Oliver, however, should not see my face as minor. He should have run across the street and locked his door behind him. I look like the villain in some superhero movie. Instead, he didn’t so much as flinch when he brushed my hair back. Now after dinner and dessert, we’re lounging on his deck which overlooks a vibrant colorful community garden, and he still hasn’t mentioned my face. I can’t even detect his eyes wandering from mine to inspect the hot spots that will take longer to heal.
“Chance thinks we might get the bid on part of the campus beautification. It would be a great job for us and some hefty sales for The Green Pot as––”
“Enough! I can’t do this anymore.”
His head jerks back.
“Say something, anything, but stop looking at me like you don’t notice my face!”
Oliver’s lips slide into an easy smile. He sits up and holds out his hand. I look at it waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Sighing, I take it. He pulls me over to him and I straddle his lap like I did the other night.
Brushing my hair back, he finally takes an obvious look at my whole face. “I notice everything about you, but I only see the things that matter.”
What. The. Hell?
He has no idea what those words mean to me, there’s no way he could. There’s also no way I can hold back the tears that fill my eyes.
“Hey, no, don’t cry.”
I wipe away the tears. “Sorry, it’s just … sometimes ordinary words have such extraordinary meaning. You know what I mean?”
With gentle hands he cups my head and pulls me into his body, pressing a soft kiss into my hair. “I think I do.”
I sit up and relinquish an I-should-know-better smile. “I got a chemical peel. I know it looks like something went horribly wrong, but it’s supposed to be like this. By next week I’ll have the most radiant skin you’ve ever seen.”
“Well you didn’t need the peel for that, but whatever floats your boat.”
I nod, contemplating asking the question that has been dancing in my head all day. “What ‘floats your boat?’”
Oliver traces his finger along my collar bone then dips it down to brush the exposed swell of my breasts, sending familiar jolts through my body in the most intimate places. “As of lately … you.”
I watch his finger, mesmerized by how it makes me feel, threatening to distract my thoughts. “Not sexy waitresses bringing you cold drinks while you’re working?”
He stills, meeting my gaze. “No.” He smirks. “It’s impossible to float a boat in a puddle when it’s already set sail in the ocean.” He presses the pad of his finger to the underside of my chin and tilts my head back.
I swallow hard as he leans in and kisses my exposed neck, teasing his tongue along my sensitive skin. “However, it was nice of you to indulge my brother in his twisted take on reality.”
“He said you told him to come instead of you. Why didn’t you want to see me?” I whisper with a shaky voice as he reduces me to a nearly incoherent pile of needy lust with his touch.
He stops, rolling his shoulders back. “I did want to see you, that’s why I stayed. I knew he would stand around and flirt with the waitress instead of working and we would end up staying there until dark just to keep on schedule. So I sacrificed a few minutes with you earlier for a few hours with you now.”
How is it possible for someone to say the right words at the right time and have it sound so seamless and effortless?
I wrap my arms around him and play my fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re smooth. I mean, Chance is smooth too, but he’s Nestle Crunch smooth. You’re Godiva chocolate truffle smooth.”
He squints one eye. “Is that a good thing?”
I give him a slow repeating nod. “Yes. One is mildly tempting during an extremely weak moment, the other is flat-out irresistible.”
“You just made my night.” He squeezes my thighs with his large hands.
You just made my entire year!
“Listen, I know we’ve only known each other for less than a week—” I start to say.
“Two weeks if you count the week on the subway that you stalked me before the doughnut mishap.”
I squint my eyes, shaking my head. “Any–way … as I was saying …” I take a deep breath because I’m getting ready to say something I need to say, but can’t explain, and he won’t understand. “What you said earlier … about noticing everything but only seeing the things that matter.”
“Yes,” he whispers.
“Will you promise not to take it back?”
“What do you—”
I move my finger to his lips. “Just … promise?”
He nods, kissing my finger. “I promise.”
After two weeks of facial skin regeneration and casual dinner dates at my place or Oliver’s, hope has popped its head over the horizon. Physically we haven’t made it past kissing and hand holding; it’s like the orgasm night never happened. I know he wants more, but never once has he tried to take the moment beyond my lead. It’s almost too much to imagine or hope that I might not spend my life as the eternal virgin.
We talk about everything and nothing at the same time with such ease of conversation. Oliver is twenty-nine, which originally I guessed he was a few years younger than that. He, however, doesn’t want to think about my age: twenty-one.
There’s an indescribable connection between us; it’s first-time excitement and aged comfort all in one. Then there is the door. That Fort Knox door across from his bathroom. I haven’t gathered the nerve to ask him about it, but I know he senses my curiosity as he’s seen me staring at it on more than one occasion. Truthfully, I fear just my asking about it will change what’s between us more than what’s actually behind it.
Oliver is ninety-nine percent outgoing, funny, sexy, caring, and spontaneous, but on occasion I see that one percent that’s a man consumed by something, someplace, or someone else. The blank stare or forced smile that comes from nowhere and leaves just as quick reminds me of the part of him that is closed to me.
“You’re staring,” Oliver says as I sit cross-legged on his counter while he scrubs the kitchen floor.
“I like the view.” I grin.
On his hands and knees, he looks up at me. “Do I need to put my shirt back on?”
“That’s like a Broadway director asking the audience if he needs to bring down the curtain in the middle of a Tony Award-winning show.”
He shakes his head and continues to scrub the sand-colored tile.
“Are we going to your place later so you can scrub your floor, topless?”
“Hmm, let me think … no.”
Oliver keeps his head down. “Am I ever going to see the tattoo on your back?”
He doesn’t skip a beat in his motions nor does he look at me. Good thing because I’m certain all color has drained from my face.
“I’ve seen the edges of the ink when you wear tank tops and pull up your hair.”
I used to make sure all my shirts covered the tattoo, but in the past few months I’ve allowed parts of it to be revealed in exchange for getting to wear the shirts I like best. I’m sure other people have noticed it, but no one else has ever asked to see it.
“Only an elite group of people have seen it.”
Oliver looks up again. “What are the qualifications for the group?”
“Basically you have to be my tattoo artist, my doctor, Alex, or Kai.”
“Kai’s seen it?”
I nod.
“How did he get in the group?”
I’m looking at the exception to every other man alive. Oliver can handle it—at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself. I should have showed him when we first met. A proverbial laying down of the cards to say take me or leave me. But I didn’t. Now I’m too scared that I could be crushed because not only do I like him, I’ve built him up to be the man I want him to be. What if he’s not? What if it’s too soon?