by Linda Seed
“Dude, you can’t ask her now. You’ve had, what, three or four dates? You’re going to look like one of those crazy stalkers who make dolls out of a woman’s fingernail clippings. You don’t want to be that guy.”
He certainly didn’t want to be that guy, but none of the alternatives seemed viable, either.
“Buy the ticket and hang onto it,” Lucy said when he asked Ramon to put her on the phone. “That way you cover your bases.”
Sensible, yet it seemed to Patrick that he and Sofia were mature adults who could discuss this in a mature, adult manner. Despite both Ramon and Lucy imploring him not to do it, he brought up the issue with Sofia the next time he saw her.
“So … it’s hard to believe it’s already October,” he began as the two of them lay in his bed on a Saturday afternoon after a particularly athletic bout of lovemaking. They both were relaxed and drowsy and covered in a light sheen of sweat.
“Right?” she agreed. “It seems like summer just started, and now it’s over.”
He stroked her hair as she rested her head on his chest. “It’s going to be Christmas before we know it,” he said, approaching the subject as though it were a rabbit that might startle.
“I guess.” There was something in her tone that had him on alert, but he couldn’t identify it.
“My mother’s already asking me about my plans.” He kissed her lightly on the temple. Sofia didn’t say anything, but he felt her stiffen.
Everything in her body language told him to abort. Clearly, he’d entered dangerous territory, a land filled with minefields and trip wires, booby traps and perhaps even poisonous snakes. He might have been foolishly in love, but he wasn’t a fool. He let the topic drop, telling himself he could revisit it later.
“You know … I’d better get going.” Sofia got out of bed and walked, nude, into the little bathroom adjoining the bedroom.
Patrick enjoyed the view and looked forward to seeing more of it.
There would be time to think about holidays and family and what to do about them later.
Sofia was sleeping with Patrick figuratively, but not yet literally. She hadn’t spent the night with him yet, preferring to come back to her own bed after her time with him.
That came in damned handy when he started talking about Christmas, because it gave her a chance to escape.
The mention of Christmas freaked Sofia out for more than one reason. Her parents had died during the holiday season, so that made it impossible for her to think of the month of November and December with anything other than pain. But that wasn’t all that was on her mind. She was also thinking about what Christmas with Patrick might mean for their relationship.
She was probably attaching more meaning to it than he’d intended. All he’d said was that his mother was pestering him about his plans. He hadn’t said he wanted to present her to his parents and announce their impending nuptials.
Except that was where he’d been heading, clearly—not the part about the nuptials, but the rest of it was right on. He’d been gearing up to invite her to meet his family in Michigan, and that was a lot to process this early on.
She was thinking about all of that—while trying not to think about it—the next day over her morning coffee when Martina came into the kitchen in a flowy white nightshirt and said, “I’m thinking we should have a big Thanksgiving. We could all invite our friends and make some of Mom’s recipes and—”
“Why the hell is everyone already talking about the damned holidays? It’s freaking October!” Sofia snapped at her.
Martina stopped where she was and appraised her sister. “I’m sensing a problem with your energy.”
Sofia flipped her a middle finger, then immediately felt bad about it.
Martina, unperturbed, sat down at the table across from Sofia. “You know, you don’t have to celebrate Thanksgiving if you don’t want to. I understand if you don’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get excited about it.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Sofia’s shoulders slumped, and she looked into her coffee mug to avoid Martina’s gaze.
“It’s hard without Mom and Dad,” Martina said softly.
Sofia didn’t want to talk about that with Martina, or with anyone. What good did it do to poke at an open wound? How would that cause her anything but pain?
Sofia’s mom and dad had died in late November two years before. Slammed by shock and grief, Sofia and her sisters had not even acknowledged the holidays that first year. How could they? They’d had nothing worth celebrating.
Last year, the sisters had taken a trip to avoid the issue altogether. So, this would be the first relatively normal year without Carmela and Aldo. But that was just it. Normal wasn’t a term that applied anymore. Normal had died with them, as far as Sofia was concerned.
“I have to get ready for work.” Sofia got up and took her mug to the sink.
“You know what, Sof?” Martina said. “It might feel good to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What don’t you want to talk about?” Benny had just emerged from her room.
“Mom and Dad,” Martina said.
“Ah.” She put a lot of weight into the ah—the acknowledgment not only of their shared grief, but also of Sofia’s persistent refusal to deal with it.
“If you could just—” Martina began.
“I can’t hear you!” Sofia put her hands over her ears like a petulant child and walked out of the room, closing her bedroom door behind her.
She felt pressure and heat behind her eyes, but she didn’t cry. She hadn’t cried since her parents’ deaths—not once—and she was self-aware enough to know that was weird. But it was also easier, and she would take that. It was about time something got easier for her and her family.
Patrick wasn’t sure what to make of it. Sofia had bolted the moment he’d mentioned Christmas—even though he’d never actually gotten around to asking her to spend it with him.
He was pretty sure it wasn’t about him. Moments before she’d stiffened up and left his place, they’d been cuddled happily in his bed, talking and enjoying the glow created by great sex.
If she’d been ready to distance herself from him, he’d have felt it. He was sure of it. It was only when he’d mentioned his holiday plans that she’d tensed and then fled, as though she’d been alerted of some impending danger.
Assuming that he wasn’t the problem, it was one of two things: either she sensed that he was moving too fast, or she hated the very thought of Christmas itself. He sensed it might be the last one. Lots of people dreaded the holidays, didn’t they? Weren’t the holidays hotbeds of family stress?
Of course, Sofia’s mother and father were gone, so she wouldn’t face the kind of parental judgment some people had to deal with.
Then it hit him: her mother and father were gone.
He didn’t know how they’d died or when, but he did know one thing: it would be hard for her to spend the holidays—a time when families traditionally came together—without them.
Later, he would want her to talk about it. He would want to know more about what happened so he could know more about her. But that would come when she was ready. They weren’t there yet, and that was okay.
As for his own holiday plans, he decided to tell his mother he was coming, buy two plane tickets to Grand Rapids, and then hope that, when the time came, he would need the second one.
He realized how foolishly optimistic it was to think this thing with Sofia would not only last, but would become serious enough that she would want to meet his family in less than three months.
But if he were a betting man, he would bet on love. Every time, he would bet on love.
21
Sofia’s kayak tour business dried up by mid-October, as it did every year, so she began working full-time at Bianca’s practice. Now that Sofia was used to the routine, she didn’t need Madison anymore, and the younger woman had gleefully collected her final check and moved to Los
Angeles.
Sofia was beginning to enjoy the work. The kids who came in for treatment were cute, their parents were mostly agreeable, and Bianca was easy enough to work with.
That is, until she started nudging Sofia on the topic of her lack of a career.
“I’m just saying, you could go to nursing school and become an LPN in a year. You’d make really good money. I mean, sure, if you want to be an RN, it takes longer, but—”
“I don’t want to be a nurse.”
They’d just closed the office for lunch, and Bianca was leaning against the counter next to Sofia’s desk, her intimidating white coat on, her arms crossed in a stance that meant she was in big-sister mode.
“But why? It’s a good career. And it’s not like you’ve got other plans.”
“I do have other plans,” Sofia said. “I plan to lead kayak tours in the summers and work other jobs the rest of the year. Oh, wait, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Looks like my plans are panning out nicely.” She turned away from Bianca and started clicking at her keyboard in the hope that her sister would think she was too busy for conversation.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
“Sofia, you can’t do the kayak thing forever.”
She looked up from the computer screen. “Why not?”
“Because! You’re not going to be young forever!”
Sofia scowled at her sister. “I’m only twenty-eight.”
“That’s now!” Bianca threw her hands into the air. “What about in ten years? Or twenty? You’re going to need something else to fall back on that’s more substantial than … than playing in the water!”
“That’s what you think I do? Play in the water?” She could tell Bianca about the physical demands of her job. About the challenges of running her own business, keeping the books, making her clients happy. She could go into how seriously she took safety and how religiously she kept up with her water rescue and CPR skills. But what was the point? Bianca would believe what she wanted to believe. It didn’t matter that Sofia was an honest-to-God businesswoman. She could never compete with her sisters—especially Bianca.
“I didn’t mean that,” Bianca said. “I just meant—”
“I know what you meant. But we can’t all be doctors.”
“Sof—”
“I’m going to lunch.” Sofia grabbed her purse from the bottom drawer of the reception desk and walked out without listening to her sister’s efforts to backtrack.
For Patrick, mid-October meant midterm exams—first giving them, then grading them. Once that was done, there would be the inevitable flood of students wanting to meet with him to plead for better grades.
The entire prospect seemed exhausting, especially because these days, all he wanted was to spend time with Sofia. He’d been seeing her for a couple of months now, and they’d fallen into a happy routine of having lunch together, taking walks, eating dinner together at his place or hers, and having sex—lots of wonderfully satisfying sex.
Being with her was so lovely, so delicious, that it made the non-Sofia portions of his life seem dull and uninspiring by comparison. So he was happy—more than happy, really—when she called while he was writing an exam question.
“What are you doing right now?” he asked her.
“Oh … wasting my life, according to Bianca.”
Patrick’s brow furrowed. He never knew how to handle these sorts of comments. If he were to side with her against Bianca, there would be backlash when Sofia reflexively defended her sister. But if he sided with Bianca, Sofia would think he wasn’t being supportive. Rock over here, hard place over there. And Patrick positioned squarely between them.
“Ah … why do you say that?” A question was usually safe.
“Because she wants me to go to nursing school so I can have ‘a real career.’ Not like kayaking or like running the front desk in her office, apparently.”
“Oh. Do you want to go to nursing school?”
“No. But she can’t get over the fact that I’m the only one of the four of us who didn’t go to college.”
Ah. College. A topic on which Patrick had some authority. He was happy to be on firmer ground.
“Do you want to go to college?” he asked.
She was quiet for a moment, then said tentatively, “Maybe. I’m not sure. But … maybe.”
“You could try some classes at Cuesta College and see what you think,” he suggested. The community college was near Cal Poly, which was a nice bonus—she could drop in to see him after her classes. “Of course, it’s too late for this semester, but you could sign up for something in the spring. In the meantime, you could audit some of my courses. If you want to, that is.”
“Audit?”
“Sure. You could just attend without formally signing up. Not all instructors allow it, but you’ve got some pull with a certain English professor, so …”
“Hmm,” Sofia said.
Sofia didn’t think she wanted to go to college. If she’d wanted that, she’d have done it right after high school like everyone else. But she hadn’t wanted to admit that outright, because she didn’t want to seem like she was disrespecting what he did for a living. More than that, she didn’t want him to think she couldn’t handle college or that she was afraid to try.
So she’d said maybe when what she’d really meant was hell no.
But now that the idea was sinking in a little, she thought that sitting in on one of his classes might be nice. She could see him in action in his native environment. She was curious about what he did and how he did it. If she gave it a try, it might placate Bianca while satisfying her own need to learn more about Patrick’s world.
He taught a class on Mondays, and Bianca’s office was closed on Mondays, so that worked.
At the very least, it would give Sofia a glimpse of the road not taken, and that couldn’t be a bad thing.
She couldn’t visit his class the following Monday because he was giving a midterm and there would be nothing for her to do except watch a bunch of college kids huddle over their test papers. So they planned for her to attend the week after that. Exams would be over, and Patrick would be giving a lecture.
“What am I supposed to wear?” she fretted the morning of the class, sorting through the things in her closet. Benny was standing in the doorway watching her.
“It doesn’t matter what you wear,” Benny said. “It’s a bunch of heavy-drinking teenagers on their own for the first time. It’s a good day if they remember to wear pants.”
“But most of them aren’t sleeping with the teacher,” Sofia said.
“Well …”
“Stop.” Sofia put up a hand. “If that’s a thing, I don’t want to know.”
“It’s not a thing with Patrick,” Benny said. “I guarantee it.”
“How do you know?” It was a question Sofia had never considered, but now that it was out there, she needed to hear the answer.
“Because he’s too good. He’s too … Patrick. He’d take his responsibilities too seriously to ever sleep with a student.”
Benny was right. She didn’t know him well—Patrick had been spending some time around the Russo house, but not that much—and yet she was right. His basic decency was so fundamental that Benny hadn’t been able to miss it.
“Well, not wearing pants isn’t an option,” Sofia said. “So get in here and help me pick something out.”
She’d spent too much time fussing over what to wear and then searching for a parking place on campus. As a result, Patrick had already started his lecture when she arrived. She quietly slipped into a seat in the back of the lecture hall, trying to create as little disruption as possible.
Patrick was talking about the relative importance of theme vs. plot in contemporary literature and how the balance between the two had shifted over time when he saw her.
He didn’t stop what he was doing. He didn’t fumble or stammer the way she’d known him to do in the past. He didn’t pause in any significant way that woul
d be obvious to an impartial observer. But when his eyes fell on her, he smiled slightly; it was a small, private smile that touched every part of him in a subtle way—not just his lips, but his eyes and the way he held his body. He looked as though he’d just thought of something secret and wonderful, some quiet delight that he took just a moment to savor before moving on.
That was the moment. If there was one instant when her life became not only her own but his, too, it was this. The smile undid her.
As she sat there feeling her resistance melt, she marveled at how different he was here than he was elsewhere in the world. While he sometimes seemed uncertain out there, as though his confidence was faltering, here he was in command, at ease, and utterly natural.
The tone of his voice, the way he worked the room and the crowd full of students held a mastery she’d never seen in him before. She’d never thought of him as an alpha male, but here, in this place, there was no doubt who was in control.
It was ridiculously hot.
Gradually, she became aware that she wasn’t the only one who thought so.
With growing unease, Sofia noticed that most of the students in the front four rows were women. Then she noticed how attentively those women were listening to Patrick’s every word. Maybe they were just interested in theme vs. plot. Maybe they were just exceptionally eager students who wanted to master every nuance of English literature.
Bullshit. There might have been a few like that—one or two studious-looking types who had their heads bent over their notes—but the rest were hot for teacher.
Sofia resisted the urge to rush to the front of the room and stake her claim. Let all of these lithe young coeds find their own men at frat parties or wherever the hell college kids hooked up these days. Patrick was hers.
She hadn’t thought of it in precisely those terms before, but now that she had, it felt true.
Patrick was hers.
Sofia saw no indication that he was flattered by or even aware of what his female admirers might be thinking about him. He worked the whole room, male and female, young and old, asking questions and listening carefully to the answers of middle-aged returning students as well as the newly minted adults around him.
