Chapter 23 - Max
When Naomi answers the door, I push a bouquet of flowers towards her.
“These are for you,” I say. A smile lights up her face and she takes the bundle of flowers, shoving her nose into it and inhaling.
“They’re gorgeous, Max,” she smiles. “Thank you. No one’s ever gotten me flowers for a date before.” She nods towards the door. “Want to come up while I put these in some water?”
“Sure.”
My heart hammers while we go back up the creaky stairs to her apartment. The wallpaper is peeling along the stairway, and there’s a faint smell of mildew, but apart from that the building looks clean. Naomi unlocks two deadbolts and opens the door to a tiny one-bedroom apartment.
The furniture is cramped, and there’s not much room to move between the living room and the tiny kitchen, but I can see Naomi’s touch everywhere. There are pictures of her and her mother, her friends, posters of anatomy and textbooks about physical therapy. There’s a yoga mat laid out next to the couch, and a screen with a laptop hooked up to it.
“Is that your TV?”
Naomi glances out from the kitchen, where she’s fetching a vase.
“Do people still have TVs these days? I just stream shows online, so I just needed a screen.”
“I still have a TV.”
“You also have a bread making machine.”
“What’s wrong with a bread making machine!”
“Have you ever made bread?”
“Fair point,” I concede.
Naomi laughs. She comes out with the flowers arranged in a small vase. She puts them down on the coffee table and steps back, smiling.
“They’re gorgeous.”
“Just like you,” I say before I can stop myself. She’s wearing a tight green top that makes her skin looks like it’s made of porcelain. Her eyes shine as she glances at me, and a blush warms her freckled cheeks. She looks back at the flowers, tucking a strand of wavy red hair behind her ear. Sliding her hands over her short black skirt, she nods to the door.
“Should we go?”
“Sure.”
Not that I want to. I’d rather pull her close to me and feel her arms hook around my neck. I’d unzip those tall, black boots of hers and peel the black tights off her perfect legs. I’d worship her body and kiss every inch of it.
Instead, we step back into the chilly New York streets. Autumn is well and truly here, and I can feel the winter chill in the air. I open the car door for her and she smiles as she gets in. We ride to the restaurant in silence, and Naomi reaches over to put her hand on my thigh.
My heart jumps in my chest, and I curl my fingers around hers.
We’re both quiet, but it’s nice. It’s companionable. Neither of us talk about things that don’t matter or fill the silence with useless chatter. We’re just comfortable with each other.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way.
Or rather—it’s been a long time since I’ve let myself feel this way. Ever since Farrah left me after my injury, I haven’t really let myself be comfortable with a woman. Even when I almost got married to Heather, it didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel like this. I was just going through the motions.
As if she can read my mind, Naomi squeezes my thigh and smiles at me.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Just… that this is nice.”
Her smile widens and she dips her chin down slightly. “Yeah,” she says. “It is.”
Conversation is easy when we sit down for dinner. She tells me about growing up in the country, and about going to college. I tell her about boarding school, and about football. We drink too much wine and eat too much food.
“You’re going to make me fat,” she says as she finishes her plate. “All these dinners out are not good for my waistline.”
“Well you’ve cleared me for jogging, so we can start going for runs together in the morning,” I laugh.
“Oh, can we?” She grins. “Bit presumptuous, isn’t it? Why would we be doing anything together in the morning?”
I just laugh and pay the bill. She slips her hand into mine and we turn down the street towards Central Park. The night is clear, and we can see a couple stars through the light pollution of the city.
Naomi sighs. “At my mom’s place, there are thousands of stars. It’s not like this.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Living out there? Yes and no. The city has a lot more opportunity, but I always think I’d rather end up in a small town in the country.”
She leans into me, her body fitting perfectly beside mine. My heart feels light as we walk, and I can’t keep the smile from my face. Naomi glances around and then grins at me.
“Is this another photo op that I don’t know about? Should I be worried about photographers hiding in the bushes?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Only when my mother is around.”
“That must have been tough, growing up,” she says, almost to herself. “Being in the public eye.”
“It wasn’t that bad. I was at boarding school with other kids like me for most of my youth. And then when I got older, people started paying attention to me because of football, not because of my parents.”
“Still, you didn’t exactly have a quiet, normal childhood.”
“What, one where my mother has nude models walking around the living room every Thursday night?”
She laughs, pushing her shoulder into mine. “She’s an artist! She and her artist friends had sittings on Thursdays. It wasn’t sexual or weird or anything.”
“Just organic, crunchy, granola-eating dicks in full view.”
“Granola-eating dicks?” She laughs. “I can assure you there were no dicks eating anything.”
I laugh, glancing at her as we walk. I stop, putting my hand on her hip as she tilts her chin up towards me. The tip of her nose is bright red, and the cold is making her cheeks a rosy pink color. She smiles and her eyes twinkle. Her hands circle around the back of my neck and she tilts her head to the side.
“So are you just going to stand there talking about organic dicks, or are you going to kiss me?”
Warmth blooms in my chest. She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I lean down, taking her soft, pink lips between mine. I press my hand on the small of her back and feel her melt into me as she kisses me. Her arms pull me in for a deeper kiss as too many layers of clothing separate us.
I run my fingers along her jaw and tangle them into the hair at the base of her neck. She moans into my mouth and leans into me, kissing me fervently as her fingers sink into my shoulders.
When we fall away from each other, her cheeks are bright pink and her lips are glistening. Her hair is like a wild red mane around her head, and her eyes are sparkling brighter than ever before.
“Come home with me,” I growl, my eyes low as I pull her closer to me.
“Okay,” she says, laying a soft kiss on my lips. “Let’s go home.”