Chapter Four
After several hours of lying in her bed, watching Cerulean…watch her as she stared at him, Sarah had come to a decision. She was going to seize every day and live it for all she was worth.
She had nearly died.
Near death experiences often inspired people to make changes. She’d thought she had already found her path to happiness. Now, she wasn’t sure.
Moving here, she’d been looking for more than a home. She wanted to be part of a community. The people were great, but somehow, she didn’t feel connected to them. She helped them and they visited her restaurant or used the space below, but she still felt like an outsider.
Corporate life hadn’t been enough for her. She’d been there, done that. Running her own company had been great, but she hadn’t felt like she was making enough of a difference there, either. She’d hoped that helping people individually, face-to-face, might give her more satisfaction. Building The Old Oak was part of her plan to save the world, one person at a time.
She came up with sustainable recipes that were easy on the environment and extremely nourishing for her customers. She taught classes about vegetarian cooking, and had even branched out into vegan recipes.
The Old Oak was a center for the community. Sarah vetted each class, interviewed every teacher, to make sure their teachings were supportive of a better world.
Sure, it was Sarah’s vision of a better world, but her tree—her rules. And insisting that people be respectful to themselves, each other, and the environment didn’t seem like such an extreme position to take. She wanted to help people find balance and happiness. Including herself.
And in honor of that cause, she had spent the remainder of her day in the kitchen, singing to herself—well, and her lizard friends—and cooking her favorite dishes to share with Ari. She wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t interested in her anymore. Tonight, she’d find out.
“Sarah?”
“Coming.” She quickly grabbed the last dish from the counter, then headed for the restaurant.
Just like the first time she’d seen him, Ari took up most of the Old Oak’s entryway. He was even in the same outfit. Apparently, if he thought of this as a date, he wasn’t the kind to dress up for it. She sort of liked that.
She, however, had cleaned up. After a brief but soothing self-spa session, she’d put on her favorite dress. It was made from a deep green fabric with a faint leaf pattern. The dress had a flowing skirt and halter-top with spaghetti straps. She hadn’t bothered with a bra, but had picked out her favorite lace panties. Just in case.
She’d left her hair down and her feet were bare. The simplicity of it made her feel comfortable. And she could be naked in seconds, depending on how the evening progressed. She wanted to be able to seize the moment if it came up.
Ari’s eyes widened when he looked at her. It made her feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet.
“Uh, hi.” He grasped his wrist, covering his watch as he dropped his arms in front of him. It seemed to be a habitual gesture.
“Hi.” She smiled, pushing away the nervous thoughts at the edges of her mind. It had been a long time since… Actually, she’d never done something quite like this. “I have us set up around the corner.”
“Okay.”
Most of her customers would take their food outside and eat on the picnic tables around the treehouse. Some sat at the counter and chatted. There was also a small round table in the treehouse that could seat four.
And then there was the nook.
Ari followed her to the small table that was nestled into the little alcove in the treehouse. It only sat two. Customers could call ahead if they had a special dinner planned and she would decorate it for the occasion. She’d never decked it out for herself.
A string of clear lights illuminated the space like tiny stars, and a gauze curtain hung from the ceiling to give a better sense of privacy, even though it was only the two of them with the restaurant closed. The curtains were pulled apart so that she could easily come and go, since she was the server, chef, and diner that evening.
Most of the food was already on the table. She added the last dish and gestured for Ari to sit across from her. He didn’t try to pull out her chair, which was a relief. She always felt awkward when guys did that on dates.
Ari sat and looked around at the lights, then to the food resting on mismatched, colorful plates. His knee jutted out from his chair and he barely seemed to fit in the nook space. She could reach across the table and touch him without even stretching. Then again, that was sort of the idea of the spot.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m just a little banged up and stiff. It’s still kind of a miracle. I keep thinking maybe I wasn’t as high as I thought or something.”
“You were at the top of the tree.” His brow was furrowed and his expression grim. “I watched you fall, but was too far away to do anything.”
“That’s probably for the best. If I’d landed on you, I would have squished you.” She was trying to lighten the mood, but he kept staring at her with that dark expression.
“I would have caught you.”
“Then I would have fallen into a trope.”
“Trope?”
She shook her head and laughed. “Forget it.”
“Why weren’t you using a safety harness?”
“I’ve never needed one before. I know how to operate in a tree. The only reason I fell is because of Violet.”
“Violet?”
“She’s one of my lizard friends. Frenemy, more like. I’m pretty sure she’s trying to kill me.”
Ari sat straighter in his chair and glanced around the room, as if looking for threats. Maybe he was a soldier. His gestures and movements reminded her of people she’d known who had served in the military. But still, she was talking about a lizard.
“Ari, I was joking.” Sarah laughed. “Violet is a lizard. Lizards don’t try to kill people. Unless they’re a Komodo dragon or something, and planning on eating us. And I seriously doubt Violet wants to eat me. I hope not, anyway.”
“What do these lizards look like?”
She shrugged. “Have you ever seen an iguana?”
“No.”
“How about a green basilisk? They’re the funny-looking lizards that can run across small stretches of water.”
The crease between his eyebrows deepened.
“Okay, that makes it harder to describe. My friends are bright green and have different colored stripes down their sides, sort of like a tiger.” She paused and smirked at him. “Unless you’ve never seen one of those, either.”
He paused for a few beats before he smiled. It was just as dazzling, but seemed forced.
There was no way he had never seen a tiger. Iguanas and basilisks, she could understand, especially if he was from up North. But a tiger? Who had never seen a tiger?
Shaking away the uneasy feeling that gave her, she went on. “Anyway, their heads are rounder than most lizards, with more of a…forehead, I guess. And they have these little crests on the backs of their skulls, and a short spiney fin that runs down their backs. I think they kind of have a fringe around their faces as well.”
“Hold on a second.” He started tapping on his watch. It had a black band and a large, flat face. Definitely high-tech and high-end. After a few moments, he cocked his head to the side, his smile vanishing. “How tall are they?”
“Tall? Don’t you mean ‘long’?”
He smiled again, but somehow it seemed like a diversionary tactic.
“Yes, of course.”
Of course.
Sarah was a pretty good judge of character. She hadn’t sensed anything from Ari that made her think ‘crazy person’. Not yet, anyway. He was starting to push it, though.
“They’re about six feet long. Half of that is their tails.” She looked over to the closest window, sunlight fading through the branches. “I wish I could show you one. They’re really beautiful. But no one else has ever seen them. I can’t even get them to hold still to get a picture. They seem to just vanish. Do you think you know what they are?”
“Hmm?” He was staring at the floor, his right arm resting on the table.
Sarah glanced at his watch and saw a weird screen with a picture of a green basilisk lizard on it. The picture wasn’t the weird part, even though it looked kind of like a hologram. The bizarre symbols made up of loops and wedge-shapes scrolling on the side—that was weird.
Ari caught her glance and covered his watch briefly. When he moved his hand away, the surface was blank.
She’d studied many cultures while learning about holistic health practices. The closest form of writing to what she’d seen on his watch was cuneiform, but she was pretty sure people had stopped using that a couple thousand years ago. Human people.
Stifling a laugh, she shook her head.
Everyone misspoke sometimes. Ari’s earlier lapse—referring to “humans” as if he wasn’t one of them—after she’d fallen from the tree had been weird and a little endearing. She was relieved to know he wasn’t as perfect as he looked. But it had given her imagination too much to work with.
For a moment, she wondered if the symbols on his watch were some sort of alien language. Maybe he was a bounty hunter looking for her lizard friends. Well, her lizard friends and Violet.
Or maybe the lizards were the aliens. Sarah could imagine a story where Violet was a criminal mastermind, out to take over…the treehouse?
Violet did seem to have a mean streak. If she hadn’t jumped out of the leaves—appearing from nowhere—Sarah wouldn’t have fallen at all. It had almost seemed like Violet had startled Sarah on purpose.
A chill ran down her spine.
She was being ridiculous. Lizards did not have vendettas against people—against anything. And the markings on Ari’s watch… They were probably some kind of computer code.
Most importantly, she was not surrounded by aliens.
She forced herself to smile, remembering what the evening was supposed to be about. “We should eat before the food gets cold.”
Ari cast a strained smile back.