Page 55 of Meant to Be

“A little,” I said, as she softened the blow by crawling onto my lap.

“No, I didn’t,” she said.

“Yes, you did,” I said, loving the attention.

She put her arms around my neck, then straddled me, pushingme against the back of the sofa with the weight of her body before nuzzling the side of my face with her nose.

“C’mon, Joe. It’s better this way.”

“What way?”

“Thisway,” she said, kissing me. “Just the two of us.”

I nodded, because it sounded nice when she put it that way. More intimate, in the way things always are when there’s a secret involved.

“So, I guess that means you won’t go to the Proust Ball with me?” I said, pointing down at the invitation that had just arrived in the mail.

“I don’t doballs,” she said.

“But I need a date.”

“I’m sure you can scrounge one up.”

“You wouldn’t be jealous? If I went with another woman?”

Her jaw tensed for one hopeful second. But then she shrugged, shook her head, and said, “No. I don’t do jealousy, either.”

“You never get jealous?”

“No,” she said. “What’s the point? It doesn’t change anything.”

“Damn,” I said.

There really was no one like her.

—

About two weekslater, I decided to try again. We’d just made love and were lying naked in my bed when I said, “I’m starving. What do you say we go to El Teddy’s?”

“Can’t we just order?”

“El Teddy’s doesn’t deliver,” I said.

“Well, we can do takeout, then. Want me to pick it up? I don’t mind.”

“Why can’t we just go?” I said.

“You know why.”

“C’mon, Cate. What are you scared of?”

“Who said I’m scared?” she fired back. “I’m not scared.”

“Then why can’t we go out?”

She sighed and said, “We’ve been over this.”

“But I want to sit at a table with you, and let a server bring us food…and we can’t get margaritas togo,” I said.

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