Great Big Beautiful Life(30)

Hayden’s soft steps resume beside me, muffled and hollow sounding. “Did your dad…Is he gone?”

“Died a few years ago,” I confirm. “My parents were pretty old when they had us, so it wasn’t totally unexpected, but it still sucked. Sucks.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

I force a slight smile in his direction. “Thanks.”

“I always feel stupid saying that,” he murmurs.

“I know,” I agree, “but there’s nothing else to say. And honestly, I would say seventy percent of my friends have pretty horrible relationships with their dads, so even if I didn’t get mine as long as I wish I could have, I still feel lucky.”

“You’re not obligated to,” he says quietly. “You can feel cheated, Alice.”

I feel a surprising prickle at the back of my nose and a tender ache in my heart. Not just because I’m thinking about my dad, but because what Cillian said wings through my mind again: An unpleasant sort.

I could never blame Cillian for having that impression, but it bothers me to think of people out there meeting Hayden Anderson and coming away with this partial view of him.

He can be unpleasant. He can also be kind, and even funny.

He can be clueless that you are standing right next to him, but he also might notice you being harassed from the other side of the parking lot and intercede on your behalf.

“I know I can,” I finally admit. “But I’d rather think of it like this. Like it only hurts this much because he was so great.”

And so much reminds me of him that in a way it’s like he’s still here. Especially here, in the Georgian summer, interviewing a woman we’d both always been fascinated by.

Hayden nods to himself, but neither of us says anything for a while. We just hike along the path in companionable silence, our arms grazing every several steps, our skin slightly sticky.

As if reading my mind, he says, “I’ll never get used to this humidity.”

“I kind of love it,” I say.

He looks down his shoulder at me, eyes catching the moonlight. “Of course you do.”

“I bet you can’t wait to get back to New York,” I say.

“More or less,” he agrees. We’ve stopped again, though I have no memory of doing it. We’re facing each other, standing close, the grating chirp of the cicadas filling the night around us. In my peripheral, I spot the back of my house, beyond a slight break in the trees.

I meet his eyes again. “That’s me.” My voice comes out thin and quiet. I can hear my own regret. That I wish this walk could have gone on awhile longer.

Hayden’s chin dips in acknowledgment, but he says nothing. The humidity feels Jell-O thick now, like it doesn’t want me to move a muscle.

I swallow, force another smile. “Well, thank you for walking me.”

“Of course,” he says.

I turn toward the break in the trees, but he says my name, like it’s a question, and when I look back, he takes another step toward me.

“One,” he says.

I shake my head. “One what?”

The corner of his mouth tips up for just a second. “One girlfriend under five three,” he says seriously.

“Oh.” I’m not sure why my ears suddenly feel so hot, but they do.

“And it was like you said,” he goes on.

“More room in the cave?” I say quietly.

Another slight twitch of his lips. “Physically inconvenient.”

The heat spreads down my neck. It routes around my rib cage, like it’s reaching toward him, like it’s knitting us together.

“She couldn’t get anything off the top shelf,” I say.

“And horrible at basketball,” he says dryly.

My nervous energy bubbles over into laughter. His smile widens. It feels like Pop Rocks are sizzling through my veins. Oh boy, I’m in trouble.

Even as I’m thinking it, I’m asking, “Do you want to come inside?”

Even as he’s stepping closer, he’s saying, “I should get home.”

Our stomachs are nearly touching. I tip my chin up to meet his eyes. “Why?”

His pupils flare. “You know why.”

I swallow but it does nothing to defuse the heat in my throat and chest. “Because you have a girlfriend?”

“No,” he says.

“No, that’s not why,” I say, “or no, you don’t have a girlfriend?”

“You talk a lot,” he murmurs.

“If you’ve got something to say,” I reply, “I’d love for you to interrupt me.”

And he does, just not with words. Instead he sets one hand lightly, teasingly, against my lips.

My whole body heats from the sudden contact. From the rough feeling of his fingers, and the smell of his soap, and the awareness that, an hour ago, this same hand was sweeping against his mouth. I’m something more than hypnotized now.

I’m entranced by the featherlight sensation, and by the way his gaze follows the motion when his fingers skim over my bottom lip, pulling an unsteady sigh from me.

My lips part almost involuntarily, the tip of my tongue grazing one of his fingers, and his eyes flick back to mine, darker than before.

For a moment, I’m suspended. Floating in that zero-gravity moment, waiting to see if I’ll fall, or if he’ll catch me.