25. Chapter 25
Chapter 25
Nate
J uly is awful. It’s Blue Vista’s busiest month, so I only get to see Adalie when she comes to my house to sleep over. And sleep is most of what we do those nights since she’s too tired for anything else. As the month drags on, I tell Taylor I’ll start making the deliveries to Blue Vista just so I can see her a bit more.
I admit—to myself, not to Taylor—that he was right. The partnership has been great for business. Not only are we selling crates of beer to them, we’ve noticed an uptick in customers coming to the brewery specifically purchasing the ones we sold to the venue. They’ve also been selling faster at the liquor stores that carry our beer.
When August begins, and the craziness of wedding season slows, I ride to Adalie’s house on a Monday to see her. She still has weddings every weekend until September, so when she’d bought the tickets to the play, she’d asked if we could go on a weekday instead.
I park my bike in her visitor parking and go up to her apartment. When we have plans for me to come over, she’ll often give me the spare keys so she doesn’t have to let me in. I open the door, calling out to her.
“Just a second,” she calls back. I go in, setting my helmet and backpack down. I’m not going home tonight, so I’d brought things with me intending to leave here for work tomorrow morning.
Adalie comes out of her bedroom a moment later wearing one of my favourite dresses. It’s white with colourful flowers all over it, reaching her knees and leaving her legs bare. It has puffy sleeves that fall off her shoulders, showing off her tattoo. She has her hair done up for a change, in a pretty style that has her curls framing her face. But the best part is the smile she gives me when she sees me, walking straight into my arms to kiss me hello.
“Hi,” she says. “I’ll be ready in a minute. I just need a sweater and my shoes.”
When she moves to step away, I tighten my grip on her waist, holding her close, dipping my head to catch those lips again. She sighs, leaning in, her fingers threading into my hair. I drop one hand, sneaking it up her skirt so I can cup her ass, and she moans, making my cock stir.
She breaks the kiss, laughing and pushing against my shoulder.
“Stop distracting me, or we’ll be late. We have a reservation for dinner before the play.”
I let her go, watching as she rushes around her apartment, finding a purple cardigan, her purse, and some high-heeled shoes she called wedges once.
“It’s a bit early to eat,” she says as she ties the straps on her shoes. “But I figured it would be okay. The play isn’t over until ten, and that’s too late.”
“An early dinner is fine,” I say.
In the three months we’ve been dating, tonight is the first time we’re doing something that is completely Adalie’s thing. I’d taken her out a few times in June, but in July, we mostly stayed in, given how busy she was. When she bought the tickets, she insisted she plan and pay for the whole night. It’s weird, being taken out for a date instead of the other way around, but Adalie is happy, and I’ve come to realize there’s not much I won’t do to get her to smile.
When she’s ready, she stands and looks at the key hooks by her door.
“Damn,” she says. “Have you seen my keys?”
She rushes around her apartment, looking for where she left them.
“I have the spare. We can find them later.”
She sighs, lifting a couch cushion. “Yes. We can do that. I’m just worried I might have left them somewhere when I checked the mail earlier.”
At that, I move to the kitchen island and the basket where she sets her mail before she’s read it.
“You mean this mail?” I ask, picking up the set of keys she’d also put in the basket. “And these keys?”
She turns to me with a grateful smile and blows out a breath. “Yes. Thank you.”
Then she comes to me, kissing me before linking her arm through mine and we leave. She asks about my day, and I tell her about the upcoming fall beer brewing schedule in preparation for the Beer Festival in Whistler in a month. I always think this stuff bores her, trying to limit how much I tell her, but she keeps asking questions. Some questions tell me she’s remembering things I’ve told her before. I turn the conversation to her and what she did this morning. She didn’t work today, so she tells me about her yoga class, then we’re at the little dock where a small passenger ferry is chugging toward us along False Creek.
“Have you been on one of these before?” Adalie asks as we wait for it to pull up to the dock.
“Once. I took Dani to Science World last summer.” I gesture in the direction the boat is coming, which is also the direction of the science centre. “She saw it and insisted. We rode it to Granville Island, stopped for lunch, and rode it back.”
Adalie smiles up at me. “You are such a good father,” she says.
Her compliment makes my heart swell. I kiss her upturned lips as the ferry comes to a stop and we get on. It rocks under our movement as we take a seat. We’re the only ones aboard, other than the driver, who climbs on after untying us from the dock and shoving off. Adalie says hello to him as though she knows him personally. I’ve noticed she’s like that with everyone, open and welcoming as though every person she meets is a potential friend.
“Date night?” the driver asks.
“Yes,” Adalie answers, snuggled into my side, her hand on my knee. “We’re going to see Much Ado About Nothing .”
“Over at Bard on the Beach?”
“Yep. I got us excellent seats, too. Fifth row, centre section, but aisle seats for his long legs.”
I chuckle and she gives me that wide grin.
“He’s never been before,” she tells the driver without looking away from me, “so I wanted to make sure he’s as comfortable as possible.”
The driver laughs along at her teasing. Little does she know, as long as she’s next to me, I’m happy to do anything.
“But before the play, I got us reservations at Bridges,” she continues. “I asked for the patio, too.”
“That’ll be nice,” the driver says as he pulls up to the dock. “Weather is perfect for a nice dinner outside. And with September around the corner, there aren’t too many perfect days left this summer.” He ties off and steps onto the dock, holding his hand out for Adalie to climb up. I follow closely behind while she takes another second to confirm the last ferry ride times of the night.
As we walk toward the restaurant, she says, “I don’t think we’ll be able to take the ferry back, but that was fun. I love going out on the water.”
“It was a two-minute trip,” I say, laughing at her.
She shrugs. “Just because it didn’t last long doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it.”
I wrap my arm around her waist, wanting to feel her close, wanting that sunshine optimism to sink into me. She leads us through the bustling crowd on Granville Island to the big yellow building that is one of the most iconic restaurants in the little shopping district. She gives the host her name and we’re seated almost immediately.
After a few minutes looking at the menu, we place our orders, and Adalie reaches across the table to take my hand. “Do you know what today is?” she asks.
“Monday?”
She laughs and shakes her head. “It’s our three-month anniversary.”
“That’s today?” I ask. It feels like no time has passed at all, and as though she’s always been a part of my life. I’m surprised because now that she’s mentioned it, I realize my relationship with Adalie is officially my longest relationship ever.
She nods. “So, I was wondering…” She looks down at where our hands are clasped together on the table. Then, speaking slowly, as though she’s not quite sure she wants to ask, she finishes the thought. “When do you think you might be ready to tell Dani about us?”
I open my mouth to answer, then close it. Because the truth is, I don’t know. I’ve never been here before. I’ve never had a relationship that’s lasted this long, that I want to continue lasting. I also don’t want Dani to get even more attached to Adalie, then have something go wrong between us and Dani never gets to see her again.
She looks up at me when I haven’t said anything for a moment. “It’s scary. But I want you to know, I’m really serious here.” She gestures between us with her free hand. “I… like you a lot, Nate. And I want to be part of your life. The whole thing.”
“I want that, too,” I tell her.
“But I can’t be if we don’t tell Dani, if we’re keeping this secret from her. She already knows me, and it feels like I’m lying to her every time I see her. She’s the most important person in your life, Nate. Until you tell her, what we’re doing doesn’t really mean anything.”
She moves to take her hand back, but I grip her fingers before she can, suddenly terrified that if I don’t hold on, she’s going to let go for real.
“I’ll tell her,” I say. “You’re right. We can’t keep this a secret from her anymore. Next week. Could you come over for dinner on Monday? We can tell her together.”
She smiles at me again and I feel like I’ve made the right choice. “I’d like that.”
The waitress returns with our drinks and our calamari appetizer. After the first couple of bites, I say, “Maybe, since I’m doing something scary, you could do something scary as well.”
“What did you have in mind?” she asks, popping a piece of calamari into her mouth.
“We’ve finished all the getting Adalie out of her comfort zone things except the last one. You don’t have a wedding this Sunday. Let’s go bungee jumping.”
She scrunches her nose in that adorable way she does, squeezing her eyes shut. She moans pitifully, but I know she’s going to say yes.
“Fine,” she says finally, opening her eyes. “But I’m inviting Spencer and Derek.”
“What about your other friends?”
She snorts. “None of them are crazy enough to want to jump off a bridge.”
I chuckle and lift her hand to kiss the back of it.
The rest of our food arrives and we eat, then we walk along the Sea Wall to Vanier Park. The crowds of Granville Island ease slightly when we get away from it, but the path is still busy. Thankfully, there’s a side for pedestrians, because the bikes don’t slow at all as they zip past us. I keep Adalie on the outside of the path so I’m between her and any rogue cyclists. She keeps up a steady commentary, pointing out boats in the marina she thinks are pretty, and a big brown building where a friend of hers used to work. The huge white and red tents come into view and Adalie takes our tickets from her purse to show the person at the gate.
Adalie offers to get me a drink, but I decline since we can’t bring them into the tents anyway. Instead, I follow her to our seats, looking around the space.
“It’s open,” I say, pointing toward the back of the stage where the tent is open to the park, offering a beautiful view of where False Creek flows into English Bay.
She nods. “Unfortunately, we’re not at the right angle to see Blue Vista from here. But yeah, the open tent is why I needed the sweater. It’ll get chilly tonight.”
I turn toward her. “I can keep you warm.”
She laughs and kisses me, which is exactly what I was hoping for, then returns her attention to the program.
“I really like this actor,” she says, pointing. “He played Romeo a few years ago and there was this part in the play I’d never understood. You remember when Romeo kills Tybalt and he’s banished?”
She glances at me, and I shake my head. She laughs again.
“Anyway, he’s banished, and in the play, he starts lamenting that he has to leave Verona. Whenever I read it, I always thought he was a whiny baby. Then, when this guy played Romeo, it suddenly made sense to me. He wasn’t sad about leaving Verona. He was sad about leaving Juliet .” She shrugs. “I thought it was interesting how someone can say something, and you don’t always understand the subtext right away. Sometimes it takes a bit for things to suddenly make sense.”
We chat for a while about the plays she’s seen and read. I confess that I haven’t seen or read any since high school. We read Hamlet in grade twelve, but that was it, and I don’t remember any of it.
The show begins. It’s funny and I follow along as best I can considering the old English. But the best part is Adalie’s fingers entwined with mine and the way she watches with rapt attention. When she shivers, I wrap an arm around her, and she leans into me.
When the play is over and we walk out, I say, “So, all that craziness and they all ended up with the people they were with in the beginning?”
She grins up at me. “Yep. Much ado about nothing.”
She orders us an Uber and it takes us to her place. We sit together in the back with her snuggled against me, my hand playing along her leg and under her skirt. She giggles, stopping me from moving up too far.
I hadn’t really intended to push further, anyway. I just wanted to hear her laugh.