Learning to Swim(38)

He smiled and took a short sip of his water. “I knew you'd like it.”

Obviously, I was not presenting my true self, but I didn't care. I could tell from the grin on his face that he seemed to like this Ethiopian-food-lover me. And as Alice would have said, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”


Keith took a hunk of bread and swiped it across the plate. We were nearing the conclusion of the meal, and all the portions were beginning to run into each other, achieving the impossible: it looked even worse than it had when it arrived at the table. But besides the food, things had been going great. We had shared a couple of quick but supersweet pecks on the way over to dinner. He had bought me some really pretty daffodils and opened the car door for me. I was all about this Boy Scout vibe of Keith's. I felt so taken care of, like I was the priority. The one person in my life who was supposed to be doing that was too busy with love lunacy to oblige.

“I come here a lot with my dad and stepmother,” he said with his mouth full.

Even his bad table manners were hot.

I gulped some Diet Dr Pepper to chase down the taste of iab (I didn't find out until later that it was cottage cheese blended with yogurt.) “Do you get along with your stepmother?”

“Sort of. She's only fifteen years older than me, so it's not as though she and I have a mother-son relationship or anything like that. She pretty much leaves me alone.”

Usher's “Yeah!” rang out from Keith's cell phone. “It's my dad,” he said to me, snapping his phone open. “Uh-huh, right. Okay. Well, I'm sorry about that. Look, I…” His voice faded as he looked at me. “I can't talk about this right now. If she calls back, tell her I'll speak to her later. I've got to go,” he said. “That's my other line.” He clicked over. “Hello?”

The expression on his face changed, and I knew without a doubt that the caller on the other line was none other than Mora. I finished the rest of my Dr Pepper with one mighty swig and let out a tiny burp that thankfully he didn't hear.

“Hey,” he said softly.

My lower extremities immediately went numb. I knew that up until, well, yesterday, she had been a big part of his life, but I really resented the intrusion. I wished I could've closed my eyes and gone back in time. I wished that we had moved to Jones Island years ago and that I had got to him first. I wished that I could tear that phone away from his ear and throw it in the restaurant's saltwater aquarium.

“Yeah, well, okay, calm down,” I heard him say.

I wondered how many of these one-sided conversations my mom had endured. I wondered how many times she had been filled with the weird jealous feeling that came with realizing that the man you loved still belonged to someone else. Fourteen at least, I supposed. I couldn't imagine feeling this insecure and uncomfortable over and over and over again. Once was enough.

“I have to go.” His eyes shifted to me. “I'll talk to you later.” He flashed me a kind of sad-looking smile as he turned off his phone. “Sorry about that.”

“That's okay,” I said, even though it wasn't.

“No, it's not,” he said. “I wouldn't have picked up if I'd known it was her. I'm sorry to put you in that position.”

“I already knew that breakups were messy,” I said, reaching across the table and taking his hand.

He stroked the inside of my wrist with his thumb. “It's just made worse by the fact that Mora's parents and my parents are friends. Everyone feels the need to add their two cents.”

“That's got to be hard,” I said stiffly. Truth of the matter was, I didn't want to talk about Mora anymore. Nor did I want to talk about how upset Keith's parents were that he'd broken up with her. I just wanted him and me to have a fresh start, where there was no baggage or past lives and there would only be us.

“Yeah, well, thanks for being so understanding.” He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed it softly. (Wow!) “Are you ready to get out of here, cutie?”

Cutie was born ready.

Keith paid the bill with his very own ultraplatinum credit card (even though I offered to split it—he was such a gentleman) and we climbed back into his Lexus.

“Where to?” He put his right hand on my knee and then brought it slowly up my thigh.

“We could go back to my apartment,” I said abruptly. “Barbie's out of town for the weekend.” This wasn't the most subtle of suggestions. But all I knew was that I wanted to do whatever it took to make him forget all about his ex-girlfriend. I wanted to prove to him that Mora was not the girl for him. I was.

“Okay,” he said, and then he leaned in and kissed me tenderly.

As we drove, I put my head back and closed my eyes. I attempted to calm the jackhammering in my stomach by taking deep breaths of the musky leather-scented car air. I wasn't sure what was about to happen, but whatever it was, I was ready. I loved Keith, he liked (potentially loved) me. It was all coming together.

Keith stopped the car. When I opened my eyes, I saw that we weren't at my apartment. We were at the entrance to Crab Beach.

“What are we doing?” I asked. “I thought we were going back to my place.”

A mischievous look appeared on Keith's face. “We are. But first, we're going swimming.”