“Your dad wants to invite me to dinner?” Kay doesn’t stop stocking the candy shelves in the shop. “Should I be honored?”
“I really don’t know.” I’m too mesmerized by the curve of Kay’s behind in her jeans when she bends over to unload another box. “Do you need a hand with that?”
“Sure. If you could just pass these to me. All this bending at my age.” She straightens her posture before arching her back.
I walk over to her and we stand staring at each other for an instant.
“Wouldn’t miss it, by the way.” Another wink—this one goes straight to my gut. “When is it and am I expected to dress up?”
“God no. Although I am curious to see you in a dress.”
“If you want to see me in a dress, you’ll have to buy me one. The last time I wore one was at my prom, so I guess you’d have to be my date as well. I don’t put out for anything less.”
“Let’s save that for a different occasion then. Wouldn’t want to waste that on dinner with the Goodmans.” I squat next to Kay—my eyes level with the golden-brown skin of her thighs—and start handing her packets of brightly colored gummy bears.
“Dream on, Little Ella.” She smiles down at me. “About the dress, I mean. A date can be discussed.” She takes a few packets from me and her finger brushes against the back of my hand. The touch sizzles through me as if administered on an entirely different part of my body. My libido, which pretty much disappeared as my thoughts of despair increased, seems to have found a new lease on life as well.
“I guess I’ll have to hold you to that.” I flirt without thinking about the repercussions and, for a brief instant, it feels so good I forget to be careful. “I may even cook you a meal.” The box is empty and I push myself up.
“Oh really? And what would that be? A soufflé of breakfast bars?”
I chuckle. “I have a few signature dishes I may surprise you with.”
“It’s a deal then. Tomorrow I’ll have dinner with your family and this weekend you’ll cook for me. If you ask me, the order of events is slightly reversed, but I can improvise. I’m easy like that.”
“Thank you.” I all but bow reverently. “Really.”
“Don’t mention it.” There’s so much more lurking behind Kay’s words and it hits me that failure to communicate—to express what’s really going on—is one of the issues that put me in this situation.
“We should probably talk.”
Kay quirks up one eyebrow. “We should?”
“Yes.” Nervously, I pick up the empty box and start folding it in on itself.
“Let me do that. You science geeks are not the most practical of people.” She tugs the box from my hands and with a few compact, swift movements flattens it completely.
“You’d better not offend me before I cook for you.”
“I’ll do my best.” She disposes of the box in a small container next to the counter. “Why don’t you come inside so we can talk.”
I follow Kay into the lodge where, without asking, she pours me a whiskey. We huddle around the kitchen table, nothing but silence around us—and the thumping of my heart.
I take a sip from my drink before starting the conversation. “Look, Kay, I really enjoy your company. I think you know that.” I’m surprised at how easy the words come. “But—”
“It’s all right, Ella. You don’t have to say it. I think I know.” Is that disappointment in her tone? A sort of unsettledness I haven’t heard before?
“No.” I shake my head firmly. “I need to say it.”
“Okay.” Her glance has gone vacant. The guarded stare of a woman who has been hurt one too many times.
“I like you. I mean, I really really like you.” My earlier found eloquence is already starting to elude me. “If the circumstances were different, we would have gone on a date already, but, uh, I need you to understand that romance—or anything resembling romance…” My cheeks start burning brightly. “That’s not something I can deal with right now. It’s a distraction. An easy way out. A cop out.” I repeat the words I spoke to my dad earlier. “I didn’t come here to fall in love.”
Kay doesn’t speak for a few moments, just stares into her glass. “As much as I appreciate your candor, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself a bit here.”
“Oh.” Did I read this situation wrong? Were we not just flirting heavily in the shop?
“I don’t mean I’m not attracted to you. I think you know that I am, being the heart-on-my-sleeve kind of person that I am. Shit. I’ve barely left the West Waters grounds since you arrived. It’s not really my habit to look in on guests several times a day. Or to go skinny dipping with them at midnight.” Kay fixes her gaze on me. “Just now, you invited me to dinner with your parents. For moral support, I presume. Which implies you trust me on a very primal level. You have done so from the beginning. You opened up to me and I don’t suspect you do that with many people you just ran into again after twenty years of absence. So, I guess what I’m asking is why would you think you wouldn’t be able to trust me with this? With us? Do you really think I would let you fall in love and forget about why you came here in the first place? That I would ever allow you to see me as a mere distraction?” There’s genuine hurt in Kay’s voice.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything. I just, for once in my life, wanted to be absolutely honest.” I shove the whiskey aside. It’s too strong—just like the memories that cling to it after the last one I drank. “I guess you have to know what I’m like to fully understand. Back in Boston, losing myself in a new relationship was my favorite means of escape. The thrill of the chase. Those exhilarating first months. Peaking dopamine levels that made me forget about myself. A temporary fix. Until that moment came when I realized I had fallen for someone for all the wrong reasons—again.” I barely have the nerve to glance at Kay. “I really can’t afford that to happen here. Not now, when I’m this fragile. I’m not strong enough.”
“No date then?” A kind smirk has found its way to Kay’s lips. My heart leaps at the sight of it.
“I’ll cook for you anyway. I feel as if I have something to prove now.” I reach out my hand across the table, eager for Kay’s touch.
“You don’t have to prove anything to me, Ella.” To my relief, Kay covers my hand with her palm. “Just tell me this.” A sadness has crept into her gaze again, but there’s tenderness, too—and understanding. “Are you glad to be alive?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation.
Kay squeezes her fingers tighter around my hand. “Then don’t write this off just yet.”
I shake my head, too fraught with emotion to speak. Kay lifts my hand off the table and cups it in both of hers. “And I will come to dinner with Dee and John.” Her thumb runs across my palm. “Unless you think it’s a distraction.”
I get the point she’s trying to make loud and clear. I also see that Kay is nothing like Thalia or any of the women who came before her. Those women whose only mistake was to fall for someone as lost as me.
“Thank you.” It’s all I can say.
“Quid pro quo, Little Ella.” The touch of Kay’s fingers is starting to produce a familiar heat in my blood. “I’ll go with you tomorrow if you stop apologizing and thanking me for nothing.”
A giggle escapes me, but we both know that what Kay is doing for me—not just accompanying me to dinner with my parents, but simply being her patient, good-natured, wise self—is not nothing. She’s saving me.