“Work?”
“I thought you’d be out with George tonight.”
“I need new friends.” She sighed. “He was wrong for me. What do I need to do? Take out a billboard?”
“Wrong for you?” Cal leaned against his desk, studying her. “Usually you don’t figure that out until you’re married.”
“Very funny. Now, really, what are you doing?”
She crossed the room toward him, noticing the smudges on his cheek and hands. When she sidled up behind him, felt the touch of his arm against hers, she immediately felt less alone, less shaky.
There was a pile of papers in front of him. On the top page was a faded, working sketch of a boy and girl holding hands, running. Overhead, a giant pterodactyl-type bird blotted out the sun with its enormous wingspan.
He pushed the sketch aside; beneath it was a full-color drawing—almost a painting—of the same two kids huddled around a pale, glowing ball. The caption beneath them read: How can we hide if they see our every move?
Ellie was stunned by the quality of his artwork, the vibrant colors and strong lines. The characters looked somehow both stylized and real. There was no mistaking the fear in their eyes.
“You’re a talented artist,” she said, rather dumbly, she thought, but it was so surprising. All those days while she’d been sitting at her desk, doing paperwork or reading her magazines or talking to Peanut, Cal had been creating Art. She’d blithely assumed it was the same doodling he’d been doing since Mr. Chee’s chemistry class. She felt suddenly as if she were losing her hold on herself. How could she have been with him every day and not known this? “Now I know why you said I was selfish, Cal. I’m sorry.”
He smiled slowly. It transformed his face, that smile, reminded her of a dozen times long past. “It’s a graphic novel about a pair of best friends. Kids. He’s a good kid from the wrong side of the tracks with a mean drunk for a dad. She hides him in her barn. Their friendship, it turns out, is the last true innocence, and it falls to them to destroy the wizard’s ball before the darkness falls. But if they kiss—or go farther—they’ll lose their power and be ruined. I just started submitting it to publishers.”
“It’s about us,” she said. At the realization, it felt as if a doorway somewhere opened, showed her a glimpse of a hallway she’d never seen. “Why didn’t you show me before?”
He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and stood up to face her. “You stopped seeing me a long time ago, El. You saw the gangly, screwed-up kid I used to be, and the quiet always-there-for-you guy I became. But you haven’t really looked at me in a long time.”
“I see you, Cal.”
“Good. Because I’ve waited a long time to tell you something.”
“What?”
He took her by the shoulders, held her firmly.
And he kissed her.
Not a friendly peck or an I-hope-you-feel-better brushing of the lips. An honest to God, send the blood rushing to her head, kiss. Tongue and all.
Ellie resisted at first—it was all so unexpected—but Cal wasn’t letting her run the show this time. He backed her up against the wall and kept kissing her until her breathing was ragged and her heart was beating so fast she thought she’d faint. It was a kiss that held back nothing and promised everything.
When he finally drew back, making her whimper at the sudden loss, he wasn’t smiling. “You get it now?”
“Oh my God.”
“Everyone in town knows how I feel about you.” He kissed her again, then drew back. “I was beginning to think you were stupid.”
She didn’t know how a nearly forty-year-old twice-divorced woman could feel like a teenage girl again, but that was exactly how she felt. All giddy and breathless. In an instant her whole life had clicked into place. It all fit now. Cal.
Behind them the door opened. Ellie turned around slowly, still feeling dazed.
Peanut stood in the doorway. Like flowers from a single stem, three little faces hovered beside her. Peanut said, “Go put on your jammies. Daddy will be up in a minute to put you to bed.” When they were gone and their footsteps on the stairs had faded to nothing, Peanut’s gaze moved from Cal to Ellie and back to Cal.
A smile finally tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You kiss her?”
Ellie had the thought: Peanut knew? and felt a flash of irritation. Then Cal was pulling her toward him and she forgot about everything else. In those eyes she’d known forever, she saw love. True, this time; the kind that began on a cold day between two kids and lasted for a lifetime. He squeezed her hand. “I did.”
Peanut laughed. “It’s about damn time.”
Ellie put her arms around Cal and kissed him. She didn’t care if Peanut was watching. It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been on Main Street, in uniform, during a traffic stop. All her life she’d been looking for love and it had been there all along, across the field, waiting for her. “It is,” she whispered against his lips. “About damn time.”