I loved looking up at him, the way the sun’s rays spilled through the trees and down onto his tan skin. He wore a comfortable, welcoming expression—not quite a smile, but nowhere near the frown I’d found imprinted when I’d met him. I nodded, letting him help me up.
“Let me just run inside and change my shoes,” I said, motioning to the lace up suede wedges on my feet. “Don’t think I’ll make it long on the rocks with these.”
“You can wear them later,” Anderson suggested with a smirk.
“Only if you’re lucky.” I winked, ducking inside and quickly kicking off my wedges, trading them for a pair of boots by the door. When I shut the door behind me and rejoined Anderson on the porch, he held his arm out for me and I hooked mine around it.
We carefully made our way down the path behind my cabin until we were near the water. We were still walking on a large bed of rocks, but there were patches of beach, and we walked slowly, talking a little about everything and nothing at all. The sun seemed to take its time setting, casting a beautiful orange glow over the river and west side of the mountains. I held onto Anderson tight to keep steady as we navigated the rocks, and he didn’t seem to mind.
Sometimes, at random moments, I’d feel a wave of guilt roll over me when I was with Anderson. Holding onto his arm reminded me of another arm I’d held onto for ten years.
Even though I’d been the one who walked away from our marriage, it didn’t mean I didn’t still think about him. I loved him, I always would, and maybe a hidden part of me wished we could have worked out. I wished he would have listened to me sooner, that he would have fought for me—for us—before it was too late. Before my heart had already checked out, leaving a messy, vacant room behind.
“Biggest weakness?” Anderson asked as we stepped over a particularly large rock.
“Oh, cinnamon rolls hands down. I can’t turn them down. Physically, I can’t.”
He laughed. “So cinnamon rolls and 90’s music.”
“And stray cats with broken meows.”
“You’re something else,” he said with a shake of his head.
“Thanks. I think.” I squeezed his arm a little tighter as we walked on a bed of smaller rocks. “What about you? Biggest weakness?”
“Old cult classics.”
I stopped. “I’m sorry, what? I didn’t even think you owned a television, let alone watched one.”
Anderson’s brows pinched together. “Come on, what do you think I am, a monster? Of course I watch TV. Well, movies anyway. And my go-to’s are the cults.”
“So like Pulp Fiction?”
“Obviously. Eraser Head, The Evil Dead, Clerks, Fight Club,” he added with a shrug as we started walking again. “Those are some of my favorites, but I could go on all night.”
“We should watch one together sometime.”
He popped a brow. “You think we could actually make it through a movie?”
“We could try,” I clarified, knowing the chances of me lying next to him for longer than sixty seconds and not taking his clothes off were pretty slim.
“When was the first moment you realized you wanted to be a fashion designer?”
At that question, a huge smile lit my face. “Oh, that’s easy. My grandma has sewed all her life. Now provided, she never ever thought about fashion, only necessity. She made all my mom’s and aunt’s dresses for school when they were growing up, did the same for me until I begged her to stop in the third grade,” I added with a laugh.
Anderson smiled, too, carefully guiding me over the rocks as I continued.
“She used to give me lessons when I would stay with her for the summer, though, and I slept on a tiny little twin bed set up in her sewing room. It was amazing, laying there every night looking around at all the thread and fabric and machines and needles. After her and my grandpa went to sleep, I would pull out her book of patterns and flip through them. Over time I found myself wondering what would happen if you changed this or that, if you stitched this way or added lace here, if you pulled the waist in more, if you cut the V deeper. I guess it bloomed over time, but it all started with my grandma teaching me how to sew God-awful dresses out of school bus printed fabric.”
I almost felt like I was back there, in grandma’s old sewing room, thinking all I was doing was passing my summers by when really I was shaping my entire future.
Anderson squeezed my hand where it hooked over his arm. “I’d love to see some of your sketches sometime.”
“The only man to ever see my sketches is Adrian, so I might have to ask him first,” I said as we stepped down a little closer to the river. A bright pink was spreading over the sky, illuminating the rocks and the rush of the river.
“That’s the one you call all the time, right? Your best friend?”
I nodded. “He’s the first person I call when I have an idea for a new line, but unfortunately he hasn’t gotten that specific call in more than six months.”
I grew quiet and Anderson pulled me to a stop at the river’s edge, each of us looking out at the water. He dropped his hold on my arm and slid his hand down until it held mine.
“Keith?”
I just nodded again.
We didn’t talk about him much, not that we needed to, but whenever I did feel the need to, Anderson was always there. He listened, he didn’t judge, and somehow he never seemed jealous, either. I’m not sure I would feel the same if he were talking about an ex of his.
“Do you ever miss him?”
“Every single day.”
It was the truth, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“Not in the way that I want him back,” I clarified. “Just in the sense that he was a part of my life for so long. I love him, I care about him. I want to know he’s doing okay. I wonder how his practice is going, or how his friends and family are. They all dropped me when everything happened... I don’t know. I just feel like my whole life has been uprooted, like I’ve been doused with a bucket of ice water. It’s been awakening, amazing, and terrifying all at once.”
Anderson took in a long breath, letting it go nice and easy. “Well, I think you’re brave,” he said. “And strong.”
I smiled up at him, but now he was shaking his head.
“But you are so wrong about what it feels like to have a bucket of ice water poured on you.”
I laughed. “Oh, yeah? What, are you the expert on that subject matter?”
An evil grin spread on his face and he pulled me closer, cupping my backside in his large hands. At first I was turned on, but when he waggled his eyebrows, I realized I was in trouble. “You could say that.”