Page 32 of The Caretaker
“You can’t tell someone you’re building a list of their qualities and not tell them what you have so far,” he complained, fallingonto one of the armchairs and kicking his feet up on the coffee table.
“You’re getting pretty comfortable for a guy who said he had something to show me. Is it in your pocket?”
“I’ll show you if you tell me a few things on your list.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” I said, laughing over my shoulder.
“Okay, just two things. That’s it.”
“You’re lucky you’re so adorable.” I took a seat on the couch now that I’d defrosted.
“You think I’m adorable?” His tone held a seriousness that it hadn’t a second ago. He lowered his feet to the floor, and the sudden intensity in his gaze had my body waking up in ways it hadn’t before.
“Yes,” I admitted. “Right this second, I find you adorable.”
“What about this second?”
“In this second too,” I confirmed.
“And now?” he asked, some of his playfulness returning.
“Now and forever. Does that make you happy?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged, relaxing in his seat again. “I mean, I think I’ve aged out of the “adorable” bracket. Pretty sure the max age limit is eight. But it’s better than “ghastly,” I suppose.”
My laugh was booming this time. Partly because I liked this witty side to him, and because I felt lighter than I had in ages. I wanted to do nothing more than sit there dangling my list over his head and feeding him bits and pieces of it all day.
“You owe me one more adjective.”
“I never agreed to give you any,” I countered.
“I was nice enough to count “adorable” as one, the least you can do is give me one more.”
“Fine,” I said, feigning exasperation. “If it’ll get you to show me what was so important that you had to drag me from my bed of snow in the woods, I’ll tell you.” I thought back on all I’d gleaned about him during our short time together, on all thequalities he’d shown through both actions and words. I thought about giving him “helpful,” “compassionate,” “sad,” or even “lonely,” but one particular descriptor stood out most, so I went with it.
“Missing,” I said, and Solace’s anticipatory smile faded. “Like some part of you was missing, to be more exact. I remember feeling that strongly when we first met.”
“And now?” he whispered. “Do you still sense that a part of me is missing?”
I looked to the mantel, toward little Gavin’s photo, and wanted to say yes, but that felt too obvious. While I knew he missed Gavin, that wasn’t the type of “missing” I’d picked up on. Then I remembered the man he’d lost, the one who was still somewhere out there in the world.
My stomach tightened, but it wasn’t because I was sad for his loss—like I should have been—it was from fear of that person returning. I was starting to see Solace as mine, even if that confused me considering that our relationship wasn’t a romantic one. I wanted to cling to the feeling I got when I was with him. I didn’t want anyone showing up and taking that away.
“No,” I said, lying to him for the first time. “I don’t get that impression anymore. Not in the way I initially had. I think it was the loss of your son that I was picking up on.”
“It was,” he said, and somehow I knew he’d just lied to me in return.
Solace excused himself to make us tea, refusing my offer to help. I waited in the living room, giving him the space he seemed to need.
He returned, setting our mugs down before padding off to haul in a file box from the coat closet.
“What’s all that?” I asked as he sat next to me and removed the box’s lid.
“I was thinking about the photos you offered to take of me, and it got me thinking about my prior print work.” He handed me a stack of magazines. I flipped to the dog-eared pages of him. “I forgot I had these in the attic. Thought it might be helpful to go through some of them before we start. This is my old portfolio.” He passed me a binder next.
“You haven’t aged one bit,” I said, examining photo after photo, like there was hidden treasure to be found in them. There were shots of him with the winter landscape as his backdrop. Then a series of black and white photos where the only speck of color was the vibrant blue of his irises. My favorite was a photo of him in an oversized pinstripe suit. The legs dragged on the floor behind him as he peered away from the camera’s lens, his expression pensive. The jacket’s sleeves reached his knees, hiding his hands, and his hair had been artfully tousled. With his masculine but lean body hidden beneath pounds of fabric, I was left with only the androgynous beauty of his face. There was no way to guess at his gender, which seemed to be the point.
“Maybe we can recreate some of these,” Solace said, alerting me to the fact that I’d been appreciating that particular shot for far too long.
