He shook his head, wetting his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. So dull and small the aisle was and he so grand and striking that for a moment he was all I could see. That sensual line of his jaw drawing upward.
“Mm,” I hummed coyly. “Consider me flattered.”
“Don’t do the thing,” he groaned.
My eyes darted back to his. “What thing?”
“Talking to me while staring at my mouth. Very inappropriate behavior for the convenience store, Ms. Anya.”
Bold like a midsummer sun, I stepped on the spot right in front of him, tilting back my head so we could keep looking at each other. “Well, forgive me,” I crooned. “From now on I promise to only stare at your mouth in private.”
He made a little frustrated sound deep in his throat, his eyes drifting toward the ceiling. I laughed, he called me wicked, and I told him this was the most fun I’d ever had in a convenience store.
We got as much food as we could possibly carry, and while Kai paid—he refused to let me contribute a sum, being his guest and all that—I noticed the rotating rack of postcards by the register, with the wordsBlue Beachin different fonts scrawled across quaint seaside landscapes.
“Pick one,” said Kai, his expression mischievous and knowing. An inside joke.
“But I came on the trip.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “This is silly.”
“Ah,” he sighed, “but of all the terrible things we are, silly is not the worst, is it?”
“No, but it’s up there,” I argued halfheartedly.
But deep in my bones I knew that no matter what happened to us in the end, I would never, ever forget this about him. His boyish optimism. His refusal to be cynical. His determination to always find the silver lining and stare at it, even if it hurt, even if the line was not a line at all but a bright yellow sun, burning him with hope.
“Come on,” he prodded me again. “Pick one. I’ll write something mawkish, and you’ll receive it once you get home. Your first postcard.”
Girlishly delighted, I chose one of the more romantic ones, a sunset at the beach, the letters sprawling over the picture in raised calligraphy.
On our way back we stopped by the post office. Kai let me choose the stamp, a white scalloped square with a blue floral pattern, but refused to let me see what he wrote on the empty space under it.
“It’s more exciting this way,” he claimed, and when I tried to steal a peek over his shoulder, he grumbled about my impatience and pretended to scowl at me.
The woman behind the desk said that we made a cute couple. I didn’t correct her, and Kai answered impulsively, “I know, right?”
And I couldn’t help but grin, imagining the day I would find that pretty white envelope tucked inside my letterbox, take it upstairs, and tear the seal open with hands shaking from excitement.What did he write?
I promised myself that I would always cherish it.That postcard. That tiny love letter. The future it promised. The beauty of tomorrow.
Chapter Twelve
The sky darkened, and a thick, white fog fell over the cottage, but inside, Kai and I were luxuriating in the heat. Everything was golden-hued and irrepressible, like falling in love. And maybe I was falling in love. With this place. With life. With him. I loved his dark searching looks and consistency of character. I loved the perfect balance between spontaneity and security he offered. And I loved who I was with him. How relaxed, how effortless, how irresistible he made me feel. I could not talk about him without talking about love.
He was a passionate and ambitious cook, if not a bit messy, so I mostly did the cleaning while he darted around the small kitchen chopping and stirring and checking the oven. He made spaghetti carbonara per my request, fresh bread sprinkled with olive oil and oregano, and a delectable arugula salad with parmesan flakes, crushed walnuts, and a lemon-bright vinaigrette. Then he went ahead and roasted a bunch of asparagus in fresh melted butter before wrapping each glazed stem in pink, petal-thin layers of prosciutto. The house smelled delicious, and he looked more contented than I’d ever seen him be.
Not leaving me with much to do, I picked out a book from the bookshelves, a small collection of short stories, and read for a while curled up on the sofa with the blanket about my knees.
When everything was ready, I carried and set all the beautifully assorted dishes out on the coffee table before the fireplace while he unearthed the cumbersome floor pillows from the hallway closet.
We sat down opposite each other, and for a moment longer we admired our cozy little setup, the small table with the white linen and the pink candle dripping wax on the dainty porcelain saucer, before we finally dug in, both of us ravenous from a night of traveling and a day of doing chores. Although it didn’t feel like that. It felt as though we’d already been here for days and done all kinds of marvelous things, the contraptions of time altered just for us.
It was some time before we were able to slow down enough so we could talk. “Sorry,” Kai chuckled, wiping his mouth on the cloth napkin. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more hungry in my life.”
And this too was something I’d come to love about him: eating fast while nodding his head in gratification, scouring the radio for that one perfect song, taking the time to dim the lights and crack the window open to feel the cool, clean air on his skin after spending so much time in the mellowing heat of the kitchen. His unbounded and transcendent love of enjoyment. Of enjoying life.
