“A little bit,” I manage as I chuckle. “But I think you could wear a paper bag and I’d be smitten.”
“Smitten.” She cuts her eyes my way, a devilish grin playing on those soft, pink lips of hers. “You just said smitten.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Squeezing her hand, I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “What can I say? I’m a man who’s on top of the world.”
“You’re a puzzle.”
“But you seem to understand how to put my pieces together.”
She’s quiet for a moment before she turns to face me. “I want to.”
“I want that, too.” We sit, holding hands and watching the dogs in silence for a few minutes before she clears her throat.
“You mentioned there was a fight when you were on that team in the Everglades. What happened?”
In the past, I’ve avoided this question for a lot of reasons. I’m usually not willing to talk about it; I don’t want it used against me and I don’t want my dad to be pulled into the flames because of me and what I do. But I know that I’m safe here, with Riley. She’s not going to use this against me or try to manipulate the situation in her favor.
“We had a big rivalry with the opposing team. Somehow, one of the guys found out my dad had been admitted into a psych ward.” The memory of the day is still burned into my mind. “When we hit the ice, the other guys started making fun of him, calling him crazy and saying that I had a dad in the nuthouse.”
“That’s cruel,” Riley says, pulling my hand so she’s holding it in her lap. “All to get under your skin?”
“One hundred percent. And it worked. I couldn’t do anything right on the ice that day, and usually it’s my happy place. I can hit the ice and everything else goes out of my head. But on this day, I only saw red.” Sighing, I turn so I’m facing her. “I went after their goalie when he called him a ‘nutter,’ and slammedhim into the back of the net. It became a full-on pileup of bodies from there, with both teams falling into a melee I’d created.”
“And so you were sent to anger management.”
“And so I was.” A half-smile forms on my lips. “But my dad said he was proud of me. He hated that he put me in that position, but I know he couldn’t help it. He’d only been diagnosed as a hoarder for a brief amount of time when he was admitted for anxiety and depression. The loss of the love of his life, and having to take on all the responsibility that she left behind, almost broke him.”
“Why is that?”
“He wanted it to all be perfect, and he didn’t want me to think I was missing out on anything.” I cross my right leg over my left and sit back against the bench, the coolness of the metal coming through my T-shirt. “He was insistent that he show me what it was to commit to something and stick with it all the way through to the end. He did, that’s for sure, but it almost killed him.”
Riley holds my hand and doesn’t say anything, not that she needs to. Just being able to talk about this part of my life with her feels good; I don’t need her to say a word. I watch her as she scans the park, her eyes roving from one side of the green space to the other, tracking the two dogs as they run and prance together, getting along as if they’d known each other forever.
“That’s weird.” Riley tilts her chin in the direction of a guy at the bottom of the hill, near a separate entrance. “That guy was on his phone and it looked like he was talking to someone a moment ago, now he’s got it pointed at us. Like he’s taking a photo.”
Squinting, I look across the field, impressed with her deductive skills. “He could just be looking at the screen?”
“It’s the way he’s holding it. Like, if I hold my phone, I keep it down lower. I’m not going to pull it up so it’s eye level to look at the web.”
“Maybe you should; it could be better for your posture.”
Riley smacks my arm, which gives me a chance to wrap one of mine around her and pull her tight into my body. I rub one of her arms with my hand as I kiss the top of her head.
“Where were we?” she asks, cuddling into my chest and nuzzling against me. “You were talking about your father.”
“And how commitment almost killed him,” I remind her. “But it’s time for a subject change. Tell me something about you.”
“Well, since we’re talking about commitment, I should fess up.” She pulls away, taking a moment to pull her hair up into a loose bun on the top of her head.
“It must be serious if you're pulling your hair back.”
“Ha,” she says, flicking a hand in the air. “It’s actually kind of embarrassing but…” She swallows as she turns to me, her eyes closed tight. “I’ve never had a serious boyfriend.”
Part of me is ecstatic. The other is elated. The fact that I am sitting here right now, with this woman, who is telling me something so vulnerable speaks volumes. I’d be lying if I tried to deny that the possibility I’d be her first real boyfriend is in the cards didn’t excite me.
It’s just that I’m realizing I want to be the last, too.
Riley’s hands fly to her face, covering her eyes. I reach out and gently pull them away, laughing, and wrap my arms around her. “That’s awesome. Don’t think of it as embarrassing.”
