The One I Trust (6 page)

I looked back at Emily.

“You’re right,” I said.

She smiled at me.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go find out about it.”

We walked the rest of the way over the footbridge and past the fish sculpture fountain where Noah had always begged me for coins to throw. At the main window we asked about the fish on the bridge and were given a brochure. We stepped back and took a look at it.

“$300?”

“That’s not so bad,” Emily said.

“I can’t even afford the admission. Much less this.”

“You don’t have to do it right this second,” Emily said. “It’s something to work toward if you’re interested.”

She looked at me for a moment.

“Are you interested?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “He had a lot of good times here.”

“Then keep this,” she said, touching the brochure. “One day you’ll do it.”

I nodded and folded the brochure, tucking it into my back pocket.

“Do you want to go in?” Emily asked, and before I could answer she added, “It’ll be my treat.”

I hesitated.

“I really want to go,” she said. “I haven’t been to an aquarium since I was little.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

One of the first rooms we entered was a small auditorium, filled with several dozen people who were seated on wide, carpeted stairs. The stairs led down to a wall of glass, and in front, a woman wearing a headset with a microphone was ending her presentation about the otters who were playing in their artificial habitat behind her. Just as we got to where we could see well, the presenter thanked everyone for coming, hoped we enjoyed our visit, and switched off her microphone. With that, the crowd began to dissipate, and Emily and I moved closer to the glass.

“I love otters,” Emily said, her eyes following as one of them streamed swiftly through the water.

“Do you want to sit down for a minute?” I asked, indicating the carpeted steps behind us.

She nodded eagerly and we took a seat on the front row. As she watched the otters intently, I watched her, remembering how she’d had the same look on her face when she’d admired the seagulls a few days earlier. I was really going to have to think up another word besides
childlike
for situations like this. Innocent, maybe?

Actually, it didn’t bother me much anymore that she was only nineteen. She was going to turn twenty in three days, but by this point I had decided that even if that wasn’t the case, I didn’t really care. Except for when she was watching seagulls or otters, she was more mature than most women my age. She was gentle and kind and caring, and I felt better when I was with her than I had in over a year. And she was beautiful. The more I looked at her, the more I thought this. And the more I really wanted to feel her touch again.

There was only one thing left that was bothering me now:
what in the world did she see in me?

Sure she was on the rebound, but she had an entire university full of guys her own age to choose from. Guys who liked to have fun and could take her out and show her a good time. Guys who were on their way to successful careers and a lifetime of happiness. Why was she even remotely interested in someone with no money, no house, no job, no car? Someone who’d been accused of horrific things that could be true for all she knew. Someone who had been at best gloomy and at worst downright rude.

Emily glanced at me and saw me watching her.

“What?” she asked, tilting her head quizzically.

I held her gaze, almost afraid to bring it up. Almost afraid to point out how much better she could be doing than me.

“Why are you here?” I asked her quietly.

She looked at me for a moment and then asked, “You mean with you?”

There was that maturity again. She didn’t say, “Because I love otters.” She knew exactly what I was asking her, and she knew exactly why.

She looked at me for another moment and then turned her eyes back to the tank, drawing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and resting her chin on her knees before answering.

“Hale said you’ve been through a lot,” she answered quietly. “He told me that if I could just get past all that, you were worth getting to know.”

“Hale?”

She nodded.

“You don’t know Hale any better than you know me,” I pointed out.

“No,” she admitted, rolling her head on her knees to look back at me, “but I can tell what kind of a person he is.”

I looked at her questioningly.

“Every morning,” she tried to explain, “he brings Molly to school.”

I nodded.

She smiled. “Half the time she’s still holding a piece of bacon from where he’s taken her out to eat for breakfast.” I smiled, too as she went on. “He walks her in. He helps her take off her coat. He gets her all situated. And then . . .”

She looked away for a moment.

“Then he sits right down on the floor in front of her,” Emily said, meeting my eyes. “He holds her hand and he looks right into her eyes and then he asks her if she needs anything.

“Sometimes she’s worried about something or just has a question and he explains things to her until she feels better. Sometimes she wants him to sing a song with her and he sits there and sings with her. Sometimes she just wants to pet his face or kiss him. Whatever she wants, he makes sure she has it. Usually it doesn’t take long, but sometimes he’s there like ten or fifteen minutes. And I have the feeling that if she needed him for two hours he’d sit right there until she was okay with him leaving.”

I looked at her and she went on.

“I’ve just never seen a parent interact with their child the way he does with her,” she said, shrugging. “I think that says a lot about him.”

I nodded and had to agree: Hale had the best heart of anybody I knew.

“And so based on Hale’s recommendation,” I clarified, “you’re just going to hang around with me no matter what?”

“No. Not no matter what.”

I looked at her.

“I just broke up with Ethan,” she reminded me. “I’m not really in a big hurry to be in another serious relationship. I mean, if things work out between you and me, that’s great, but if they don’t . . .”

She shrugged slightly.

“If they don’t work out,” she finished, “then I’ll leave.”

I searched her eyes for a long moment.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I finally said quietly.

She looked back at me and answered simply, “Then give me a reason to stay.”

I moved closer and kissed her. I felt the warmth of her lips and I felt them part beneath mine and I felt something that I hadn’t felt in years.

It didn’t matter that there were people milling around us. When I pulled away from her, I looked into her eyes again and said, “When I’m with you, I feel better.”

She gave me a small smile and reached up to touch my cheek with the back of her hand.

“I’m glad,” she said.

I almost smiled back.

That evening, after Molly was in bed, Anneka asked if anyone wanted to get in the hot tub. Soon all four of us were out on the deck with the French doors open a crack so that we could hear Molly if she called out.

Hale and Anneka stayed out there with us for a grand total of about ten minutes before they both commented on how tired they were and how they were going to go to bed.

It was nine thirty.

I rolled my eyes at Emily as they got out of the hot tub and she covered her mouth to hide a silent giggle.

After they were gone I looked at her again. Now things were awkward.

It wasn’t that I minded being alone with her, but we were in our bathing suits and she was on one side of the hot tub and I was on the other and was I supposed to just fling myself over there and demand a second kiss? I actually wouldn’t have minded a second kiss at all, but awkward kisses have been known to ruin things and I really didn’t want to ruin things right now.

“What’s that?” Emily asked, pointing to my wrist.

I held out my arm so she could see in the dim light. On my wrist was a tattoo:
NOAH.

“Oh,” she said softly. “That’s really nice.”

“I told you I remember him all the time,” I said, giving her a little smile.

“I can’t believe I never noticed that before.”

“I usually have a watch on,” I explained.

She thought about that for a moment.

“Why do you keep it covered up?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I guess I don’t really want people asking me about it all the time.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean, I guess it’s just kind of private, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“My watch is waterproof. If I didn’t want you to see it, I would have kept it on.”

She gave me a little smile and I smiled back.

We sat and talked for a long time. I learned that she was going to be doing her student teaching in Garner. We talked about how she was going to be with a class of fifth graders and how that thought kind of scared her since they were so much older and wiser and so much more capable of causing mayhem than first graders were.

“A lot less snot to deal with,” I pointed out.

“True,” she agreed.

We remembered things we had done when we were fifth graders and I told her that I thought she was going to do a great job. When our skin started to shrivel a bit, we both agreed that we should probably get out of the hot tub and go to bed.

I held the French door open for her and followed after she stepped inside. We looked at each other, both standing in the living room with towels wrapped around us.

Way too awkward for a second kiss.

“Good night,” I said.

“Good night.”

I sat in the back on the ride home. Molly was in the safest place in the van—the middle of the back seat. I was on one side of her and Emily on the other. Emily broke out the puppets again and Molly put them on my fingers, giggling when I tickled her neck with them.

Eventually Molly got involved with a video game, and Emily and I both watched her play. After a few minutes of that, I texted Emily:

What are you doing for your birthday?

Feeling her phone vibrate, she pulled it out of her purse, read my message, and replied:

Nothing.

I texted her back:

Can I take you out for dinner?

She didn’t look up at me but typed:

Yes. Thank you.

I answered:

Pick you up at 6?

Tap, tap, tap:

Sounds good. Thank you.

After she sent that message, she studied Molly’s screen for a minute before daring to look at me and giving me a shy smile. I smiled back and then both of us continued watching Molly play her game.

Now that we had another date lined up, I really wanted to get that second kiss over with—the longer we waited, the more awkward it was probably going to be. I hoped that Hale and Anneka were both going to have enough sense to stay in the van when we dropped Emily off. It would be just like one of them to do something stupid like jump out and offer to carry her bag in for her.

Fortunately neither one of them made a move when we pulled in to her parking lot or when I
got out to help Emily with her bag. Molly was asleep, so together they just quietly said good-bye to Emily and waved as I walked her to the door. When we reached her apartment, I held the storm door as Emily unlocked the main door. She moved aside so that I could follow her into the apartment.

I stepped inside and looked around. The apartment was small, with a kitchen on one side, separated from the living room on the other by a small, simple counter and two stools. Beyond the living space was a tiny hallway with three doors. Two of them were open, revealing a bathroom and a bedroom, but the third door was closed. It opened just as I started to ask Emily where she wanted me to put her bag. A girl in a red NC State sweatshirt and jeans emerged and looked at us. She was wearing glasses and—based on the frizzy brown hair going every which way all over her head—looked like she’d just woken up.

“Hi,” Emily said to her.

The girl gave Emily a brief wave.

“Denise,” Emily said. “This is Reid. Reid, this is Denise.”

“Hi,” I said. Denise gave me a brief wave as well, didn’t say a word, and headed for the couch.

I watched as she sat down and picked up the remote, pointing it at the television. I thought I heard Emily sigh.

“Where would you like this?” I asked, turning to Emily and holding up her bag.

“I’ve got it,” she said, reaching for it. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Well,” she said. “I guess I’ll see you Tuesday?”

I glanced at Denise.

“Yeah,” I said, giving her a nod and letting out a little sigh of my own.

She gave me what I like to think was an understanding smile and I smiled back before letting myself out the door.

“Did you kiss her?” Anneka asked excitedly the second I climbed back into the van.

“I’m not telling you anything,” I answered, sliding the van door closed.

“You’ve got to tell me!” she insisted.

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh, come on! After all the work I’ve done trying to get you two together? Tell me!”

“No.”

“‘No’ you’re not telling me,” she asked, “or ‘No’ you haven’t kissed her yet?”

It was then that I realized that Anneka wasn’t asking if I’d kissed Emily just then . . . she wanted to know if I’d kissed her at all. I’d wondered whether Emily had told her about our kiss at the aquarium and I found myself pleased to discover that she hadn’t.

“‘I’m not telling you anything,” I clarified, fastening my seatbelt with finality.

Anneka looked at me in disappointment. She pouted. “I can’t believe you’re not going to tell us anything.”

“I said I’m not telling
you
anything.”

She looked surprised for a moment and I leaned my head back, crossing my arms. A smile tugged at her lips and I tried to ignore it by closing my eyes.

I didn’t hear anything from her as Hale started the van and put it in reverse, but I knew she was whispering to him or gesturing or something. Knowing her, she was probably offering him the night of his life if he’d help her out.