I smile. It’s like him finding me at the café all over again.
“I followed you,” he says.
He must have seen me at the garage. Of course he did. Nothing slips past his attention.
I gaze up at him when he comes to stand next to me. He’s got a small grease stain on his shirt, and his hair is sticking up at the top, endearingly ruffled. He takes my breath away.
I’m so flustered by him and his effect on me, I blurt out the inanest thing.
“You have the most stunning blue eyes,” I remark, watching the sunlight play across Fallon’s face, causing his eyes to appear almost clear.
“Nordic ancestry.”
I can believe it. Fallon could easily slip into the role of a Norse god from mythology. Part Odin, the powerful ruler of all the gods, part Magni, the god of strength, and part Loki, the god of mischief.
Not done with the dumb questions, I ask, “When did you stop chewing gum?”
When Fallon quit smoking, he started chewing gum all the time to stave off cravings. He was constantly popping sticks of gum in his mouth all the time.
“That’s a really weird question,” he replies, giving me an amused look. “And not what you really want to ask me.”
The way he is able to decipher my innermost thoughts should freak me out, but it doesn’t. It’s nice having someone who is so attuned to you and your feelings.
He folds his long legs and sits on the ground beside me. “What’s going through your mind right now, Kitten?”
Things I shouldn’t be feeling. Things I shouldn’t be wanting.
Fallon grabs my hips and settles me in front of him, fitting me between the outstretched V of his legs. My spine presses intimately to his chest, his arms circling me and holding me tightly to him.
Fallon’s thumbs trace soothing circles over my wrists where our hands are clasped together in my lap. It’s been so long since anyone has touched me like this, since I’ve felt the comfort of a man’s arms around me. I absorb every sensation, knowing all too well that the Fates can be cruel and could take Fallon away at any moment, just like they took the love of my life from me.
His soft lips find the curve of my shoulder and linger there, his breath fanning across my goose-fleshed skin.
“Talk to me.”
I can’t. I’m not ready. I’m scared.
“What did Christopher say to you?”
“He loves you and just wants you to be happy.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Apparently, that’s the only answer he’s going to give me.
We sit quietly in nature’s ambiance, listening to cardinals chirp their happy songs, my senses hypervigilant because the little brushstrokes of his thumb are driving me out of my mind.
Turning slightly, I look into his aqua eyes. They have always mesmerized me. I remember first seeing the blue water at Norðurljósavegur in Iceland with Fallon, and I likened the unusual color to his eyes.
“Secret for a secret.”
We’re supposed to tell each other our secret fears. Most of the time, we make up stuff just to see the other’s reaction.
“I’m terrified of Pop Rocks,” he says.
He can come up with the most bizarre things.
“Do tell.”
