Page 23 of A Night to Remember

Don’t worry, I’ll get out as soon as I can

Are there any hot girls in Kentwood? Maybe an older, buttoned-up librarian type who likes to get a little wild on the weekend? A bored stay-at-home mom? A busty waitress who leans over enticingly while refilling your coffee cup? Insert the straight-guy fantasy of your choice?

I laugh. I miss Paul, I really do. Though his busty-waitress stereotype hits a little too close to home—not that I would describe Kayla’s stunning figure as necessarily busty, or that she refills coffee cups intentionally enticingly. But Iamenticed by the fact that she didn’t seem to hate me quite so much when I went over to her house on Tuesday. A teeny, tiny doorway seems to have opened to our past friendship, and I want to do whatever I can to keep it from slamming shut. The whole situation is too complicated to explain to Paul, though, especially by text. I decide to keep it simple.

No hot girls. Just children and little old ladies organizing church raffles. I’ll be back in Chicago before you know it

My phone dings immediately after I hit send, but this time it’s Joyce, Kayla’s mom. I gave her my number in case she needed any more help around the house.

I want to thank you for helping us sort out our issue with the bank. It’s really been eating at Kayla

I’m glad I can help. Do you need me to do any more repairs?

Oh, no, you’ve already done enough, and you and your folks must be so busy with Hungry Hearts

I noticed that the doors were off your kitchen cabinets. Do you want me to put them back up? Or do you like them that way?

No, they just fall off because they’re old, and we can never get them to stay

I’d be happy to fix them. Say tonight around 6:00?

Well, if you insist… thanks! I’ll have Kayla bring you another burger (or two!)

I flip my phone around in my hands, pleased to have something to look forward to, and to have figured out how to see Kayla again. I told her I’d write the letter, but we didn’t make a plan to meet, and I don’t know how to get in touch with her without simply showing up at the café. Now, though, I have an excuse to stop by and offer to pay for dinner. It’s worth a shot.

“Hold still soI can screw it in,” I say, and instantly regret it. Kayla bites back a smile, but holds the cabinet door in place while I attempt to reattach it. Like the house, the metal cabinets date from the 1950s, and are so worn that it’s next to impossible to secure them. It doesn’t help that it’s about a thousand degrees in this kitchen, or that Kayla has stripped down to a tank top that reveals the soft curve of her breasts. They’re not huge ones that would spill out of a tight diner uniform, but rather smallish, roundish ones that would fit perfectly in the palm of my?—

“Fuck!” I pinch my finger in the cabinet door. Kayla laughs outright.

“Are you all right?” she says, trying to suppress a cackle.

“Fine, not that you care.” I glare at her while sucking at the cut.

“I’ll get you a Band-Aid,” she says, still smirking. “And wash your finger!” she calls bossily over her shoulder on her way to the bathroom. As if I didn’t know to do that.

She returns with a bandage and surprises me by taking my hand. She’s been noticeably friendlier tonight, though when I arrived she had been as reservedly stone-faced as the first time I came over. But this project, with its slippery, heavy doors and the constant risk of dropping said doors onto toes or hands or heads, has brought us together like a thorny calculus problem. It’s impossible to maintain a tone of polite formality when you’re crawling on the floor chasing after lost screws, accidentally attaching the wrong doors to the wrong cabinets, and having supposedly attached doors come off immediately in your hand. Plus, have I mentioned that it’s about a thousand degrees in this kitchen?

Kayla’s hands, though, are remarkably dry and soft as she turns my palm over, looking for the cut.

“Just a little pinch,” she murmurs. “You know, you did that before,” she adds as she applies ointment.

“Did what?” I am extremely worried that I am going to get an erection just from her putting Neosporin on my hand. I really could do this myself, but I can’t pull away. I take deep breaths, hopefully subtly, and focus on listening to her words rather than feeling her touch.

“In high school. You knocked your Coke all over my calc notes and made this ridiculous high-pitched squeal.”

“I didnotsqueal.”

“You totally did. You did it again just now.” She’s laughing again. Damn it, she’s adorable when she laughs. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh since I’ve been back in town, and I realize how desperately I’ve missed the sound.

“As I recall, I cursed, in a manly way.”

“Sure,” she says, looking up at me with a twinkle in her eye. She’s let go of my hand, properly cleaned and bandaged, but is still standing close enough to touch. I suddenly remember the feel of her hips under my hands when we danced at the graduation party. I have a strong urge to put my hands on those hips again, lift her onto the counter, push her knees apart, and...

She breaks eye contact first and steps away from me, still with the hint of a smile. “I’ll make dinner,” she says, and begins bustling around the kitchen while opening and closing the newly attached cabinet doors. I’m relieved to see that they all hold.

She had, of course, flatly refused to let me pay for dinner from the café. “Your money’s no good here,” she’d asserted with her fiercest law-professor glare, hands on those shapely hips. “Besides, it’s unhealthy to eat out all the time. I’ll cook.” She refused to let me buy groceries, too. Of course. I may just have to sneak a wad of bills into her purse. Now she’s choppingvegetables, humming a bit, clearly at ease. Whatever her beef with me had been, she must have decided that I’m at least sort of trustworthy. The bumblebee in my chest starts to get revved up again. Would it be madness to ask her on a real date sometime?

Since I knew she didn’t want to date anyone in high school, I was constantly plotting ways to get her to go on non-date dates. Would she like to come meet my neighbors’ new calves? Keep me company while I repaired my grandmother’s fence? Let me ride with her while she delivered books to housebound library patrons?

---