LILY
I ended the call with my sister, lay back down in the comfy and cool grass, and recommenced my quest for the secret ingredient. I dipped my finger into the little container of sauce and put a small drop on my tongue. Then I closed my eyes and focused. There was something unexpected in there, something very familiar . . . and yet just out of reach. It was a taste that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I kept losing it right before I had it. Same thing happened to me when I watched British dramas and I knew I recognized everybody from everywhere but couldn’t remember how. The flavor was like that. So familiar, so obvious, but not quite . . .
Cumin. No. Coriander. No. Cinnamon. No. But close, and yet spicier than that, more like . . . I wiggled my tongue in my mouth the way people did when they were tasting wine.
“Fuck, you really are so cute.”
I opened my eyes and found him standing above me. Towering over me, really. The wind rustled the cypresses and magnolias behind him. A leaf fluttered down and landed on his shoulder. He plucked it off with a muscular veined hand and smoothed it between his fingers. I rolled up to a sitting position, placed the container of sauce in the grass, and shielded my face from the sunshine. “Any luck in there?” I asked.
Gabe tipped his hand side to side. “Something happened with the lights.”
A wave of excitement made my skin tingle. So much for trying to interpret Grandpa’s “knocking” on the radiator! “Really?”
He seemed more amazed than skeptical. “Got it on video. It could’ve been a fluke, but”—he glanced back at the restaurant—“I wish you’d felt it.” He offered his hand to me and I stood up, brushing the leaves of grass off my legs. I sat down beside him on the picnic bench, keeping a sensible distance between us. Like employer and employee. Not lovers.
It was agony. But it was the way it had to be.
“Did she figure anything out?” I asked. “Aside from our date? Which was capital-C crazy!”
Gabe shook his head and smiled. “No recipe. Tremor in the force, she said.” He rested his elbows on his knees. He was a bit of a manspreader . . . but I liked it. I liked the way he took up the space around him—the way he exuded that aura of confidence and strength. Just because I couldn’t have that manspread didn’t mean I couldn’t admire it.
He let his head hang down slightly and looked at me from the side. His hands rested between his legs, and I traced the edge of the seam of his pants with my eyes. “Listen, about that conduct clause.”
I made myself look at something neutral. His abs. No. His chest. No. His face. No. I focused on the ground, where a ladybug was fluttering her wings in the grass. “What about it?”
He hesitated for a second, looking out at the big grassy expanse, dotted all over with dandelions. “I get that you don’t want to put us in a bad spot.”
Part of me was relieved that he was getting it—that he at least understood where I was coming from. But the other part, the bigger part, was so disappointed. I loved that animal desire of his. Even if it was awfully dangerous.
“But we only live once. I’d rather break the rules and fuck you every night than follow the rules and never get the chance to feel you again.”
Oh God. His words made me feel like I was standing in a warm shower on a cold morning. Clutching my legs, I pressed my thighs together. “Gabe.”
“Lily.” He shifted his leg slightly so that it was pressing against mine, and when our bodies touched, a shiver ran through me and came out as a shaky breath.
He had such power over my thoughts, over my breathing, over my body. Just his eyes on me gave me a warm rush, and I felt my panties cool between my legs. He was making me wet. With his eyes. In semi-public. He moved his left hand onto my knee and gave it a possessive squeeze. “You say the word. And I’m yours.” Gabe stood up from the picnic table and faced me. “Got it?”
I managed a tiny nod. Somehow I knew that if I tempted fate too far, I’d be making grabby hands and yanking him to the picnic table before I knew it. So I wedged my hands under my legs and said, “Got it.”
His belt was at eye level, and his bulge was undeniable. He leaned into me, and instinctively I raised my face to him. He came in close enough for me to feel his breath on my cheek and drummed his fingers on the wooden table. “Good,” he said gruffly. Then he gathered the trash up from my chicken tenders and headed back toward Uncle Jimmy’s.
His body was incredible. His buns were scrumptious. He was, from top to bottom, delish. And as he walked away, I remembered what he’d told me earlier. That he liked me going and coming.
“Me too,” I whispered into the breeze.
But in spite of what I wanted to do, the termination warning from the contract kept scrolling along in front of me like a breaking-news headline as I packed up my mics. Even if I took myself out of the equation, the undeniable fact remained that it was his show. It was his reputation on the line. So what if someone did find out? He was a famous man. What if someone had a grudge? What if someone saw impropriety where there wasn’t any? What if that producer of his caught wind of it and had some reason to make things difficult for Gabe? It wouldn’t matter at all what had actually happened between us. A whiff of wrongdoing could torpedo him. I imagined his beautiful face splashed all over some slow-to-load gossip site with popups saying, Poof Goes Powers! And it would all be my fault.
I would not let that happen. Not on behalf of myself—or his adoring fans with their exploded ovaries either. I would not tarnish his name or his reputation. I would not get him in trouble. Never.
Once I had all my things packed up, I said my goodbyes to Uncle Jimmy’s family and made my promises to Jimmy Jr. that I’d be back soon with Daisy and Ivan. All the while, Gabe watched me, stealing sexy glances that made my heart speed up like crazy.
Exhausted from resisting so much temptation, I trundled out to my van. I heard Gabe’s heavy footsteps crunching the gravel behind me—one of his for every two of mine. Just the sound of his footsteps made me woozy. I was in desperate need of something high calorie and comforting to keep my resolve high; all this “doing the right thing” was wearing me the heck out.
I flung open the back doors of my van and shoved my equipment inside. I could feel his presence behind me, like a lion ready to pounce. Slamming the doors, I scurried around to the driver’s side. But as I jumped in, just about to close my door, he grabbed the edge and stopped it midswing.
The way I’d parked meant that nobody could see us from inside the restaurant. Something in his eyes told me exactly what he was thinking. Just one kiss.
Maybe nobody else would see us, but I would know. And that was the only judge and jury I really had. Back during the yearbook snafu, I’d learned that I was a close contender for Most Likely to Do the Right Thing. That, at least, was a description that fit me. So I stuck my key in the ignition and my van roared to life, with the AC blowing hot air full blast. Gabe pressed the button to roll down my window and closed my door softly, resting his huge forearms on the frame of my van.
“You’re sticking to your guns, aren’t you?” he asked.
I didn’t turn toward him. I adjusted the air-conditioning and buckled my seat belt. If I didn’t get lost in those eyes, I still had a chance. Gripping the wheel like my grandma used to, I looked straight ahead. Above the whoosh of the AC, I heard his phone buzzing in his pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him silence it without looking to see who was calling. And that solidified my resolve to stick to the conduct clause even more. My phone rang so rarely that when it did, it was stop, drop, and answer. When his rang, it didn’t even merit a glance at the screen. It was the perfect metaphor. His life was big and buzzy and full of important things that interrupted private moments. Mine was small and safe and almost totally buzz-free. Mind-blowing passion aside, none of this made any sense at all. “I told you. Conduct clause. Full stop. So I’ll see you tomorrow.”
In response, I saw a flash of disappointment on his face. It set off a visceral wave that went up from between my legs, into my stomach, and caught my breath in my throat. I turned to face him and saw the anger dissolve into something more measured and respectful. He stepped back without looking away from me. “Suit yourself, gorgeous.”
With my whole body tingling, I put the van in gear and lurched out of the parking lot. He slipped his hands into his pockets and watched me go. I rolled to a stop at the cross street and felt that buzzing desire fizzle out into dismay. I wanted him so much that it ached. But my sister was living proof that making romantic decisions based on the ache was a recipe for a broken heart.
With Madonna making my van speakers buzz, I made a beeline for the drive-through of my therapists, Drs. Fries and Root Beer Float. I placed my order, paid, and pulled into the parking spaces reserved for those of us with a passion for eating in our cars. I slurped up my float and jammed curly fries into my mouth, reassuring myself over and over again that I had, in fact, made the right choice. One of us had to be sensible. Apparently, it was going to have to be me. Because that man was a hound on my heels. An animal. A primal, carnal, unstoppably alpha male who seemed to want nothing more than little old . . . me.
Me? I thought as I looked at myself in the rearview mirror with a curly fry hanging out of my mouth.
Me.
My therapists didn’t help even one teensy bit. I arrived back home resigned to the fact that my night would be spent binge-watching episodes of Gabe doing adventurous things in romantic corners of the world while I moaned pathetically into my sofa cushions. Before I knew it, it would be two in the morning and I would be three bags of microwave popcorn and a whole pint of rocky road into this thing, and there’d be no turning back.
I caught a glimpse of my hickey scarf in the glass on my front door. As if there was any turning back anyway.
Just as I began to run up the steps to my apartment, though, Ivan let out a roaring wail. I did a 180 on my heel and knocked on my sister’s door. I heard her footfalls, and Ivan’s crying got louder. She flung open the door, and I was hit with a wave of baby screams. He was red-faced and his cheeks were tearstained. She was covered in something green and pureed, along with some splatters of what I desperately hoped was gravy.
“I love this child with my whole heart,” she said from behind gritted teeth, “but he’s learned to throw, Lily. I will never be clean again. There are peas on the ceiling. There are peas in my hair. There are peas everywhere.”
I scooped up Ivan from her arms, and he clung to me. She wasn’t kidding about the peas. They were all over him like the sugar crust on a churro. He yanked on my hair, hard enough to make me hiss. But also hard enough to pull the plug on my Gabe Jacuzzi. Reality wasn’t a hunky television host—it was a diaper that needed changing. “I’ve got him. I’ll give him a bath and put him down for a nap. You sit. Rest. Have a shower. Relax. Put some Welch’s in a fancy glass and pretend it’s cabernet.”
My sister leaned on the doorjamb for support and wiped a glop of peas off her cheek. “Really?” she asked, and then studied me more carefully. “You OK? You look kind of . . . frazzled. And since when do you wear scarves?”
Daisy and I didn’t have much reason to have heart-to-hearts these days, but right then, on our shared landing, with Ivan screaming his lungs out, I desperately wanted sit down and spill the beans. About Gabe. About these feelings. About how impossible, silly, and ridiculous it was. My heart was so full, and yet I was so conflicted. But Daisy was exhausted, and I was pretty sure the very last thing on earth she wanted to hear was about me falling all over myself trying to stay away from a perfectly eligible bachelor.
“Scarves are all the rage this summer,” I said as I bounced Ivan against my hip. I grabbed his hand and gave him a raspberry on the palm, and he screamed in delight. “You go. Take it easy. I’ve got him.”
My sister let out a big breath and let her head fall slightly. She peered at me through her bangs. “Thank you. I love you. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Something about those tiny words made my heart hurt a bit. She didn’t say them often, and right then I needed to hear them a lot. “I love you too,” I said as I carried Ivan up the steps. “Might want to do two shampoos if you do take a shower. Those peas are really in there.”
Daisy sighed. She plucked at her crusty hair and closed the door.
I pulled my keys from my purse and jingled them for Ivan. He grabbed them and gave them a shake. Once I pried them out of his plump fingers, I let us inside.
Ivan pointed at the cage and started calling out, “Ba-ba!”
“Bird, I know!” I said to Ivan. “It’s your favorite birdie!”
The General leaped from bar to bar, making happy squawks. He puffed up his feathers and shimmied his little body as he danced around. There was only one person on the planet that the General liked more than me. And that was Ivan.
Ivan clapped and squealed, and the General bobbed his beak in joy. The two of them picked up right where they’d left off, in an unintelligible single-syllable conversation. Babbles and warbles forever. I got a snack prepared for each of them, carrying Ivan around in the kitchen with me while I cut up a banana into thin slices and distributed it on two plastic plates. One was decorated with blue trains. The other was a badly battered Hello Kitty plate that the General loved with an almost inappropriate passion.
“Potato?” said the General.
“Pa-paaa!” replied Ivan.
“Pa-paaaaaaaa!” echoed the General.
I got Ivan situated in his high chair, facing the General’s cage. Ivan grabbed a piece of banana and smashed it between his hands, making him giggle. Then the General giggled. And Ivan giggled some more.
Once everybody was laughing hysterically into their bananas, I flopped down on my couch and picked up the remote. During my brief and half-hearted commitment to low-carb dieting, I’d learned that willpower is a finite resource; I was running on Gabe Powers willpower fumes, and something had to give. In this case, I could do better than eating kale chips and pretending they were Pringles. If I couldn’t have Gabe in person, at least I could watch him. So I pressed the power button, searched for The Powers of Suggestion on Netflix, and braced for sexiness.
When he appeared on the TV, the General’s happy noises ceased immediately. I’d done my earlier binge-watching in my sister’s half of the house. That meant the General was seeing him again for the first time. “Suitor!” he screamed.
“No, not a suitor,” I said frantically. “Not a suitor!”
But the General was on the warpath. He opened his mouth with his leathery tongue extended.
“Don’t you dare,” I warned, pointing at him as a warning. “Don’t you . . .”
He did dare, and the Noise filled up the apartment at full volume. Ivan screamed in terror. Above all the racket, I hollered, “The Union cavalry is in retreat, General! Grant has asked you to draft the terms for a Union surrender!”
No effect. Whatsoever.
As the Noise went into a whole new set of decibels, I leaped off the couch and tried to comfort Ivan, who had been instantly spurred into full-scale meltdown. He banged his hands on his high-chair tray, and bananas slices went flying.
“Yankees are in retreat, General! Beauregard has secured the gates! Fort Sumter is ours!” I bellowed. But he was glued to the screen, cawing out his awful siren at Gabe.
I rushed over to television and pawed for the power button on the side of the screen. For one horrible instant, I turned the volume way up and the room was filled with Gabe’s booming voice, saying, “So we have to ask ourselves, is the abominable snowman real or is it just The Powers of—” I hit the mute button and turned the screen away from the General.
As Gabe went silent, so too did the Noise. Ivan looked around like he couldn’t remember why he’d been so upset, and then he returned his attention his snack, as the General did the same, saying, “Nom-nom-nom!” as he ate.
Standing there stunned, with my ears popping and ringing, I really only knew one thing for sure. The General had ratified the conduct clause. Gabe and I were absolutely not meant to be.
Once everybody was settled again, I sat on my sofa and stared at the angled and muted TV from the side. But I could still see him. Gabe was still there. He was in winter clothes now—a parka, neck warmer, and gloves. A graphic appeared at the bottom of the screen in the same font and style as his opening sequence: Search for the Abominable Snowman: Day 2. He was marching through deep snowdrifts, talking to the camera, with his cheekbones slightly windburned and a big smile glinting in the winter sun.
The very sight of him sent a prickle of warmth through me. I knew I should switch to something else. I knew I should look away. But I couldn’t bring myself to hit the back button. In spite of my common sense, and much like the time I had polished off not just one but two bags of kale chips, I slid off my couch and scooted closer to the screen. He was talking to some cute little old lady who wore a huge puffer coat with fur around the hood. The bit of her face that I could see reminded me of a wrinkled apple. Gabe wore black snow pants that did amazing things for his already-amazing thighs. She gestured at the tree line with a gnarled finger. He lowered his head so he was very close to her, listening intently and nodding as she explained something to him. He pointed at the trees, and she turned to him and said something with her old eyes twinkling. When she burst out laughing, so did he, and she clapped her hands together and touched him lovingly on the arm.
I knew how that biceps felt under my fingertips. I knew how that forearm felt as a pillow. I knew how that shoulder felt . . . between my teeth.
Mesmerized and on autopilot, I reached for my knitting as I always did when I watched TV. But as I watched him, I went into a sort of knitting catalepsy. His face made it so I wasn’t even paying attention as I tried to purl. His buns in his snow pants made me lose all interest in checking whether I was yarning over. He put me in a sort of dreamy happy place, where nothing made much sense and yet everything somehow lined up just right. Like that moment right before falling asleep when everything makes perfect sense.
When he went to commercial break, I looked at my knitting, expecting to see a knotted mess that was headed for the trash. But that wasn’t what I’d done at all. As I’d been watching him, thinking about nothing but him, I hadn’t just managed to cast on correctly. I’d also knitted three not-so-bad rows. Miracle of miracles.