Page 86 of Protect Me
“Reminds me of clouds and yoga and sunshine and a lot of things. Plus,” I tacked on with a quick smile, “no one ever picks white. And why not? It softens every other color. It changes them in gentle ways and isn’t as harsh as black.”
A contemplative look crossed her face. “Fair,” she murmured.
I tugged my line. Sensing nothing nearby, I pulled it in. The harried expression on Kate’s face when she’d pulled her fish free—clearly, she couldn’t stand any semblance of violence on a living thing—flashed through my mind. I tucked my lure under the bottom of my reel to hold it and slipped the pole into the canoe.
She eyed me as I sat back down, gripping both oars.
“What was your worst date?” I asked.
More on guard now that I’d pulled out one random question, she murmured, “I haven’t been on one since before Timothy’s attack.”
My eyebrows rose. “Really?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. Though sunglasses hid her eyes, I could tell she stared at me. Her eyes bore into mine when she nodded.
“Well,” I murmured, “perhaps we should change that.”
“Unless you count this.” She swirled her hand to encompass the lake. “This is a pretty fun date. Fishing. Certainly outside the norm, which seems like that would be your thing.”
I snorted, but it wasn’t without amusement. “Thanks, I think. Do you want this to be a date?”
Kate swallowed. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I do.”
“Then a date it is. How do I compare?”
“To a pubescent sophomore who tried to cop a feel during a movie?” Her tone pitched higher in question, then dropped into a coy curl. “Definitely worse.”
I splashed her with an oar.
She laughed.
The fragile ribbon of uncertainty that my curiosity inspired seemed to have disappeared, so I leaned into the now open air.
“What’s your biggest dream?” I asked.
“Oh, ho,” she murmured with a witty little smile. “Going for the big guns now, are we? This is just a first date, remember? Shouldn’t you get to know me a little better before you start to ask the deep stuff?”
“To be fair,” I countered, “I used to hang onto the superficial stuff on purpose. I avoided talk of real things because why do that? So, you can’t thwart my attempt to be a better man here, Kate.”
Though I said it with amusement, all levity dropped from her face. Her smile disappeared. She opened and then closed her mouth. An interminable silence later, she said softly, “I want to live without rules again. That’s my biggest dream.”
My eyebrows shot higher.
Whoa.
Wasn’t expecting that.
Her hand waved through the air, as if to soften the suddenly deep and pervasive undertone around us.
“I mean, the rules protect me. They helped me through what was a hard time but . . . now I kind of want to let them go. I just . . . I don’t know how. In some ways, they were more than just rules. They were safety. Control. Yet, I think they’ve held me back now, I’m just not sure how. I’m not sure how to be safe without them.”
I swallowed, utterly unable to speak.
Weren’t we one and the same?
Didn’t I live by my own set of rules meant to keep me safe? No commitment. No love. No pain.
She let out a sharp breath through her nose. “Talk about heavy,” she muttered.
