My parents tried. They were in love when I was a little kid, I’m positive of that. Something happened. What I saw were small hurts that led to pain-soaked side comments and passive-aggressive arguments. Then came the aggressive arguments, the holes in the walls, the bruises on my mom’s arms from where he’d grab her while they argued. And then, what I now understand to be the silent marriage killer: Indifference. At the time, I didn’t know what it meant when my dad had to work late, and my mom didn’t appear to care. I was just relieved they were no longer fighting. What I didn’t understand was that was because neither believed there was anything to fight for.
My room became my refuge, and I put my nose in a book and came out only when necessary. Romantic novels were my escape, and I pictured my parents as the heroine and hero. Until the steamy scenes, anyhow.
Flash forward ten years, and I’m operating as the adult version of that girl. Adult me is divorced, lives in New York City, makes a living at a soul-sucking job, and receives rejection letters at an impressive rate. How can I tell my teenage self that this is what she will become?
I look up at Aidan, and my heart floods with how grateful I am for him. His eyebrows lift, and I realize he’s still waiting on my answer.
“I don’t know. Romance, definitely. I love love. It’s a sickness for which there is no cure.”
“You still wouldn’t let your characters get it on even if you weren’t picturing your mom and dad while writing?” Aidan raises his eyebrows.
“My characters get it on,” I reply, just as the server drops off our breakfast. It’s probably not the weirdest sentence she’s ever heard at one of her tables.
Aidan thanks the server and picks up his fork. He stabs the air between us before using it to pick up a link of turkey sausage. “Your characters do not get it on. They have chaste kisses.” He takes a bite, chews, and continues. “Side note, that’s the first time I’ve ever used the word chaste.”
“God knows you’ve never behaved that way.” I cut off a piece of my pancake and take a bite. Yum. Warm. Fluffy. Sweet icing. Eat those feelings, Natalie. Normally I’m a ‘clean eater’ as my sister puts it. Vegetables all day, no carbs after four in the afternoon, lean protein, blah blah blah. But when I’m sad, I eat. If I told Sydney, she’d tell me to find a better way to handle my feelings. Precisely why I don’t tell my sister.
“Is that what you wanted?” Aidan nods at my next forkful.
“Um hmmm,” I answer, chewing.
“Why do you write chaste kisses, Natalie?”
I stare at him, confused. He knows my reason. Why ask me?
“Childhood trauma can only be your excuse for so long. Why else do you write the way you do?” He leans forward, forearms pressing into the edge of the table. For someone who’s asking a question, he doesn’t have the look of someone with a query. His eyes are warm. Confident. Knowing.
“Just say it,” I tell him. “You obviously think you have a direct line to my brain.”
He laughs. “In college I majored in What Natalie Isn’t Saying.”
I laugh too. I can’t help it. “Well, come on then,” I say, motioning with one hand. “Lay it on me.” Picking up a slice of thick-cut bacon, I munch and wait for Aidan to answer.
He eyes me for a second, places his palms on the table, and pushes to stand. He steps away from his side of the booth, only to slide into mine. His leg bumps mine, and I slide down, making room for him. “What are you doing?”
He still doesn’t answer. Using two fingers, he pulls the bacon from my own two fingers and tosses it on my plate.
“Aid—” The rest of his name is stolen from my mouth. The tip of his pointer finger is on top of my right hand and he’s sliding it up my bare arm, past my elbow, up to my shoulder.
I’m too shocked to speak, too shocked to move, too shocked to even breathe.
His finger continues across my collarbone, tickling up my neck and to the far corner of my jaw, where his one finger multiplies into all five. He turns my head so I’m facing him, and I look into his eyes, searching for an explanation. In all our years of friendship, he has never touched me this way. When I get to his eyes, I find his gaze not on my own, but on my lips. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth and lets it slide back out.
I start to ask a question, but then he leans in, pressing his lips to the space beside my ear. “In a book, whatever followed me touching you like this, would not be chaste.”
At once every part of him that’s touching me disappears. He leaves my side of the booth and sits back down. He takes a bite of eggs and looks up at me like nothing happened.
“You’re flushed.” He points at my face with his fork.
“No shit,” I mutter, looking for something to throw at him. Aside from my cutlery, there is nothing I can throw that would do only minor damage. “I was attacked by a one-fingered bandit.” Retrieving my bacon, I stuff the rest of it in my mouth and glare at him. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Material,” he says. “Now you can go home and write about the kind of kiss that would come after a lead-in like that.”
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Your cheeks tell me my effort was not in vain.”
Cupping my hands, I place them on my traitorous cheeks and give him a dirty look. “Extreme surprise causes flushing too.”
Aidan’s eyes grow wide. “That’s it,” he says, his hand shaking with excitement. A forkful of eggs tumbles to his plate.
“What?” I’m still not over what he just did to me. I’m not sure if I should be angry. I don’t feel angry, but it seems to be the right emotion to have when your best friend does what he just did.
“Are you free tonight?” he asks, then chuckles. “Why do I even ask? Of course you’re free. I’m coming over to—”
“I have plans, actually.” I cross my arms. Now I’m mad.
Aidan waves off my plans without hearing them. “Old movies at that crappy little theater don’t count.”
“They do too.” I love those movies. Tonight they’re playing Scarlett, and I want to watch it. I haven’t read the book since high school.
“Cancel that plan. I’m coming over and we’re setting up an online dating profile.”
“Nope.” I shake my head. “No in every language, in every way a person can say it. No.”
Aidan crosses his arms and looks at me. “I’ll watch Gone With The Wind with you.”
I twist my lips and look away. Behind the bar, a guy in a white T-shirt throws a towel over one shoulder and presses buttons on a gigantic, complicated looking coffee machine. The Bloody Mary has settled into my veins, the vodka covering me in a soft, gauzy haze. I should probably order a coffee soon.
I look back to Aidan. Excitement lights up his eyes. He senses I’m about to cave. For years I’ve tried to get him to watch old movies with me, and for years he has refused. Sappy romances are my limit. I can practically hear him saying it.
Creating an online dating profile doesn’t mean I’ll actually have to use it. It can collect dust in the farthest corner of the internet.
I reach my hand across the table. “Deal?”
Aidan places his warm hand in my own and grins. “Deal.”
Jennifer Millikin is a contemporary fiction author of five full-length novels and a contributor for Scottsdale Moms Blog. When she isn’t writing she can be found cooking, hiking, or in downward dog.
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