Page 26 of Evolved

Here, face-to-face, in the light of day, I meet him squarely. I have the urge to flinch, like always, a million questions rushingthrough me, wondering what he thinks when he looks at me, if my hair is messy from the wind, or my face red and blotchy from the cold, does he look at me and remember the feel of my most secret places pressed against him in the night? Did he kiss my temple last night? It felt like it, but maybe I was confused from too much cold blood to the brain? Did he whisper that he liked me, too? Did I imagine it?

Gran said to search my soul, and I find myself doing that now. I didn’t imagine it.

“People get hurt less when everyone is careful,” he says.

“I’m always careful,” I whisper. “About everything.”

“I haven’t always been,” he murmurs back, and his hand lifts very, very slowly and tucks a stray strand of my hair behind my ear. “Not with people outside work. Not in the past. But I’m trying now.”

“Me too.” I shiver when a gust of wind blows up the thin silk of Nancy’s pajama pants.

He clears his throat. “Let’s get you inside and into warmer clothes.”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I tug a thick wool sweater off a stack of them on a table in a boutique, trying not to look as Knox peels his fleece over his head. As he does, the t-shirt under it pulls up, revealing a swath of neatly defined back muscles and smooth skin. I vividly remember the feel of him under my fingers, the way it had my low belly clenching, hot and empty, yearning for his touch.

I drape another sweater over the stack of pants over my arm and carefully smooth away invisible wrinkles. We need weeks' worth of clothes since washing is challenging now. For Gran and me, and they should be clothes that send the right message.

“I’ve been wondering if I owe you an apology,” he asks.

“For what?”

“That wasn’t how I imagined taking your clothes off the first time.”

“Oh,” I say.

He imagined taking my clothes off.

I take an odd moment to look into my past and wonder what the old version of me would have said, tucked into her business suit and heels, drafting up a speech. She’d have been … scandalized.

“No need for apologies.”

“Good.” His belt buckle clinks as he undoes it, wool-covered shoulders rolling. He drops his pants, revealing long, muscular legs, covered in just the right amount of dark hair.

I’m not sure if he’s taking off his clothes in front of me because he’s already seen me naked, so who cares? Or if it’s a challenge, or a way to even the scales, or just because the world ended, so why stand on ceremony?

I find myself setting down the stack of clothes and shucking down Nancy Alweston’s silk pajama pants.

I don’t have any underpants on.

He looks my way, sucks in a sharp breath, then jerks his gaze away sharply. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes,” I say, tugging on a pair of soft black pants that are tight at the waist but loose everywhere else. It’s a relief to be back in clothes my size.

“I heard you and your grandmother talking, and I know whatshewants, andIknow what I want, but I’m not sure I know whatyouwant.”

“WhatIwant?”

“Out of this? Just to help make all her dreams come true? Or something else?”

“I ...” I don’t know. I reach for an oversized mock-turtleneck sweater and hold it loose in my hands. “What do you want?”

He takes off his other sock and stands in just his briefs and the wool sweater, feet spread on the boutique’s wide plank wood floors. “I asked first.”

My throat feels tight, so I pause, thinking, looking down. So many questions swirling.

I used to want to be the best speech writer in the country. I dreamed that someday students in classrooms would watch Gran’s speeches, and they’d read the words and they’d talk about them, learn from them. That if my speeches were enough, people would still want me.

I thought maybe I might teach someday.

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