Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(47)

I face forward and close my eyes. “Again,” I answer.

*

“Just so you know,” I say, stomping my feet against the cold while Evan and I stand in line for a gyro at a food cart parked behind the university medical center, “today’s breakthrough or whatever does not mean I will now be all ponies and roses.”

“Never say,” he says, and grins, stomping his own feet.

“I think I feel sort of ambushed, actually, like all of the fail therapy was some secret, ongoing lesson that you meant to happen all along so you could spring this thing on me today.”

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

He turns and grins right at me, with teeth and everything, and it’s kind of sad how it makes him look so different, mainly because I obviously made him so unhappy and never saw him smile.

That smile’s a lovely one. Broad and sure of itself.

He seems sure of who he’s smiling at, too.

After we ran through the exercise a few more times, he talked about proprioception and interpreting sensory cues. He told me I had an amazing mind and that the exercise was mainly to help me be more comfortable with my limited peripheral vision.

Also, he said, more comfortable with him.

Which made me realize that if there was anyone I was comfortable with, right now, in my life, it was Evan. Mainly because he had stood witness to everything I have been feeling and kept trying.

I think I should keep trying.

My amazing mind deserves to keep trying.

After we were finished, he told me he was starving and that he’d decided that he owed me dinner, and I found myself following him through a couple of courtyards to this food cart and I’m only a teeny, tiny bit worried I’ll miss my bus.

It’s nice, I think, to make Evan happy for once. He’s sort of cute when he’s happy and all the basset-hound worry lines in his face turn into smile crinkles. He isn’t wearing a hat, and the snowflakes are mixing in with his messy hair.

He keeps playing with the red-and-white star mint he’s sucking on, switching it from one side of his mouth to the other, between laughing at whatever I’m saying, which isn’t even that funny.

He’s kind of sparkly, actually. Sparkles look good on him.

“What do you want?” he asks me, and he does that thing he always does, which is steer me a little with his hand in between my shoulder blades, and I am honest enough with myself to admit that even through my puffy down coat, my cable-knit sweater, sturdy cotton camisole, and four-hook bra strap, his hand feels really good.

It feels, in fact, amazing, the confident push of it, my proprioception is very on board with his hand, so on board, that I step back just a little into his hand, and I sort of feel his fingers spread out, cover more space, settle in, like he’s letting me know it’s okay to let him hold me to this moment and tell me where to go, and sort of like on him a little.

So I do, like on him, because I’m touch-starved and far away from home and living alone kind of sucks, actually, and it’s cold outside and right now, this minute, he sparkles.

“What do they have?” I try to make myself focus on the little menu written in marker on a grease-splatted cardboard square. “Do you eat meat?”

He looks at me, expectant, his hand still on my back. I think of the sad, shrink-wrapped, preservative-laden deli cuts of turkey in my fridge, my resignation at their existence, and in the cold sunshine, with Evan’s eyes on mine, I say, “No, I don’t. I’m a vegetarian.”

He turns to the gyro guy. “Two veggie gyros and the extralarge bag of potato chips.”

After the guy grills up our sandwiches and Evan pays, we go to sit on the low concrete wall around the courtyard.

He hands me a hot pita wrapped around a dripping mess of grilled vegetables and feta cheese, and I’m not sure how to go about it.

“You just have to dig in like an animal.” He leans forward and peels back the foil and takes this huge bite, letting the juice and grease drip on the ground.

I laugh but copy him. It’s so delicious I could die. I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten outside, the last time I’ve eaten something that wasn’t a turkey sandwich or a bowl of cereal.

It’s perfect.

The freezing cold wind and the bright sun and the blazing-hot sandwich and Evan’s hip alongside mine on the wall, all perfect. We eat like children eat, fast and unself-consciously, ignoring the napkins piled on our knees.

I ball up the foil, and Evan takes it from me to lob into the big trash can, then leans back and opens the potato chips, tipping the bag toward me first.

“Thanks,” I say, taking a handful.

It’s kind of an all-inclusive thank-you. “Of course.”

“I’m sorry about all the other times.” But I wince, because this feels like the very last moment on earth for an apology, and his solid hip pressed against mine is messing me up, reminding me so keenly that I’m a human, with a human body and human feelings, that it’s like I need to get out all the feelings between me and Evan at the same time.

His eyebrows smash together again as he looks out over the courtyard.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything, Jenny.”

He said my name. That makes everything worse. When you’re lonely and afraid, it can be almost terrifying to be well fed and treated kindly and acknowledged by another human being.