I used my long legs to push off the porch and get us swinging, causing her to laugh. It was one of those perfectly warm summer nights. While sirens and car horns could be heard in the distant background, Angela’s street was quiet. Quiet enough that you could close your eyes and almost pretend that instead of being in one of the nation’s most populated cities, you were in the suburbs of Middle America.
“My dad built this porch and swing for my mom. I think I was about eleven or twelve. My mom loved sitting out here summer nights with her friends from the neighborhood, or with my dad after Sean and I went to bed. They were so much in love, even after years and years together and two kids.” The wistfulness and sadness that was always there when she spoke of her parents was apparent.
I pulled her in closer.
“You see that house right there.”
I lifted my head to see her pointing to a home across the street and two houses over. It was a moderate size home. The layout was different from Angela’s home as it appeared to be a one-story home as opposed to Angela’s two-story house.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“My father grew up in that house. His father was a sharecropper down south. He came up to Williamsport as part of the Great Migration and brought my grandmother and father, who was just a baby. They wanted my father to be able to live in a place without fear of being lynched or shut out of opportunity because of his race. My grandmother worked as a nanny, and scrubbed floors part-time. My grandfather was able to get a job in construction. They bought that house a few years later. They raised my father and his siblings in it. When my father grew up and married my mother, they lived there with my grandparents as my father had this house built. He became a firefighter in his early twenties, but on his time off he spent hours working with his father and others to build this house. Today my younger cousin owns that home, but she travels a lot, so she rents it out.”
“Your father sounds like an amazing man. Your family’s background sort of mirrors my own.”
She sat up, looking at me. “How so?”
“My grandparents—my father’s mother and father—immigrated from North Korea to the U.S. for a better life.”
“Really? I assumed your family was from South Korea.”
“My mother’s family is. My father’s parents were able to get out just around the end of the Korean War.” I continued to explain the evolution of my family as they barely escaped Communist rule. I told her how my parents met their junior year of college and married within weeks of knowing each other.
“My grandparents, on both sides, were pissed, but they were relieved when my parents agreed to wait to have children.”
We sat again, for a few more moments in silence, until Angela broke it. “All the circumstances our families have been through just to get to this point. All of that for you and I to be right here. Right now.” She paused to sigh. “Do you believe in fate?”
It was a surprising question, but I didn’t have to think about the answer. “Yes.”
“Really? Why?” Surprise was evident in her tone.
“It comes with the job, I think.”
“How so?”
“I’ve seen too much not to think fate, or something like it exists. When I’ve seen a man, who should be dead, come back to life. Or a woman narrowly miss being hit by a beam falling on her. Or a perfectly healthy child dies in a matter of minutes by a freak fire or accident. I don’t know. It seems like there is something behind it all, directing the show. Maybe our destinies are determined before we get here.”
Her head tilted up from my chest, where she’d again laid into me. “You think you and I are fate?”
That was another easy answer. Instead of giving a verbal response, I pulled her to me and brought our lips together. Heat rose in my belly and I moved to have Angela’s legs straddle me, so I could stand up.
“What a?” she questioned, breaking free from the kiss. By the time the first word was out, I was at her door.
“Open it or?”
“My neighbors will get a show?” she retorted saucily.
“Exactly,” I growled, nuzzling her neck again and then biting her earlobe.
She did as told, turning awkwardly in my grasp, with her legs still around me to unlock the door. Once she had it unlocked, I moved, turning the knob and pushing it open, then slamming it behind us. By the time we were halfway down the hall I had her dress stripped from her body and on the floor.
Chapter Twelve
Eric
I stepped out of my car of the gym’s parking lot, preparing to head into Angela’s ten a.m spin class. It’s been about three weeks since the disastrous dinner at my parents’ house, but I wouldn’t change any of that considering how the evening turned out. Angela and I have seen each other just about every day since that night, save for two days when I worked twenty-four-hour shifts. We were growing closer after having discussed our family history. I knew I was falling for her, or maybe I’ve already fallen and wasn’t totally willing to admit it to myself just yet. Either way, I could see this thing with us going the distance, and that was not a sentiment I took lightly. Hell, I haven’t ever thought about any other woman like that, not even ex-girlfriends.
I stored my belongings in one of the lockers in the men’s locker room, using my padlock before heading directly to the room where the spin class was held.
