“Yeah, I don’t see her much. We’ve been best friends since junior high. I was following some douche between classes, tripped, fell, and ended up with my little pleated skirt with the big white bow around my waist. She was there to pick me up off the floor.” And history was repeating itself.
The rumble of Nate’s laugh echoed at my back. I hesitated as he stood behind me at the door. It was too late to un-invite him, and I didn’t want to overthink it. Aside from the hand full of lingering stares between us, the night had been easy. I loved easy. Once the door was open, he rushed past me.
“Which one is yours?”
“What?” I asked with my hand still on the light switch. “Where are you going?”
Realization dawned, and my face flamed when he found my room and made a beeline for my closet. “Oh, well, these are just magical.”
I paused at my bedroom door as he held my solid white roller skates in his hands.
“You are an ass,” I said, walking toward the small bookcase I had next to my bed. I plucked Fight Club from the shelf and walked his way.
“Where’s the dress, Stella?” he said, sifting through my racks of T-shirts.
“I don’t have one.” I had three.
“Put these on and I’ll give you a raise.”
“Really?”
“No,” he said with a chuckle as he re-shelved my skates. “What’s this? A real record player? Is this closet a time warp?”
“It was my father’s,” I said as he clicked it on and gently put the needle to the record—Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. My parents had come down the past weekend with the last of my things from my room, including my father’s old turntable—my prized possession, which sat on a solid oak stand in my large closet next to my other prized possession, my collection of Converse.
“These are your favorite,” he stated, grabbing my ruby red, canvas high tops with black laces and “Drive” lyrics written all over them.
“How could you tell?”
“Least worn. The rest are worn.”
“I’ve had them since high school.”
“So, that’s when the little habit started?”
I bit my lips to hide my smile. A true reporter to the bone, Nate left no stone unturned as he carefully picked through my life, pictures, and cards. I slapped his hand when he grabbed my high school journal and he gave me a panty-melting smile. “Anything good in here?”
I shrugged. “Teenage thoughts. I think there’s a passage where I got felt up for the first time.” Nate cradled it in his arms and eyed the book in my hand. “I’ll take this one instead.”
“The hell you will,” I said, mortified. “No.”
“It was worth a shot,” he said, placing it back on the wire rack he’d taken it from.
It was surreal that this beautiful man was in my closet at three in the morning making the space seem so small. I grabbed my Madame Alexander doll my mother brought for me and felt the tug of her absence.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed to see their faces until they were at my front door.
After a lecture from my father about the importance of communication and a good slap on the forehead from my mother, we spent a day in Austin together. I showed them around campus before they went to visit Paige. My mother was furious we still weren’t speaking, but I had stood my ground. In the end, I was left with a reluctant goodbye group hug from them both.
“Softball,” he said as he grabbed my tiny brass and marble trophy.
“Yeah,” I nodded as Nate invaded my space, like he was anxious to get to the bottom of things, of me. Satisfied, Nate leaned against the frame of my closet, his arms crossed. The air around us shifted as I held his book in one hand, my doll in the other. Hungry eyes trailed over my face, down my body and then back up.
Michael Jackson sang about Billie Jean. “Good song.”
Swallowing, I replaced the doll and started to straighten the mess he made. “I love this record so much. My dad taught me how to dance to it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and with total abandon. He just let us go spastic, Paige and me. Gah, I was such a moro—”
I caught myself staring at Nate, who stood stoically, waiting for what I said next, and in his eyes nothing was more important than hearing my story. He was exploring and I was the destination. There were no mixed signals, nothing to second guess. It was refreshing.
“What?” he asked, his arm propped on the frame. His jacket long gone and the sleeves of his once crisp shirt rolled up to his forearms.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Yes, now tell me.”
“I got all dramatic and I—” I shook my head. “You see, we had this mantle over our fireplace—”
“I think I know where this is headed,” he said, a rumble in his chest. “Clumsy kid, weren’t you?”
I nodded. “It was his deceased mother’s clock, my grandmother who I’d never met. She died before I was born. Anyway, the mantle wasn’t exactly attached to the brick. And I used it as an anchor to do a dramatic dip, I went all Flashdance and—”
“You went backward with the whole thing,” Nate chuckled.
“So bad. It was so bad. I really don’t know how my parents survived me,” I said with wide eyes. “I broke the clock.” I let out a sigh. “And you know what my father did?”
Nate took a step forward. “What, Stella?” He was close, so close, and I didn’t back away. Instead, I leaned forward. “Nothing. He didn’t yell or get angry. I saw it, though, the sadness. It was one of the last pieces of her. He just picked it back up, put it on the shelf, and told me to keep dancing.”
“Sounds like a good man.”
“I felt so bad,” I said as Nate brushed my hair behind my shoulder.
“It was a clock and you were okay.”
“That’s what he said. That’s exactly what he said.” I stared at Nate.
“That’s what I’d be thinking,” he said softly.
I gripped the arm that lingered on my shoulder and leaned in further. We were close, so close. With the book in my other hand, I stared up into indigo blue, willing him forward, my eyes closing. Seconds passed, then more.
“Do you like football?”
I jerked away slightly and studied his lips, wondering why they weren’t on mine.
“Football.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I parroted, staring at the full lips grinning down at me.
“Okay, I’ll pick you up at three,” Nate said as he took the book and looked down at the cover.
“You’ve read it?”
“Stella,” he said, his whisper touching my lips. “I fucking lived in these pages for weeks.”
“Oh,” I said, discouraged. “I was hoping to give you something new.”
“You did,” he said without missing a beat before his lips drifted to my ear. “Tomorrow.”
“Today.”
“Today,” he agreed, taking the offered book anyway and giving me a sexy wink before disappearing from my view.
“’Night.”
For a few solid minutes, I didn’t feel guilty. Not about the fact that I didn’t think about Reid when I was with Nate. Or the fact that I offered him my time, or my lips. They belonged to me.
Reid’s silence told me so.
But there was one thing that had me twisting in my sheets as my mind followed. I wanted Nate to kiss me.
Clumsy
Fergie
I woke up late afternoon that Saturday to find Lexi still wasn’t home. I shot off a quick text to her.
I miss you.
Lexi: Come to the show tonight.
Okay.
Lexi: Really?
Yeah. I’m sorry.
Lexi: Don’t be. I’ll see you tonight.
I struck out early with a long list of to-dos and was halfway through them when I remembered I’d agreed to a football game with Nate. I glanced at the clock on my iPod and ran the last three blocks home like I was being chased.
Behind my front door, I looked at the cheap Roman numeral clock in our living room.
“SHIT!”
I had ten minutes.