Lock and Key(99)

“Overwhelming,” he repeated.

It was times like these that I knew I should just come clean and tell him that I worried about him. Having the courage to do that was the part of me I was still holding back. And I was always aware of it, even as, like now, I did it once again.

“Plus,” I said, sliding my knee so it rested against his, “there’s this issue of your gift.”

“My gift,” he repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s just so all-encompassing,” I said with a sigh, shaking my head. “Huge. And detailed . . . I mean, the flow charts and spread sheets alone are out of control.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“I’ll be lucky if I get it all in place by tonight, to be honest.”

“Huh.” He considered this. “Well. I have to admit, I’m intrigued.”

“You should be.”

He smiled, then reached over, running a hand over my jacket. “This is pretty cool,” he said. “What’s the inside look like? ”

“The inside . . .” I said, just as he slid his hand over my shoulder, easing off one sleeve. “Ah, right. Well, it’s equally impressive.”

“Yeah? Let me see.” He nudged it off over the other shoulder, and I shook my head. “You know, it is. This sweater is pretty nice, too. Who makes it?”

“No idea,” I said.

I felt his hand go around my waist, then smoothly move up my back to the tag. “Lanoler,” he read slowly, ducking his head down so his lips were on my collarbone. “Seems well made. Although it’s hard to tell. Maybe if I just—”

I glanced outside the car, where people were walking past to the green, coffees in hand, backpacks over shoulders. “Nate,” I said. “It’s almost first bell.”

“You’re so conscientious,” he said, his voice muffled by my sweater, which he was still trying to ease off. “When did that happen?”

I sighed, then looked at the dashboard clock. We had five minutes before we’d be officially late. Not all the time we wanted, but maybe this, too, was too much to ask for. “Okay,” I told him as he worked his way back around my neck, his lips moving up to my ear. “I’m all yours.”

When I got home that afternoon, I saw Jamie seated at the island with his laptop. As he heard me approach, he quickly leaped up, grabbing a nearby loaf of bread and holding it in front of him as if struck by a sudden desire to make a sandwich.

I raised my eyebrows. “What are you doing?”

He exhaled loudly. “I thought you were Cora,” he said, tossing the bread down. “Whew! You scared me. I’ve worked too hard on this for her to find out about it now.”

As he sat back down, I saw that the island was covered with piles of CDs, some in their cases, others scattered all over the place. “So this is your Valentine’s Day gift?”

“One of them,” he said, opening a case and taking out a disk. “It’ll be, like, the third or fourth wave.”

“Wave? ”

“That’s my V-day technique,” he explained, sliding the disk into the side of his laptop. I heard a whirring, then some clicks, and the screen flickered. “Multiple gifts, given in order of escalating greatness, over the entire day. So, you know, you begin with flowers, then move to chocolates, maybe some balloons. This’ll come after that, but before the gourmet dinner. I’m still tweaking the order.”

“Right,” I said glumly, sitting down across from him and picking up a Bob Dylan CD.

He glanced over at me. “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you don’t like Valentine’s Day. Everyone likes Valentine’s Day.”

I considered disputing this, but as he’d said the same thing about Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, I figured it wasn’t worth the argument. “I’m just kind of stuck,” I said. “I need to get something for someone. . . .”

“Nate,” he said, hitting a couple of buttons on the laptop. I looked up at him. “Ruby, come on. We’re not that dense, you know. Plus half the house does look out at the pond, even at night.”

I bit my lip, turning the CD case in my hands. “Anyway, ” I said, “I want it to be, like, this great gift. But I can’t come up with anything.”

“Because you’re overthinking it,” he said. “The best gifts come from the heart, not a store.”

“This from the man who buys in waves.”

“I’m not buying this,” he pointed out, nodding at the laptop. “I mean, I bought the CDs, yeah. But the idea is from the heart.”

“And what’s the idea?”

“All the songs Cora loves to sing, in one place,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. I wrote up a list, then found them online or at the record store. For the really obscure ones, I had to enlist this guy one of my employees knows from his Anger Management class who’s some kind of music freak. But now I finally have them all. ‘Wasted Time,’ ‘Frankie and Johnny,’ ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’ . . .”

’"Angel from Montgomery,’” I said quietly.

“Exactly!” He grinned. “Hey, you can probably help me, now that I think of it. Just take a look at the list, and see if I’m missing anything.”