Page 58 of Perfect
“Theo,please. I don’t want any photos of me taken,ever,” I beg. He considers me, frowning for a moment before he unlocks his phone and hands it over. He’s got one photo in his camera roll, and it’s me crouched down on the rocks, looking into the tidepool. I almost feel bad when I delete it, but I can’t risk it.
“No photos, I promise,” he says quietly as he slips the phone out of my hands, being careful not to touch me. When I look up at him, he seems earnest, and I nod at him, feeling a little too vulnerable.
We stay there for a while, Theo mostly watching me, occasionally pointing out something that he thinks I’ll want to see, and trying to keep me from slipping on the rocks in my sneakers. Things feel less awkward eventually, and he seems excited by how much I’m enjoying myself.
“I thought you might like this, but I didn’t know you’d be so into it.” I shrug, squatting down to watch a cluster of anemones sway gently.
I shrug. “I loved tidepooling as a kid.” He crouches down next to me close enough that our shoulders brush together, and I can see out of the corner of my eye that he’s looking at me.
“Me, too,” he says softly.
“Thanks for bringing me,” I say, trying hard not to look at him.
“Yeah, of course. There’s a million places on the coast, and we can go whenever you want.”
I want to do that, just not with him.
When it starts to get dark, he helps me back up the steep path and leads us back to the car. When I try the handle, the door is still locked, and I look up at Theo, suddenly nervous.
“Can we go back now?” He shakes his head, and my stomach sinks.
“Uh, we’re not going back to Astoria,” he says slowly, and panic shoots through me.
He fuckingkidnappedme, of course he did. Maybe he’s going to murder me here.
“I thought it’d be nice for us to have a weekend away, so I rented us a house down here. I booked a whale-watching tour for tomorrow, too.” His voice is quiet, and he seems almost shy when he looks at me.
I think this still technically counts as kidnapping, but I don’t think most kidnappers do things like this. I don’t know whether to be anxious or touched, but I’m kind of both.
“Um, okay. That sounds…good?” He smiles, one side of his mouth picking up a little more than the other, and he seems relieved.
***
The house Theo rented is tiny, with wood-paneled walls and rooms decorated with tacky beach-themed items, but the backdeck and the master bedroom overlook the beach, and we can hear the ocean in every room. We drop our things off and walk down the path to the beach, not talking much, but the silence is somewhat comfortable.
For a moment, it feels like I’m on a weekend trip with someone I’m dating, but I push the feeling away.
That’s probably what he thinks this is.
Dinner is nice, mostly. The clam chowder we have is good, but not as good as what I’m used to, which Theo finds hard to believe. I remind him that New England clam chowder is best in New England, and he shakes his head at me and tells me that for someone who’s supposed to be from Maine or North Carolina, I seem to have spent alotof time in Cape Cod. I shrug and tell him my grandmother lived in Hyannis, which is true.
When he asks me more about my grandparents, I say very little and ask him about his, and he says very little back. We deflect each other’s questions for the rest of dinner, and it almost becomes a game of who can reveal nothing while saying something.
I think he’s slightly better at it than I am.
After dinner, we go back to the house and we sit out on the porch wrapped up in thick blankets, drinking wine and listening to the waves. He’s back to asking me things, inane things, things that are too personal, seemingly anything that comes to mind. I’ve had enough wine that I give him slightly longer answers and deflect slightly less than earlier. I even ask him more questions about himself, and he seems to give me more honest answers.
I learn we have similar tastes in movies. When I mention an old Cary Grant movie my mom loved, he gets excited and tells me it was one of his grandma’s favorites, and we find we both watched it a lot growing up. When it gets too cold and rainy to stay on the porch, we head inside, and he finds the movie on a streaming platform.
We sit on the couch, close but not touching, drinking hot tea and watching it together.
It’s comfortable.
When we go to bed, I’mpositivehe’s going to fuck me, but he doesn’t. He lies on his side, his head propped in one hand while his other hand trails slowly up and down my waist under the covers, and we just talk. I try not to make eye contact with him, but I can’t help it. He’s kind of magnetic.
He’s being chatty and sweet, pushing my hair behind my ear and telling me I’m beautiful, smiling wide enough that his faint dimples show, and as we lay there, it’s kind of hard to remember he’s my stalker who’s going to kill me.
Sometimes, for a few minutes at a time, it seems like he’s just the cute guy I met at that bar.
