your hands and feet?”
“Yes, please,” I yawn, taking the glass with my good hand, flexing my burnt one. It’s sore and tight, but much better than my feet. “I’m glad it wasn’t worse. I’d worry about playing the piano again.”
“So would I.” Gordon takes the glass back and puts it on my dresser, standing by my bed —which he is roughly the size of—with his whole body rigid.
“I promise I don’t snore. Much. I promise to behave myself. Scouts honor.” I hold up my hand in my best Girl Scout salute.
“I might snore!” Gordon gasps, like that’s the worst offense possible.
“Don’t care,” I reassure, yawning, scooting over, hand held out.
“You’ve never had a girlfriend until you’ve had one.
Never fallen asleep with someone looking up at you like you’re her hero until it happens.
Never woken up with a cat sitting on your chest, meowing in your face because he wants breakfast right the heck now,” I chuckle, hoping to lighten the mood.
With a grateful groan, Gordon all but falls to the bed, making my side rise in the air for a second before squeaking back down. Carefully, like I’m his breakable butterfly, he rests his hand on my side as we face each other.
I know he doesn’t talk much. I snuggle closer, scoot up until my head is close to his, and press a soft kiss to his brow, and then his lips. “Thank you for taking such good care of me. Just so you know, everything you did tonight? You did it perfectly.”
“Thank you.” Gordon kisses me back. Soft little kisses. Long, slow sweeps of his hand on my back.
“Rimsky,” I whisper, and the device in my bedroom chirps to life. “Play ‘Peaceful Sleep’ playlist.”
“Why turn on the music? You’ll be asleep. You won’t hear it.” Gordon asks, sounding genuinely confused.
“To have sweet dreams. And to give your brain something to do overnight. To make yourself smarter—not that you’re not smart, it’s just what my parents said. Classical music makes you smarter, they said, and they had studies to prove it.”
Gordon listens, head cocked, and his eyes get dreamy. “Debussy. Clare de Lune.”
Okay, maybe I’m not giving him enough credit, but my jaw drops. “Yeah! That’s right. So peaceful.”
“And Sails. I like the one called Sails. Although it looks like the word Veils, just misspelled to me,” he murmurs, stroking my hair, heavy, huge hand soft and light when he touches me.
“Hmm. Okay. So, you have to pick. Chopin or Debussy?”
“Chopin,” he says at once.
“Coke or Pepsi?”
“No.” Gordon looks horrified at that idea.
“Skipping that. Beach or mountains?”
He actually glares. “Mountains, obviously.”
“Beach—but the mountains are growing on me. Now, you ask. This is what couples do. They just talk. Or sometimes they watch all the silly videos of the day on their phones. Or they... Do other things until they get sleepy.”
“I can’t sleep just yet. I have to put the things into the dryer. All right.” Gordon licks his lips and thinks for a long time before he blurts out, “Favorite color?”
“Well. It was royal blue, but now? I think it’s like...
Like slate. Mixed with seawater. Remember, I love the beach.
It’s the most perfect shade of green and gray.
” My hands caress his face. Travel down a neck that’s like a sapling.
Over his broad shoulders until my hand tangles in the shoulder strap of the sheet.
“It’s in the forest, too. Mountains. The rocks by the river. The surface of the water at Blue Moon Lake when you’re in the shade. Trunks of trees that turn silvery and mossy.”
Gordon’s voice is slow and steady when he talks about the woods and mountains, a soothing rumble that seems to massage something inside of me and relax every nerve. “Show me?”
“As soon as you’re well enough to walk. Or I could carry you.”
“I liked being carried. But I’ll be better soon. Okay, my turn. Favorite sport?”
“Hockey. Because we have a local team and I support this town.”
“You sure do. Your turn.”
I don’t remember what Gordon asks. All I remember is the feel of his solid hand stroking down my spine and his words rumbling like rain on the roof, sending me into a deep, contented sleep.