Dolly All the Time(62)

We stop in front of my place, and I turn to him. “Well, thank you. And for tonight. Text me in the morning and let me know when to meet you.”

“I really want to come in,” he says, looking straight ahead.

My stomach drops. I really want him to come in. And not because I think he’ll be impressed with the original avocado tiles in my little kitchen, but because I want to show him this part of myself. The life I’ve built.

“Why?” I ask.

“I’d love to see it, where you and Gus live. Your real life.”

“But why?” I ask again. I mean it in the smallest sense, as in why does he care what my home looks like, and also the biggest possible sense—why is he spending so much time with me outside of our arrangement? Why is he infiltrating my heart in this terrifying way?

“Because you’re important to me,” he says.

“Because I know how to pull you out of a panic attack?” I ask.

“That’s only part of it.” He turns to me, and he looks like he has a lot to say about the rest of it. And I want to hear every word, every single detail of why I’m important to him. I’d ask for a stenographer to sit in the backseat to record it all, but if I stay in this car for one more minute, I’m going to kiss him. Equally likely—if I bring him into my house, I’m going to kiss him.

“Sure,” I say. “Come in.”

We climb the front steps, past the staircase that leads to the Gilroys’ top-floor apartment, and to mine on the ground floor. There’s no mail because Kim and Layla have been bringing it in, but my Red Sox Fans Only welcome mat has a few grocery store circulars and home repair advertisements. Stewart picks them up and follows me inside.

In front of us is my rectangular kitchen table with the four caned chairs Gus and I refinished when he was eight. Above the table is the corkboard that contains our life. The schedule for the baseball camp he didn’t end up doing. Our June calendar only sparsely filled in. I can’t read it from here, but I know it says things like registration for fall ball opens and free swim at the Y. Nowhere does it say fall for Stewart Whitfield.

To our right is my kitchen, straight out of a 1970s sitcom, with my lemon-yellow tea kettle bright on the stove. To the left are two denim couches in the shape of an L and a coffee table made of two tree stumps and a found piece of glass, another project of Gus’s and mine. A TV, an Xbox controller left on the worn red rug. On an end table by a tulip-shaped lamp is a stack of sticky-sweet year-end cards from my students. In the corner, Fern is thriving.

I drop my keys on the table by the mail and turn to him. “This is it,” I say.

“It’s a great place,” he says. “Who’s taking care of that fern?” he asks. He hasn’t taken a step since he closed the front door.

“The Bad Teachers. My teaching friends. They’re not bad, it’s just what we call our group text. To be funny.” I’m rambling and some part of me worries that if I stop talking, I’ll jump into his arms. “I call her Fern. Gus calls her Sideshow Bob.”

“What does that mean?” he asks.

My shoulders relax with this chance to tease him. “You don’t watch The Simpsons, do you?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t watch much of anything.”

“Well, Damion dresses like Smithers, Mr. Burns’s assistant, which you’d think was funny if you did.” I walk past him and throw open the green-and-white checked curtains on the front window. “Doesn’t look like much, but when the sun comes in here in the morning, the light through the needles of that white pine is spectacular.”

“I’d love to see that,” he says.

And it hangs there. He’s holding my gaze and my heart is racing. What would it do to me to spend the night here with Stewart, those hands all over me, and wake up and drink tea with him in this, my favorite spot? The tea is the worst part of this terrible idea—his hands all over me is one thing, but the hope of the next day and the next day and all the days I’d want with him is quite another.

“Can I?” he asks, gesturing to the short hallway that leads to our bedrooms.

“Sure,” I say, heart in my throat.

I follow him into Gus’s room, bed hastily made by me a lifetime ago. Stewart scans Gus’s desk and the shelf of baseball and hockey trophies above it. He turns to take in the quilt covering Gus’s bed and is suitably impressed.

“Don’t tell me you made this,” he says.

“I did,” I say. “I kept all his Tshirts and jerseys from the million sports he played starting in preschool and sewed them into this. Only way I could feel like I got my money’s worth.”

“It’s amazing,” he says. “He’ll keep this forever.”

“I actually have a whole bin of new ones since sixth grade, so I’ll do a second installment at some point.”

He nods at his own thought, and I want to know what it was. “What?” I ask. “Your face did a thing.”

He shrugs. “You’re a great mother. That’s what I was thinking, but then I thought it sounded weird to say, because what do I know.” That compliment is too big for me. I let it fall on the ground between us rather than take it in.

“Oh,” I say. “Thank you. I think I do want tea.” I turn toward the door. “Would you like some?”