Page 13 of Ten Years and Then…
“I loved the movie,” he said as he led her out of the café. “Just a bad memory with the song, that’s all.” It wasn’t really bad, exactly. Complicated was probably more accurate. Too complicated to tell Nora about, at least on the first date.
She squeezed his hand. “Embarrassing bad, or painful bad?” she asked, but there was no teasing in her voice, or her eyes.
“More like I never figured out what to think about it.”
She nodded, and gave him the softest, sweetest smile. “I understand.” She probably would, too. “If you ever do want to talk about it, I’m here. Or not. No pressure, I promise.”
Maybe if there was a third or fourth date. Maybe after they—if they ever—maybe then. Then it wouldn’t be weird or awkward. And maybe if that did happen, it wouldn’t be a complicated memory anymore, anyway.
Nora
Nora had a decent idea about Daniel’s bad memory. Top Gun came out in 1986, in the summer if she remembered right. He was a year ahead of her, so it would have been the summer before his senior year of high school. So, a summer romance, probably his first. He’d mentioned he’d gone to an all-boys high school, so when else would he have been able to meet girls but during the summer?
First love, first breakup, first broken heart.
Maybe not just first, but also only? He’d already told her he didn’t date anybody his freshman year here at Albion, it wasn’t a stretch to assume that there wasn’t anyone his senior year at an all-boys school, either.
Of course he wouldn’t want to talk about something like that on a first date.
“Thanks,” he said. “That—it means a lot to me that you—I don’t even know how to say it. That you want to listen.”
With every word, he was proving that what he’d said yesterday was true, and that what she thought—hoped—about him was true, too. “I want to know you. You deserve to be known. Because you’re pretty great.”
He didn’t have any words, but a moment later his arm was around her, pulling her close, and that was a better answer than anything he might have said. They walked in silence, with him glancing over at her every so often, with an expression she could only describe as blissful. And then, right in the middle of the main quad, he stopped.
“Look up, over a little to the left.” He pointed. “That’s Andromeda.” Now he took her hand, held it up. “There, see that smudge there, that’s the galaxy of Andromeda, but the constellation is there. See the star just to the left, and then go up, you see?”
He was full of surprises. He hadn’t said anything about being a stargazer. “How do you know that?”
“Our neighbor had a telescope, a really nice one, up on his roof. He’d let me look in it sometimes. I don’t remember all that much, but I do know some of the constellations. That’s Cassiopeia, above Andromeda, and then Perseus to the left of that.” He laughed. “Perseus and Andromeda go together. I mean, they were together. He—he saved her, they were going to sacrifice her, let some huge sea monster eat her, but he saved her, and then he killed the Gorgon, and then they flew off together.”
That all sounded vaguely familiar to Nora. “That’s from a movie, isn’t it?”
“Clash of the Titans. I loved that movie when it came out. I think I might be misremembering some of the details—I was, like, eleven or twelve when I saw it—but I know they ended up together. So it’s romantic. Like tonight.” He looked away when he said that, as if he thought she wouldn’t see him blushing.
She pulled herself closer to him, started walking again. “I agree. Tonight is pretty romantic. But if it’s all the same to you, maybe we can skip the sea monsters.”
“I think we’re safe from them. We’re, what, a couple of hundred miles from the coast? But I’d fight one for you, if they made it here.”
He probably would, too. But that wasn’t the most important thing he’d said. It was that last word.
Here.
Because right now, here was right outside West Hall. His dorm. And she’d been the one to lead him here; it was her feet they’d both been following.
“How—this is my dorm. How’d we get here?”
She took both his hands in hers. “I guess I didn’t want our night to end just yet. And it’s starting to get a little chilly out.”
She could stand the cold, if he wanted to sit on a bench out here and talk for another hour. Or three or four. She could see the indecision—and maybe fear?—in his eyes as he thought her words over. Then he blinked, and the indecision was replaced with clarity.
“I don’t want it to end, either. I—I’m having a great time.”
“I’m glad. I am, too.” She felt her own moment of indecision, but it was gone as quickly as it came. “So are you going to invite me up to your room?”
Daniel
He’d fumbled with the key to the front door of the dorm, nearly tripped on the first step of the staircase, and it took him three tries to unlock his room. Daniel appreciated that Nora had very pointedly not noticed any of that.
