We were surrounded on all sides by crowds of people, music floating down the painted cinderblock and linoleum paved hallway. It was loud. But I was only aware of Duane. Halfway to the donations table, he slipped his hand into mine. We held hands for the remainder of our short walk to the cafeteria, causing my heart to take up residence in my throat. I was half expecting and hoping he’d drag me backstage again, but he didn’t.
He steered us to one of the long lunch-room style tables in the corner of the cafeteria where no one else was sitting. We were still in a room full of people, but the conversations elsewhere meant whatever words we exchanged would be indecipherable from the surrounding chatter.
Duane pulled a chair out for me and claimed the seat adjacent as I sat. Or, I tried to sit. I didn’t know quite how to sit. Sitting suddenly felt weird. I was super-conscious of my limbs.
Thankfully, Duane spoke before I could become too obsessed with the mechanics of sitting.
“I’ve been thinking.” He leaned his forearm along the table to his left, (my right) and trapped me with his focused gaze.
“What have you been thinking?” I missed the feel of his hand and wondered if it would be weird for me to reach out and take hold of his fingers.
“You’re leaving, just as soon as you can. And you estimate that at being, what? Two years?”
I felt a bit dismayed by his subject choice. I was hoping he’d want to talk about Saturday, give me an opening to apologize and explain in greater detail. I tried to figure out how to steer the conversation in that direction. I tried and failed.
Instead, I answered the question he’d asked with honesty. “More like either one and a half, or two and a half at this point, depending on how much money I can save.”
His eyes narrowed and he nodded, his hand coming to his chin as he stroked his beard thoughtfully. We sat that way—him studying me while stroking his beard, me watching him study me while he stroked his beard—for several seconds.
Abruptly he asked, “What would you say if I suggested we date for the next twelve months, but only for twelve months?”
Who? What? …Date?
It took me a bit to work through his words. I liked the date part, but the only twelve months part sounded fishy.
“I…um…why twelve months?”
My question seemed to relax him and his eyes appeared to lighten a bit. “Because that way we’ll be split up well before the time you need to go. It’s a good stretch of time, long enough to have a bit of fun, get to know each other, but not so long that you have to be concerned about a lasting attachment.”
My heart was doing strange things in my chest, but not anything I might have predicted. It sank, like a stone. If I caught his meaning, and I was fairly certain I did, he wanted me to be his fuckbuddy for the next year. I’d gone from the girl he wanted to court to the girl he wanted to see on the side, one he likely no longer respected.
I shifted in my seat, not because my body was uncomfortable but because my brain was uncomfortable.
And my discomfort didn’t make sense because this is what I’d wanted…right?
No. This isn’t what you wanted, a voice answered in my head, clear as a bell.
Sometimes I truly didn’t understand myself.
“So…we’d…” I licked my lips to stall answering. When I found my voice it was croaky and I felt the beginning of frustrated tears sting my eyes. “We’d what? Hook up a few times a month?”
He shook his head, leaned a bit closer, and I was struck by how severe his expression seemed, almost like he was angry, but not quite.
“No. That’s not what I want. You would have to go all in. We would go out to dinner, see movies, call each other, text. I’d work on your car—you know, the Mustang you left at my house earlier this week—install gadgets you don’t need ’cause you’re my girl. You might come to the Winston place and hang out with us boys. This would be both of us, all in for all twelve months—or less if we find we don’t suit.”
My heart reversed positions halfway through his clarification of my misassumption and hurdled itself skyward. In fact, my entire body felt lighter, almost like I was floating.
“So, you still want to court me?”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“For twelve months?”
“Yep.”
I didn’t try to hide my smile. “And we’d be a couple, a real couple?”
A touch of softness entered his expression and his eyes drifted over my face, as though cataloging it. “Yeah, with presents on birthdays, and celebrating Valentine’s Day, and watching chick flicks, and all that other crap.”
I gathered a deep breath, my lungs filling with both air and excitement. But then a thought occurred to me. “Wait, what if, after the twelve months, one or both of us wanted to continue? Does this thing, this agreement have an option for an extension?”
At once the softness vanished, and again the lines of his face turned severe. He leaned away, just a few inches, but the distance felt much greater. I perceived a cold kind of resolve behind his eyes.
“No. Absolutely not. The term is for a year. After that year is up, and as long as you’re in Green Valley, our relationship would be over.”