Chapter 6: The Date He Brought to Me

He opened the door as I was walking up, standing in the doorway, occupying the space, and my heart skipped a beat and my breath caught in my throat.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

He looked at me like the change of clothes had been a personal favor. Then he took the bag out of my hand, set it down in the hall, and kissed me like the day had been a long fuse. I made a sound against his mouth that was not professional. His hand found the small of my back, then lower, and he smiled when he felt the plug through the jeans.

“Good girl.”

“I have been called worse today. I wrote some of it myself.”

He laughed, low, and reached for my jacket. “Follow me and come outside.”

“Outside? It’s cold and dark. The house has walls. Walls are one of humanity’s better ideas.”

“I know. Follow me outside anyway.”

I complained the whole way down the hall because complaining felt like keeping a hand on the brake. He only chuckled, wore that God-damn cocky grin of his, and let me babble while I followed behind him. When we reached the back door, he paused dramatically and swung it open for me to step through, and the brakes came off.

White tea lights were strung across his backyard, warm and careful. The fire-pit was going. Tiki torches burned around the pool, reflecting in the water and making it seem like someone had decided Tuesday needed ceremony. Music played low from a speaker I could not see. The hot tub hummed, steam lifting into the cold. A table for two sat near the fire-pit with wine already poured and takeout Chinese in actual bowls, not the boxes, which was a detail so tender I felt a little insane noticing it.

I stopped on the step.

“Tyler.”

“If I cannot take you out on a proper date,” he said, standing behind me with his hands in his pockets like he was trying not to reach, “because you are afraid of being seen with me, then I will bring the dates to you.”

My heart slammed so hard I felt it in my teeth. Sweat broke along my spine even in the cold. No one had ever done something like this for me. Mike loved me; he cooked, took me to restaurants, held chairs for me, remembered the wine I liked, and built forts on living room floors, but he wasn’t a man who strung lights on a weeknight because he couldn’t put me in a restaurant. This was a different language no one had ever spoken to me in a specific, aimed, and hopelessly romantic way. I didn’t know I wanted it until it was burning in front of me.

“You are showing off,” I said, and my voice cracked on the joke.

“I am trying.”

He stepped past me and pulled out a chair. “Let me look at you without a desk in the way, and then sit down, and we can eat.”

We sat, we ate, we talked like people who had missed each other for an extended period and were hungry for news. He asked about the kid with the stitches. He told a story about a coworker’s PowerPoint that had no business being that long. I told him Amber was concerned that I was jumping into this far too fast and letting my pussy run the show, at which point he almost choked on a dumpling.

“She is not wrong,” I said.

“She is protective and wants the best for you. I like that and feel the same way. I also like that you came anyway.”

I loved him.

The thought kept arriving between jokes, uninvited and exact. I loved the way his eyes followed my every movement while I talked. I loved that he had done this instead of pulling me into the bedroom and calling that a welcome. I loved that he could be filthy at lunch and then pour wine next to a fire-pit like the two things were allowed to share a man.

Around eight-thirty I glanced past his shoulder and saw into the neighbor’s house. A man in a recliner, television going, some game I could hear faintly through an open window. Ordinary and completely unaware of the small private pop-up restaurant in the yard next door.

“Your neighbor has his window open in October,” I said. “That is commitment or poor judgment.”

“Gary,” Tyler said. “Both, probably.”

By nine-thirty the wine had done its quiet work, and the fire had done the rest. I was warm on one side and cold on the other and, underneath both, relaxed in a way I didn’t trust and didn’t want to interrupt. I was relaxed and at peace. Actual peace.

Extreme happiness sitting in my chest like a living thing. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this settled in my own skin. Friday night in my kitchen, maybe. Before that, some other life. Tyler stood and moved behind my chair. His hands found my shoulders and started working the twelve-hour knots out of them, thumbs sure, unhurried.

“I missed you,” he said near my hair. “It is stupid, I know, since it was just last Friday, but that does not count because I had to share you, and you did not go home with me. I have been climbing the walls since. You matter to me, Beth. Much more than I planned on, even more than is convenient. I need you to hear that and understand what I am saying.”