“The band will be back tomorrow,” Nikki said over supper. She had made a tub of lasagna big enough to feed the 5th Fleet and at least half of the 3rd Battalion Field Artillery Marching Band & Wind Ensemble. “I learned how to cook in a commune,” she explained when Cas noted the size of the pan.
“Where have they all been?”
“On tour. Maine and Vermont.”
“Without you? The lead singer?”
“I was sick when they left two weeks ago. They had to go, the gigs have been booked for months. Charlene’s filling in for me. She’s very good.”
He put his fork down. “Then you aren’t even supposed to be here right now.”
“No.”
“I would have come all this way to an empty house.”
“The house is always open. You could have stayed here anyway.”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
“Then you lucked out, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I guess I did. So what happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“What? Leave? No, I don’t want you to leave. Do you want to leave?”
“Only if you think I should.”
“Why would I think you should?”
“Could be awkward.”
“For who?”
“Both of us. Aren’t you and Jonathan sort of…? You know.”
“If we were sort of you know, don’t you think you should have brought it up before now?”
“What are you mad about?”
“What am I mad about? What am I mad about? How about this? You’re looking for a way out of this relationship and it hasn’t even started yet.”
“I am not.”
“Then why do you want to leave?”
“I didn’t say I wanted to leave.”
“Am I going crazy?” she said, pulling at her hair. “Did you or did you not just ask me if I wanted you to leave?”
“I asked you if you wanted me to, to, you know, make it easier. I never said I wanted to.”
“It was your idea.”
“I just meant it might make this less, you know, awkward, that’s all.”
“So being with me isn’t worth a little awkwardness?”
“That isn’t what I said. You’re twisting everything around–“
She stood up, spun around the chair and stamped her foot. “Bullshit. I’m cutting through the bullshit is what I’m doing.”
“Bullshit yourself,” he said standing to face her. “It was just a question about what would be easier for you, what you wanted me to do, that’s all, but you’re so sure I’m going to run away that you’re interpreting everything I say as if that’s what it means.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Every time we start to get close, you back away. What else could it mean? You’re trying to find a reason to leave me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then why didn’t you kiss me?”
“What?”
“We sat by that river for hours. It was a beautiful day, warm, sunny. A perfect spring day. If we’d been sitting any closer, I would have been in your lap. But you never kissed me, you never even put your arm around me.”
“Was I supposed to?”
“Were you sup–?” She stared as if seeing him for the first time. “You think there are rules?”
“Aren’t there? Because I seem to break them all the time and I don’t even know what they are. I always seem to end up doing the wrong thing. If I kiss a girl I like, I’m pushing her and I’m a beast. If I don’t kiss her, then obviously I don’t care about her and I’m a beast. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Either way, I’m fucked.”
She nodded then, more to herself than to him. “I get it. Joyce Barrington.”
“What about her?”
“She was your first girlfriend in high school, wasn’t she?”
“So?”
“She’s a bitch, Cas. She was playing you like she played everybody. We’re not all like that.”
“She’s not the only girlfriend I’ve ever had, you know, and the others were just like her.”
“Maybe that’s because you picked girls just like her.”
“I didn’t ‘pick’ them at all. They just…happened.”
“They picked you?”
“I guess.”
“And you went along like you always do.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m not sure. I’m just trying to get a handle on you.”
“Yeah? Well, while we’re getting handles on each other, why didn’t you kiss me?”
“Because–“ She stopped.
“Because why? Go ahead. Say it. Because girls don’t make the first move. See? Rules.”
It was beginning to dawn on Nikki exactly how damaged were the goods she was dealing with here, though what kind of damage still wasn’t clear. All she understood at this point was that Cas was as clueless about and terrified of girls as she had been of boys when she was thirteen. She moved closer and took his hand.
“Let’s try a different tack here. Forget what I want for a minute. Do you want to stay? With me?”
He looked into her eyes for a long moment. When the word finally came, it more or less escaped from him like a prisoner breaking out of jail. “Yes.”
“Me, too,” she said, and moved even closer. “Now forget about what you were supposed to do. Did you want to kiss me?”
That was easier. “Yeah, I did.”
“Do you want to kiss me now?”
“I want to do a whole lot more than that, actually.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She put her arms around his waist and pressed her breasts against him. “Like what, for instance?”
“You know.”
She feigned innocence. “No I don’t. What? Tell me.”
“I can’t. I could show you.”
She moved her hands slowly up over his chest and around his neck. “So show me.”
He kissed her, then carried her to her tiny twin bed where he was as good as his word. Better, in fact.
