Page 96 of Catch a Kiwi
“You thought I wasdead?”She was staring at me as if she couldn’t believe her ears. I could hardly blame her. “Does that happen to you often?”
“I called out,” I said. “Twice. I knocked, too. Got no answer.”
“Because I wasasleep.Extremely asleep, apparently.”She was still holding the dressing gown closed, pale hair tumbled around her kitten’s face, big gray eyes blinking. “I was lying down for fifteen minutes, that’s all. I set an alarm! What, you instantly had to rush down here?”
“You set an alarm fifty-five minutes ago.” I checked my watch. “Sixty now.”
“I can’t have,” she said. “I just fell asleep.”
I held out my arm, and she grabbed it and blinked somemore at the watch. “Oh. Sorry. I can’t believe I did that. Did I miss dinner?”
“I can rebook.”
“Oh.” She pushed her hair back some more. “Half of me wants to stay here and eat something from a takeaway carton, preferably while watching TV and possibly while falling asleep on your shoulder, and half of me wants to …” She trailed off.
“Tell me what the other half wants,” I said. “And then tell me which half wins.”
“And you’ll be OK with that. You know, I’ve noticed that you can be a pretty forceful man. One who expects things to go his way.”
“Yeh,” I said. “I can. I am. But have I been that way with you?”
“Well, let’s see. I shouldn’t collect my belongings from your hillside, even though I obviously needed to do exactly that? I shouldn’t leave your house, even though you had no kind of responsibility for me? I should take this mystery ute you sold me for way too little money, even though—I can’t even come up with anything here, that one was so far beyond the bounds of reason. I should moveinwith you?”
“You said no most of those times,” I said. “I can hear no. So tell me. What does the other half want?”
She sighed, and then she did the thing that destroyed me. She leaned against my shoulder and let me put my arm around her. “I know it’s probably backsliding, but the biggest part of me seems to want to get beautiful and go out with you and feel … the way I don’t trust feeling. For an evening. No worries, I know that ‘to love and to cherish’ isn’t real.” At which point she sat up and laughed. “And stop with the horrified start of surprise. It was a metaphor.”
I wanted to ask, “What’s your current position on casual sex?” But I wasn’t a fool. I also wasn’t convinced this wascasual, because casual was exactly how I didn’t feel. I asked instead, “What is it, then? Go out or stay in?” I was good with either one, especially if she stayed in that dressing gown. On the couch in that thing, and no Delilah? My hand sliding up her bare leg and my mouth at her neck? Oh, yeh, I was good with that.
Which was why, of course, she said, “Let’s go out.” She pulled back, slid off the bed, put her hands on my thighs, smiled into my eyes, kissed me softly on the mouth, and said, “Give me fifteen minutes. I won’t knock your socks off, because you’ve already seen the dress.”
“No worries,” I said. “You’ll still knock my socks off.”
41
HOPE
Summer
Iwasready in fifteen minutes, because I wasn’t doing the full-on beauty thing anymore. Ready, but still so languid and sleepy.
I told Roman, when I came upstairs to meet him again—he was in the same outfit he’d worn on the day I’d driven him to Dunedin and tried not to look at him: charcoal trousers and a slim-fitting white dress shirt that showed off every bit of chest, thighs, and flat abs, but only hinted at the arms that I might be growing a little obsessed with—all of which I did my best to ignore before I thought,Wait. I don’t have to ignore how his body looks anymore, or the warmth in his eyes when he looks at me …
Wait. Where was I? I was horribly discombobulated here, which was why I was using words like “discombobulated.” I pushed back my hair, even though it didn’t need pushing back, crossed the room to him, concentrating on those eyes and the smile on his tough face that told me he didn’t just like what he saw, he liked who Iwas,and?—
All I ended up saying was, “Hi.” And when his hand cameout to touch the pretty but inexpensive Art Nouveau comb holding back my hair on one side, then rested lightly on my hair, I did my best not to tremble and tried to marshal my wayward thoughts. My thoughts were like cats. My thoughts were like …
His hand was on my cheek now, and I was swaying toward him just a little. I’d forgotten, this past year, how much more powerfully feminine I felt walking in heels.
I finally got out more syllables, at least. Unfortunately, the syllables were, “My thoughts are like chickens.”
A deepening of the crinkles around his green eyes, and his hand was still on my face, then brushing over my hair again like he wanted to touch it. Maybe because my hair was fine and soft, and his was nothing like it. It was thick and dark, and looked like it wanted to curl but was cut too ruthlessly short to indulge in such frivolity. Like the rest of Roman. What would he be like without the discipline, without the reserve? I wanted to know, because I was pretty sure there was fire under there.
Fire burns.
He said, “Chickens?” And when I blinked at him stupidly, “You said your thoughts were like chickens.”
“Oh!”Get it together.“Like herding cats, only worse. Herding chickens, and they’re all running around and clucking and not letting me catch them. I’ve been so focused these past weeks, or to be honest, for about a year now, and all of a sudden, it’s like I’ve lost it all. My energy. My drive. I feel like I could just lie down and sleep for days. Scary stuff. I’m all … fuzzy inside.”
