Dolly All the Time(17)

“Yes,” he says. A little color hits his cheeks, and he refocuses on his laptop. “I obviously don’t expect sex. Or anything sex-like. If we go overnight, you’ll have your own room on a separate floor of my house.”

“Touching?” I ask. I need to understand the parameters here. Or at least brace myself for what’s coming. “For show?”

“Not necessary.”

“Okay, wow.” I’m thinking about Audrey and her twice-weekly sleepovers and absolutely no PDA. I can see why she was desperate for a make-out session in the dugout. “No touching at all?”

He shakes his head like he’s a bit exasperated by my specifics. “Maybe? Like if you were about to walk into traffic, I might grab you by the arm.”

“Okay. I’ll agree to touching in lifesaving situations.” He keeps typing, so I go on. “And maybe in a normal way when we’re in public? Arm around me for a photo, adjusting a stray piece of my hair because someone’s looking.”

“Sure,” he says, still typing.

“Why am I in love with you?” I ask.

He looks up and takes off his glasses. “I’m a great guy?”

I smile at the question mark. “How so? Got any Yelp reviews?”

He shakes his head. “Yeah, I don’t know. Ask Busy, she likes me.”

“Does Oscar?”

He looks at me for a beat. “He used to.”

I think of how close Patsy and I were before my mom left and I stepped out of our childhood to mother her. I wonder what the big shift was for Stewart and Oscar, but I don’t ask. Oscar Whitfield is a few years younger than Stewart, a relentless playboy who settled down with Lilly Hammersmith but still doesn’t work, as far as I know. Stewart will marry someone like Lilly in the little white chapel, and she’ll get to keep the horse.

“What else?” he asks, putting his glasses back on and turning to the computer.

“I need to work around my shifts at the fish house, and I’ll have to answer my Good Sports line. But I’ll keep it on vibrate. I’ll need to know about each event in advance. I’ll require twenty-four hours’ notice.” I am pushing him, just to see where the edge is.

“What else?”

What else? I think of Naomi and a jillion dollars. “A clothing allowance.”

“Of course,” he says, eyeing the navy dress circa 1995.

I lean in across the table and whisper, “I want bespoke.”

He leans in too. “Bespoke what?” he whispers.

“Do you know what ‘bespoke’ means?” I ask.

“Custom-made for a specific person.”

“Really?” I laugh. I had no idea. “I don’t need that.”

Stewart laughs as a busboy places a basket of hot French bread between us. I take a piece and breathe in the steam. I look up and he’s watching me spread butter on it.

“So how did we meet?” I ask.

He’s quiet, really considering it. “You spilled your purse at a coffee shop and I helped you.”

“Hate it.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Grocery store.”

“Because you go to the grocery store?”

“No.” He looks away for a second. “Blind date?”

“Who sets an engaged guy up on a blind date?” We’re quiet while I butter more heavenly bread. “We both bike the same route in the park and occasionally nodded hello, until one day you found me sitting on the ground by my bike with a flat tire. You helped me home and then vowed to teach me how to change a real tire someday. And thanks to the love gods, we’re both spending the summer in Whitfield. See what I did there?”

“Not bad. It has an arc.” He nods appreciatively and takes a piece of bread.

I say, “It’s sporty, it’s innocent. You look like a hero. You’re welcome. What else?”

“Birthday?”

“January eleventh.”

“I’m May fourteenth.”

“I assume you live on Beacon Hill.”

“Yes. Let me guess. You live…” And he pauses for so long I’m thinking he can’t think of any place that’s not Beacon Hill.

“I live out near Boston College. Gus and I have the downstairs apartment of a two-family house.”

“That sounds nice,” he says, like he’s trying to make it sound nice.

“Oh stop.” I laugh. “It is. We’ve been there since he was three, and the landlord barely raises our rent. I take care of the lawn and stuff. And over the years, we’ve made it our own. I’d buy it and stay forever if I could.”

He’s nodding ever so slightly.

“And do you date?” he asks.

“A bit.” It’s an exaggeration for sure. My last actual date was with a middle-school teacher, but it would have been before Gus started middle school, so that’s at least three years ago.

“How do you approach that, with a child at home?”

“With very low expectations.”

“And how does that work out?”

“Exactly as I expect.” Our eyes meet and he waits for me to explain. I don’t. “How’d you meet Audrey?”

“She’s friends with Grant’s wife, Kendall. They introduced her to me, and it took.” He holds my gaze, and I’m trying to see a little heartbreak in it. He must have loved her a little. But he’s not going to explain himself either.