Chapter 10 #2
“You cheat! You and Beau both.”
“Bowling, then?”
Lee narrows his eyes. “You cheat at that too.”
“How do I cheat at bowling?”
“I don’t know, but you do. Just ’cause I can’t prove it don’t mean you don’t do it.”
“All right, no mini golf and no bowling. Happy?”
“I guess,” Lee says with a smile, his cheeks warm from the teasing.
“I want to tell Savannah soon. Okay?”
“Whatever you want.”
I take his hip in my palm, rubbing my thumb under his shirt just to feel the warmth of his skin.
I can’t resist kissing him once more, so I do, but this time I curl my other hand around the back of his neck and hold him close as I taste every crevice of his addictive mouth.
Lee’s eyes are dazed when I pull away. I drop my hands and slowly back up with what I hope is a devilish, teasing sort of grin.
I must accomplish it because Lee ducks his head, that blush I’m starting to really love blooming across his cheeks, just over his wiry beard.
Saturday ends up being the perfect day for the first date I’d planned.
The afternoon started with rain, but it disappears by early evening, leaving the air cooler but slightly damp.
The trees that line Lee’s long driveway glisten with the rain, swinging in the breeze, the sun slashing through the leafy branches.
I put the windows down so the damp, just-rained air wraps around me, and the shadows from the trees slash over the driveway.
The front door to the house swings open the moment I put the car into park in the driveway.
Suddenly, Lee is running toward me, and within seconds of stepping out of my car, I have my arms full of Lee.
I’m worried for a brief second before I realize Lee is laughing.
A grin splits my own face as I bury my hand in his hair at the back of his neck, pulling away just enough to kiss his sweet mouth.
I hope we always greet each other like this, like we can’t get enough, like every kiss is simultaneously the first and the last. Lee’s grin tastes so sweet that I almost fall to my knees in bliss.
“I missed you,” Lee murmurs against my mouth.
“You just saw me yesterday.”
“Too long.” Then Lee is kissing me again, backing me up against the car. We stand there kissing as the damp wind blows over us, carrying the scent of jasmine on the breeze from where it winds around the front of Lee’s house.
“Come on, we can kiss later tonight. I wanna take you out.”
“No mini golf?” Lee asks, worry on his face.
I roll my eyes affectionally. “No mini golf.”
Lee’s grin is ecstatic and fills my chest with warmth.
I walk him over to the other side of my car, hand on the small of his back, and open the door to help him inside.
Once Lee is buckled into the passenger seat, I gently close the door, then cross over to the driver’s seat.
Lee fiddles with the radio once I’ve started the car.
He’s the only person who gets free rein of the radio in my vehicle, otherwise driver picks the tunes and everyone else shuts up.
But Lee puts on a playlist that we’ve curated over the years for car rides, featuring songs each of us approved.
“Can I at least know where we’re going?”
“Nope.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
I reach over and grab his hand, tangling our fingers together over the console. “You do when it’s me doing the surprising.”
Lee looks like he’s fighting back a smile. “I guess.”
“How was your day?”
Lee shrugs and looks out the window. “I ran errands.”
I bet he saw his father and doesn’t want to tell me.
I hate that I’ve made Lee feel like he needs to keep that secret from me.
Like my hate for his father transcends my need to support him, which is never true.
Despite the amount of hate I have for Lee’s shitty-ass father, I still have empathy and compassion for the situation.
So I have to play my hand right to prevent Lee from keeping me closed off from the situation for the foreseeable future.
“How’s Buster?”
“Aragorn is a little obsessed with Buster. I let the goats out earlier today for some yard time, and Aragorn couldn’t stay away from Buster’s enclosure. I think he thinks I’m keeping Buster prisoner since he isn’t allowed yard time.”
“Well, when you say yard time, it does carry the air of prison.”
Lee laughs. “I mean literal yard time, you dope. The goats are playing in the yard.”
“I’m aware,” I say and shoot him a smirk. That gorgeous blush fills the top of Lee’s cheeks, making me want to tease him over and over so the blush never goes away.
Just out of downtown, I notice Mr. Walters’ boiled peanut stand.
Grinning at Lee, I pull over and we both hop out.
No harm in having a snack on the way to the date.
There’s no line and the heat bugs sing in the forest on either side of the county road.
Mr. Walters appears at the window with his scraggly white beard and aviator sunglasses his grandchildren no doubt bought him.
He skewers us with a look that would’ve melted us as teenagers. “Don’t you buy me out of the jalapeno peanuts. It’s gonna be a good sellin’ day because it’s hot and people are headin’ to the springs.”
“Just a small cup, then,” Lee says quietly, disarming Mr. Walters like he does everyone. “Wouldn’t want you to lose too much business because of us.”
Mr. Walters scoffs and disappears into his little shed.
A few moments later he appears with two cups but only charges me for one, returning more change than I need after I’ve paid.
He disappears again, probably into the coolness of the shed, and Lee and I wander toward the car.
Looking at him now, he reminds me of who he’d been when I’d just gotten back from college.
Back when life was unfurling a little differently before us, like the world was ours for the taking.
He cracks a peanut with his teeth and spits out the shells, and goddamn, I should not find that sexy.
He grins over at me, all teeth. “This won’t ruin dinner, will it?”
“Boiled peanuts are a snack, like celery. They can’t fill you up.”
“True,” Lee agrees. We stand outside the SUV for a minute, absorbing the air, and I very much want to kiss Lee, but I’m also aware that not everyone in this small town knows he’s out. Not that Mr. Walters would have a problem, considering his daughter is married to a woman and lives “up north.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Lee asks.
“’Cause I love you,” I answer quickly, just before popping a peanut into my mouth.
Lee blushes and eats another one of his peanuts. Once we’ve had our fill, we hop back into the car, glancing over at each other like we’ve shared some sort of joke. And maybe we have.
We fill the remainder of the drive into the city with general chitchat, our hands never untangling from between us.
The ease I feel with Lee is new and exciting, like I’ve entered into a relationship after being married for twenty years.
The idea of being married to Lee, waking up to him every day, suddenly makes me feel like I’m racing toward the finish line.
Because I want it so badly that I can almost taste it.
I want Savannah in her room at the house on the farm, the goats and bunny and future ducks out in the yard.
I want to wake up with Lee in my arms and Lee on my brain for the rest of my life.
I pull up in front of the u-paint pottery studio and Lee shoots me a confused, but pleased sort of look.
He loves arts and crafts. In high school he took pottery as his elective and made some of the most gorgeous pieces I’ve ever seen.
We might not be throwing clay, but I wanted to show Lee how much I know him, and that I find joy in sharing things we like with each other.
“Pottery?” Lee asks, a slight tremble to his voice.
“We get to pick something and paint it, then they fire it and finish it for us. What do you think?”
“I love it. I haven’t done pottery since high school.”
I squeeze his fingers before climbing out of the car.
I come around to his side just as he’s opening the door and open it the rest of the way, smiling down at him.
“I remembered how much you loved it in high school. Thought this might be a good entry point before maybe taking a pottery class together?”
“A pottery class,” Lee repeats, eyebrows furrowed in thought.
“Yeah, I thought it could be fun.”
Lee shakes his head ruefully as he climbs out of the car. “You’re full of surprises, Joseph Rossi.”
“Nah, just a romantic.”
“Are you always like this?”
No, I haven’t always been. But I’ve always wanted to take care of Lee, and making him smile is part of the package.
I don’t respond to him; instead, I just tangle our fingers together and lead us to the decently busy pottery studio.
The employee welcomes us in, then tells us to pick something to paint, where to grab the paint, and that we just pay at the end.
Lee untangles our fingers so that he can focus on picking something to paint.
I watch him more than I look at the shelves for something to paint myself.
Lee comes to a stop in front of a shelf that contains animals. He looks thoughtful as he turns toward me. “Do you think I can paint two things?”
“Whatever you want,” I reply quickly, because he could ask for the moon on a platter and I’d make it happen.
Lee grins. “Okay. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. This is a date,” I stress, which earns me one of Lee’s adorable flushes. “We’re doing it together. What do you want to do?”
“Well, I want to do this little bunny for Savannah, but I also kind of want to do a mug.” He points to the other wall that contains mugs, plates, and bowls. “You can do a mug too if you want so we each have one. But you can do whatever you want.”
“No,” I say, voice thick. “I’ll do a mug too. We can use them for tea in the evenings.”
Lee’s smile turns warm, eyes crinkling in the way that undoes me. “That’s what I was thinking.”