“What?”
“Sorry, it won’t feel like a real date if we’re watching each other get ready. Can you go wait in the television room or thekitchen?”
“Can you give me like five minutes to finish getting ready and then I’llgo?”
“Yeah,” he says like he should have thought about that in the first place. I shake my head and turn back to the mirror. When I finish getting ready, maybe ten minutes later, I knock on the bathroom door. I smile when Silas immediately sticks his face out again. It’s mostly dry but his hair is stilldripping.
“Did you bring a towel in there with you?” Iask.
“No.”
I roll my eyes and gesture toward the bed. “Room’s allyours.”
“Thanks, getout.”
I decide not to mush him in the face and head out to the television room. Honeycrisp and Joe Namath join me. I turn on the news and watch the best NY1 has to offer. I check my phone, but the girls are blowing up the chat and I don’t feel like reading all three hundred messages I’ve missed. I also don’t trust myself to not gush about Silas. I like him. I can’t deny it anymore. He’s sweet and real easy on the eyes. I know if I bring him up to the girls, not only will they want to meet him, they’ll want to know everything about him, especially with the whole Scott connection. And that’ll mean admitting I have some clue what I’m doing with Silas, and I don’t. For now, for these few hours before work and ultimately my whole life pull us apart, I’m going to keep him, selfishly, tomyself.
I check my email instead. My heart thumps as I wait for my phone to finish checking formail.
A dozen or so new messages pop up, with no answer from Dorrit. Just the thought of him brings that tightness back to my chest, but there’s a different kind of heat behind that feeling. Before, I was scared. Now I’m pissed. I toss my phone on the couch and switch to the Food Channel. I’m full up on death and injustice for thenight.
I’m ten minutes into a tart preparation when I hear Silas’s heavy steps coming down the hall. I smile the second I see him. He’s wearing what looks like brand new dark wash jeans, and a blue and green gingham dress shirt. He’s still wearing those big, shitkicking work boots that I’ve seen around the bedroom, but he’s combed his beard and made an attempt to tame his thickcurls.
“I don’t know how a man your size can look cute, but you look really cute rightnow.”
“Thank you. I’ll take cute. You forgot these.” He holds up my rainboots, then steps into the room and hands them tome.
“Right, thanks. Where are we going?” I ask as I slip off my heels and step into the rubberrainboots.
“It’s a surprise. I should blindfoldyou.”
“No.” I shake my head a little and let out a quiet chuckle. “We have not at all worked our way up toyoublindfoldingme.”
“But you’d blindfold me, wouldn’t you?” he asks as he reaches for my hand. I turn the TV off then lace my fingers withhis.
“I’ve considered it, but you have very expressive eyes. It would be a shame to cover them up while we’replaying.”
“We’ve fuck—we’ve had sex a few times. Would you call thatplaying?”
“I mean, we have fun don’t we?” I tease as he leads me down the hall to the front door. Honeycrisp follows us as far as the bottom steps, but Silas shoos herback.
“Yeah we have a blast.—Not this time. No dogs allowed. Sit.” She looks confused and displeased when she cocks her head at him, but she sits down and doesn’t follow us to thetruck.
“Why can’t she come?—I can’t believe I just said that.” I step back as he holds the passenger door open forme.
“Because you secretly love dogs. You don’t have to be ashamed.” I find myself hiding another smile, shaking my head. I get in the truck and wait for him to joinme.
“Not ashamed at all. But you didn’t answer my question. You don’t think we havefun?”
“I can’t really think of it that way,” hesays.
“But you enjoy it?” I ask. I still can’t read him completely. I don’t know if he’s being sarcastic or just talking the way hetalks.
He looks at me. “Yes. A lot. Sorry, fun isn’t a word I use in relationship tosex.”
I get it now. He’s totally down for the sex, he just takes it seriously. I can get on board with that. We pull away from the house and after a few minutes, I realize we are driving deeper into the farm, in a direction we haven’t gonebefore.
“Where are we going?” I askagain.