I’M SO LATE. Inexcusably late. “AJ?” I holler into the cavernous bunker he calls an apartment. No answer. “Adriel? Mr. T?” Shit. Did he really leave without me? I set my floppy hat on his kitchen counter and reach for my phone. I’m supposed to walk over to Blue Slide Park with him to meet up with his students. We installed a new chimney swift tower with some help from the high school wood shop students, and the local bird experts think some swifts will roost in it tonight.
But things ran late at work today.
When I check my phone, I don’t see any missed messages from him. I bite my lip, not sure if I should call him or just head over to Beechwood Blvd on my own. Just as I decide to lace up my hiking boots myself, I hear the jingle of keys in his front door. “Sam!” His voice is frantic and he rushes in the door, yanking off his tie and sweater vest. “Oh, good, you’re still here. I’m so late.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Adriel Trachtenberg, you’re never late. Are you…disheveled right now?” He waves a hand and streaks past me, stripping off his teacher clothes and leaving them in heaps on the floor. I am deeply aroused.
Seconds later, he dashes out of his room wearing cargo pants and a Franklin Middle School t-shirt. I swallow a thick knot and close my eyes. Now is not the time to sink to my knees and run my fingers through his leg hair. He looks at me strangely as he grabs his clipboard from his couch. “Why do you look weird? Come on.” He gestures a head toward the door and I plunk my hat back on my head and trot after him.
He hurries down the steps to the ground floor and extends his hand behind him, fingers curling as they wait to clasp mine. I link my hand in his and rush to catch up. He frowns at the red light and looks both ways. “I think we can dash across,” he says. I nod solemnly at Adriel Trachtenberg weighing the greater evil between jaywalking and showing up late for an extracurricular event he’s leading.
As we hustle down Beechwood toward the playground entrance, I ask, “So what held you up today?”
“You first,” he says, nearly tripping on the uneven sidewalk in his haste.
“Well I was on time,” I assert and burst into laughter when he turns to grin at me mischievously. “Okay, I was also late. But we made the offer and Lyra accepted. She’s going to start in two weeks.”
“Nice!” AJ’s smile is genuine and he gives my hand a squeeze. “Things didn’t work out with Chloe’s husband? Teddy?”
I wave a hand dismissively. “I’m sure he’d be fine, but it just felt like too much of a conflict to hire my friend’s spouse.”
“Hm,” AJ growls. “How did he take the rejection?”
“Well, Mr. T, I’m not entirely sure.” We pause at the corner and look both ways before darting across one final intersection before the park. I sigh. It took a lot of discussion and three rounds of interviews before I finally accepted that Chloe’s husband is not right candidate to replace me as CEO at Vinea. But Lyra definitely is. And I hope Chloe understands that. Not gonna lie, I don’t love how my friend Chloe feels a lot of the time in her marriage. But I’ve got my own relationship to focus on these days, and I’m learning more about how much work goes into a two-way partnership.
After a month of sessions with my new coach, I learned a lot about what I really want from my job. It literally never occurred to me that I could hire someone else to be CEO of Vinea, but now I know all about the differences between a Chief Technology Officer and a Chief Executive Officer.
As soon as I ironed all that out, I took a proposal to the board and we launched a search for someone who knows about business performance and management and all that jazz. Logan is beside herself. She won’t have to explain any lingo or jargon to Lyra, Shane and Audrey can schedule meetings about meetings, and I get to focus on my true passion: our software and our tech team.
I squeeze AJ’s hand again. “Now you, boo. How was your session?”
AJ smiles, a small gesture that shows me he’s thinking about how to answer. “We did a lot of breath work this time.” AJ has been seeing a therapist, talking a lot about how he snaps to anger so quickly, how frightened he’s been of getting left again. “And then I told Naomi you’re worth risking my heart.”
I pull him to a stop by the wooden sign marking the park entrance, where the red leaves are floating down to the ground in the dusky pink sky. “AJ,” I whisper, clutching my heart with the hand not squeezing his. “Thank you for telling me that.” I press a palm to his cheek. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
He nods. “I think I know that now.” He leans in to kiss me, but we are interrupted by whoops and whistles. I peek over his shoulder to see a cluster of seventh graders, some of whom are filming us with their cellphones.
“Yo, Mr. T, this will be great footage for our YouTube channel. Slip her some tongue.”
AJ frowns and shakes his head. “Jayden, you know I’ll never approve that sort of content on our school channel.”
Jayden winks and slips his phone in his pocket. “Just playin, Mr. T. But you and Ms. Vine better hurry. The bird guy says we can go count owl hoots as soon as the sun sets.” He and AJ’s students wander down the path toward the wooden tower, where they’ve laid out a few blankets and milk crates. A Citiparks employee gives us a wave and gestures toward the sky.
As AJ tugs me onto his lap on a plaid blanket, a murmur of delight goes up from the crowd of teens and onlookers. The chimney swifts swirl through the sunset in a spiral and AJ traces a matching pattern on my back with his finger. I hear Maya and Dante counting the birds and filming the synchronized swoops and dips from the flock, but it’s hard for me to concentrate on anything other than the soft tickle of AJ’s breath against my ear.
“I’m so thankful you stalked me,” he whispers. I turn to face him, narrowing my eyes at his interpretation of our meet cute. He shrugs.
I flick his nose. “It would have been easier if your voicemail message wasn’t so weird.”
He grins and presses his forehead against mine. “I was going for intrigue,” he says, kissing me briefly and then remembering that we’re surrounded by children. Technically the Citiparks ranger is in charge tonight, but we still shouldn’t be making out in front of kids with video cameras. “I think my vocal stylings landed me a pretty hot babe.”
I sigh and lean back against his chest. “I will accept your hot babe assessment.”
“Good,” he whispers. We watch as the sun sets, the birds roost and the program shifts to one of quiet listening as the ranger models the calls of different owls living in the park. A haunting cry emerges from a nearby tree and AJ’s hands squeeze me as he communicates that he hears it, too.
We listen for a bit longer and the students record their observations before dashing off to meet their rides or catch their buses. Soon, it’s just us, alone under the stars in the crisp autumn air.
I turn in AJ’s arms so I can see his eyes in the moonlight, and I feel a little swoony with the romance of it all. “You brought me on a data observation session,” I tell him.
He nods and kisses my hand. “And you enjoy learning about science with my students.”
I nod and kiss him on the mouth. “You should take me home and do other things I enjoy.”
I move to stand but he tugs me back onto his lap. He holds my gaze. “I meant what I said earlier, Samantha. You’re worth every risk. You’re worth everything to me.” He swallows. “I need to tell you I love you.”
I have to check to see if the sun rose already or if the burning glow I feel is coming from inside my chest. “You love me?”
He nods. “I really do.” For so long, I thought love wasn’t an option for me, that I chose my work and I felt okay about that because I could make an impact that way. But here, in this park with this man who fights with me and knows what makes me tick, here under the starlight I realize it’s not an either-or situation. I can rock my career and there’s still enough of me leftover to matter to someone else. Someone who matters to me.
Tears well up in my eyes as I lean into the sincerity and vulnerability AJ showed me today. “I love you, too.” And the two of us smile, settling in to this new reality. But it’s not new, not really. This connection has been building between us for months. We both just needed to open our eyes and acknowledge it.
“Let’s go inside,” AJ says, shivering a bit in the cold.
I run my hands along his legs where they’re bent on either side of my hips. “Yes, let’s,” I tell him. But neither of us moves. We sit in the park, with the owls hooting around us, savoring the first day we were each brave enough to admit we were in love.