11. Keith #2
Still, I could sense there was a lot she was keeping to herself. I hoped that as time went by, she’d let me in on those things, but I understood that I still had to earn more of her trust.
“Exactly,” she said, shifting closer on the park bench and leaning her head against my arm.
We could get plenty of ice cream in the suburbs around where I lived, but supposedly the gelato in this park was the best in the city, and there weren’t really a lot of walking areas where Olivia and I could linger until well into the night.
Whenever we went out together, we stayed out for as long as possible or until our desire grew too strong.
“Overwhelming. It’s like feeling too much all at once.
Like my brain is trying to work through a hundred different stories that are just as deep and involved as my life is. ”
As difficult as it was to tear my gaze away from her dreamy expression and the soft shape of her lips, I looked back up to those windows and tried to do exactly what she was describing.
I didn’t get very far. Mostly, I imagined people I went to high school with.
I thought about what jobs they might have, if they ended up marrying their high-school sweethearts or had some other torrid affair.
And much like Olivia said, it grew to be too much too fast, especially when I began to wonder what they would think of me falling in love for the first time in nearly forty years.
No. We are not going down that path. Your life is your own, and comparison is the thief of joy.
Speaking of flaws I was working on, I’d started seeing a therapist via video call.
I was much more consistent when I didn’t have to schlep over to their office.
So far, I’d stuck it out for a month, where I usually stopped going after two weeks.
One of the biggest things we were working on was my tendency to bully myself through pretend avatars of other people.
In truth, most people didn’t think of me at all, and that was okay.
Except for Olivia, of course. I liked when she thought of me. I liked it quite a lot.
“Are you trying right now?” she asked, sounding amused. I wanted to see her face again, but I wasn’t about to ask her to stop leaning on me anytime soon. I loved physical contact with her, loved feeling like a strong and steady presence that she could count on.
“I did for a bit. But it was just like you said.”
“Overwhelming?”
“Overwhelming.” I grimaced. “That’s starting to not sound like a real word.”
She looked up at me. “Did you know that’s called semantic satiation?”
I grinned down at her, because not only was it fun to learn new things, but I loved the way Olivia’s face lit up whenever she got to share knowledge. “No, I did not.”
“Basically, the brain’s neural pathways for that specific idea or word become fatigued, and the brain severs the link between the sound and its meaning for safety. Crazy, right?”
I shook my head, chuckling slightly. “That is absolutely fascinating.”
“What’s so funny about it then?” Olivia asked cautiously and I loved that she trusted me enough to ask rather than assuming I was laughing at her.
“I don’t know if funny is the word as much as delighted. And I find it a bit ironic.”
She tilted her head at me like she always did when she was curious but didn’t quite understand. “Ironic?”
“Yeah. I can wax metaphorical about wood types for hours and think about all the different trade terms I need for a project without ever feeling that, but say overwhelming four times and all of a sudden my brain goes nah, that’s enough. Too much for me.”
She started laughing, and I’d die happy if I could do it watching her laugh. I loved the way the corners of her eyes crinkled, and I could see the stars above us reflected in her merry, amber gaze. I loved the way her cheeks flushed and those perfect lips of hers parted.
“It makes sense in a way. It’s not like you got to where you are with your woodcraft in a week.
You’ve been working out your brain with it for years to get to where you are.
I’m sure if little baby-boy Keith tried to calculate the proper bevel angle for your canoe or a kitchen hutch, he’d get overwhelmed real fast.”
“Is that our word of the night?”
“Maybe! It’s either that or…” She turned her head and pushed herself up so her lips were at my ear. “More, more, more!”
It was meant to be a joke, and I knew that, but my cock didn’t.
“Walk and talk?” I suggested, for the first time in my life wishing I’d already finished my ice cream.
“Walk and talk,” she agreed, taking my hand and letting me lead her back to my car. I had something even tastier to eat at home.
***
“How do I look?”
“Perfect,” I said out of habit as Olivia studied herself in the compact mirror she’d pulled from her purse. It was a genuine compliment, but she still reached over and playfully joshed my arm.
“Keith! I’m serious!”
“So am I.” I leaned over from the driver’s seat to kiss the top of her head. The scent of her conditioner filled my nose, pomegranate and orange slices mixed with something else I couldn’t identify. “You’re perfect.”
She blushed. “You’re biased.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“You’re impossible to argue with.”
“That’s because I’m right.”
She sighed, rolling her eyes, her gaze returning to her compact. After seven months of dating, I knew her well enough that some light teasing wasn’t going to do the trick. It was time to put my serious hat on.
“Olivia, my mother has been looking forward to meeting you for months. You could have shown up in a potato sack, and she would have been thrilled. And, might I add, you definitely don’t look like you’re wearing a potato sack.”
“But she’s so important to you, I don’t wanna…”
“You don’t want her to think that you’re somehow not a catch.”
She heaved a sigh. “I’ll never understand how you always know what I’m going to say when I can’t find the words, but yeah.”
“You do the same for me all the time. And trust me, I’ve never had a relationship serious enough where I wanted to introduce the other party to my mother.
She knew one of my situationships because she was the daughter of one of her work friends, but that was about it.
I promise, she’s going to be absolutely delighted with the caring, drop-dead-gorgeous, funny and insightful woman I’m bringing to meet her. ”
“And where is she? Did she show up in another car?”
“Hardy-har, when I said hilarious, I didn’t mean in a self-deprecating way.
” I pressed another kiss to her cheek, careful not to ruin her artfully placed foundation.
To me, she didn’t need a full face, but I understood I wasn’t the one she wore it for.
“But if you like, we can sit here until you’re ready.
Or, I can call her and say you’re feeling a little under the weather. ”
The entire time I’d known Olivia, she’d never so much as sniffled. Or even had a pulled muscle when she’d started coming to the gym with me. She mostly did cardio, and whenever she tried weights with me, she looked bored.
“I would rather die!”
I believed that.
“Well, hopefully, it won’t come to that.”
She snorted, and that was my signal that the bulk of her anxiety had passed. While she didn’t show it often, I was well aware that my partner sometimes struggled with some severe self-confidence issues and a whole lot of stress around being perfect, or even “good enough.”
The idea that she might be anything less than perfect was absolutely heinous, but clearly, she’d been through enough in her life to establish that as something that she needed to be on the lookout for.
I hoped it wasn’t from her family. Because while I was ready to take this step of her meeting my mother, she was clearly not ready to introduce me to hers.
“I mean, if it did come to that, then what kind of nursing home is this place?” Olivia joked and yeah, that confirmed that I’d brought her back from the edge.
I didn’t take it personally that she wasn’t ready to introduce me to all the characters I had heard so much about, but sometimes it made me wonder.
Whenever I casually floated the idea, she always came up with an excuse instead of saying outright that we weren’t there yet.
Since we were so effortlessly honest with everything else, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a red flag, a beige flag, or a sign that maybe she was protecting me from something.
I hoped it wasn’t the first one, but I especially hoped it wasn’t the last one. Because if it turned out that Olivia’s family was abusing her, then they would have a world of hurt coming to them.
“It’s actually kind of bougie, believe it or not,” I said, surprised when Olivia started to laugh. It wasn’t a full belly shaking one, but it certainly wasn’t a light chuckle either. “What? What did I say?”
“I’m sorry, but ‘bougie’ is about the last word I expected out of your mouth.”
“Why? Because I’m a straight man in my late thirties or because I look like a lumberjack when I wear flannel?”
Olivia put her hand on my arm gently. “Oh baby, it’s not just when you wear flannel.” She kissed my cheek and opened her car door like she hadn’t inverted what little fashion sense I had.
“What do you mean, it’s not just when I wear flannel?” I asked, hurrying out of the car and following her as she strode across the parking lot with much more confidence.
Note to self, a great way to break Olivia out of a self-critical funk is to have her tease me!
While some partners might not like that dynamic, I could always punish her later in the bedroom, so it was perfectly fine by me.
And by punish her, I mostly meant making her come really hard, which wasn’t really a punishment at all.
“Is it when I wear overalls too?”
“Oh yeah, especially the khaki ones.”
“What? But those are my favorites.”
“Trust me, I am well aware of that.”
“What about when I wear one of my colorful button-downs?”
“Lumberjack at a work party that’s semi-casual but still wants to look business professional.”
“My Hawaiian shirts?”