Page 92 of Fated

I think about the way Aaron held me as the sun rose over the slate-gray water. I think about how Dee said that I looked as if I was falling in love with my husband. How Robert told me Aaron looked at me as if he was falling—hard.

He wants to take me to dinner.

“Tell your dad yes,” I say to Amy, “when you go. Tell him yes. That I want to go to dinner.”

She nods, chewing on her pen’s cap. “Aren’t you going to tell me the poem?”

I smile. “Of course. Write it down. Then if I’m not here you won’t forget it.”

Then I begin.

And Amy bows her head and writes in quick, breathless letters?—

“Hope”

31

I siton the smooth wooden steps of the front porch in the mellow light of the early-evening sun. The shadows are long and the shade is deep and cool. After a day of humidity, the smell of wet soil and thick foliage tinges the air.

I curl the hem of my dress in my hands. I was home a half hour ago. Sean’s with Junie. Amy’s having dinner with Essie. I faced an empty cottage and a plastic clothesline full of dresses I’d never worn. I thumbed through them, running my hands over the cotton, the linen, the faded colors, and the worn edges. Finally, I found a coral-pink dress with little navy flowers and a ruffled neckline. It looked ... hopeful.

It matched my appearance here. Shorter, blonde, and round-cheeked, with soft, sepia photo kind of looks. Nothing like me in real-life. I’m taller, sharper, auburn-haired, and more classically elegant than this floaty, dreamy look.

I put on the dress with a pair of sandals, braided my hair, and then put on a soft pink lipstick I found on the nightstand.

And I was ready.

For our date.

So when I see Aaron walking down the sandy road, his shadow long in the setting sun, I stand.

At my movement he looks toward me. When he sees me he stops walking for a moment, as if he’s stunned by my appearance, and then he starts toward me again, his gait faster.

In a tree nearby with wide limbs, fat green leaves, and burgundy flowers shaped like trumpets, a group of blackbirds chatters noisily. They drown out the sound of my thumping heart.

There’s something different between us. It started on the beach last night, continued this morning, and then coalesced on the road when we stood far apart, not speaking, not meeting, just ... acknowledging.

That something had happened.

Something was there.

Aaron climbs the wooden steps and pauses in front of me. He’s sweat-covered, his black hair damp, a line of perspiration glistening on his forehead. His T-shirt and jeans are covered in grass stains and dirt. He’s been cutting limbs, trimming and cutting back overgrown branches, for hours. There’s a small cut on his face—one that wasn’t there this morning.

He’s watching me take him in, his hesitant smile in place.

I reach up then, touching the red mark on his cheek.

He sucks in a breath. Not in pain, but from the feel of me.

“The way you look at me,” he says, his voice low, “it makes me want to do things.”

I stare at him, arrested in the moment, sunlight streaking over us. My finger presses into his cheek and I drag in a slow, thick-aired breath.

“Fi?” he whispers, searching my expression.

I smile. A warm glow unfurls and spreads through me until I’m languid in the feel of it. “Yes.”

His smile grows soft and he steps closer. He lifts his hand to cup my cheek but then thinks better of it and instead presses his mouth to mine in a gentle caress. He nibbles at my lips, pressing kisses to their corners, taking them in his mouth. I tilt my chin up and let him love my mouth.

---