“You’d better.”
His eye crinkled, and he stepped back and pressed the bag of leftovers into her hands.
“Good night, sweetheart.”
She took it from him and he stood on the stoop while she unlocked her building’s door and made her way upstairs, only leaving once she’d entered her apartment and turned the light on.
She knew, because she looked for him out the window.
She knew, because she watched him walk back down the street the way they’d come, though one thing was vastly different about his gait.
His now-familiar limp looked rather more like a skip as he turned the corner and disappeared from view.
Five
Audrey waited allday on Sunday to hear from Theo again.
Every minute her phone screen stayed dark was another she spent fidgeting on her couch. Every piece of her had been vibrating since their date yesterday, and she couldn’t stop thinking about how softly his lips had grazed against her skin, warm and careful and hesitant, as though she were something he was terrified to hold, to break, to shatter if he so much asbreathedon her.
Until they’d finally kissed.
Every time she thought about it, an odd feeling settled into her stomach, sending it churning and roiling in a way that made her want to strip away her own skin simply because he wasn’t touching it right now. Now that she’d had so much of him and knew what it was actually like to have him by her side rather than imagining it, she needed more.
And not having it, not havinghim, was maddening.
Imagination had sufficed before she’d gone out with Theo. He was a mystery she could puzzle through, turn over in her mind, analyze and savor every minute of the wondering.
But now? Now he was so much more. He was so much more of a sum than parts, so much more real than ephemeral, so much more of a totality than a construct.
Her imagination paled in comparison to the real thing.
It was the difference between a sketch and a painting.
And she still needed to add the shades of it, the highlights and the lowlights, the contrast and the shadows, just so she could see him whole.
She checked her phone again.
Nothing.
When no text from him had come through by 5:00 p.m., she took matters into her own hands.
Audrey| Okay, Mr.Sullivan: you surprised me last night.
Audrey| I take back what I said about you not having any game.
Audrey| I was wrong.
His response came immediately and without hesitation.
Theo| I told you: game recognizes game.
Theo| I have SOME skills.
More dots appeared on her phone screen and another message popped through.
Theo| It’s just that most of them aren’t exactly social.
Okay. That made Audrey laugh, and the butterflies in her stomach calmed a little. Maybe Theo had been waiting by his phone too, anxiously hoping she’d text him. Honestly, that did seem likely. Andat least he was self-aware. Probablytooself-aware, if she had to guess. She bit her lip while she wrote her response.
