Could Be Something Good

by Fiona West

  “Can I come in?” he asked, his gaze heated, but Winnie shook her head.

  “Reverse date, remember?” She smiled. “All you can do is kiss me like it’s a hello.”

  He shuffled forward, taking her face in his hands. “Then I’m going to pretend I haven’t seen you in days.” Somehow, they were still kissing when she heard footsteps on the stairs behind them.

  “Starla?” Winnie looked at her phone; it was nearly midnight.

  In the dim porch light, Winnie couldn’t see the tears on Starla’s face until she was two feet away, but regardless, the slump of her shoulders, her rumpled clothing, and the dejected cadence of her footfalls had already given away that something was amiss.

  “Anybody on your couch tonight?” she asked, running a hand through her dark hair, then twisting it to squeeze the water out.

  “Did you walk here?”

  She bobbed her head, then hugged her middle, and Winnie’s heart cracked at how defeated she looked. Winnie glanced at Daniel, who looked like he was biting back words and perhaps saving punches for someone who wasn’t there.

  “Well, come in, let’s get you dry and warm,” Winnie said, ushering her into the apartment. There was no sign of Ainsley, so Winnie dug around in the linen closet until she found a towel and an extra quilt and blanket for the couch. “Can I make you a cup of tea?”

  “Sure,” Starla said. She pressed her face into the towel for a long moment.

  “I’ve got some extra PJs you can borrow.”

  “Okay.”

  Daniel had followed them in, and he stood by the doorway with his arms crossed, scowling. “Star, do we need to call the sheriff? Where are your kids?”

  “Cheating’s not illegal,” Starla said matter-of-factly, sitting down hard on the couch. “And the kids are asleep at home. I’ll be back before they wake up. Don’t worry, Charlie wouldn’t leave them alone. He loves them.” She covered her face with both hands, and Winnie watched as Daniel crossed to the couch and sat next to her to hold her around her shaking shoulders. She searched inside for a sense of jealousy, but couldn’t find anything but respect. She liked how much he cared about other people. This was obviously some kind of ongoing thing for Starla, but he wasn’t judging her. No one around here seemed to have anything bad to say about Starla. The same could not be said about Charlie.

  The kettle whistled and Winnie moved quickly to turn it off. Ashwagandha tea would’ve been her first choice; it was good for agitation and stress and was what she’d give Starla if she were recovering from a difficult birth. But a failing marriage was not the same. She rummaged through their meagre selection: chamomile would be soothing without keeping her awake. She had no idea what to do for this situation except try to comfort her. She placed the mug in front of Starla, putting a light hand on her shoulder.

  “Where’s my tea?” Daniel demanded, his mock outrage making both women smile.

  “You have not been invited to stay,” Winnie reminded him. “You should go home and sleep.”

  “Fine, I see how it is,” he said, standing up and putting his hands on his narrow hips. “But this apartment clearly has sexist and discriminatory policies on overnight guests. See if I make out with you again next time you’re upset.”

  Starla pivoted to give Winnie a wide-eyed look, and Daniel stage-whispered to her, “I will, though. She’s an amazing kisser, and I like her a lot. I’d kiss her no matter what.” If Winnie hadn’t already been blushing fiercely, that would’ve done it.

  “Hey,” Winnie started, “don’t—”

  “Fine,” he said, holding up his hands in a show of innocence. “You don’t want Starla to know your superpower, fine. But I’m onto you, lady,” he said, pointing at her with a grin as he shut the front door behind him.

  “Well, well, well.” Ainsley stood in the hallway in a hoodie that said, “Someone in Timber Falls Loves Me” and plaid PJ pants, grinning widely. “Isn’t this a fun development?”

  “Did we wake you? I’m sorry, I should’ve heated the water in the microwave,” Winnie said, fussing with the blankets to attempt to distract the two women staring at her from what had just happened.

  “No, I just got up to pee and saw the lights on. Welcome back, Starla. Winnie, you’ve been making out with Daniel Durand?”

  “Just the once . . . ,” she said, crossing back to the kitchen to wipe something down. Anything, really. There had to be stray drops of water or crumbs somewhere.

  “Well, you might as well put that kettle back on,” said Ainsley, sitting down on the couch. “Because we need the tea, sister.” After her discussion on age with Daniel, Winnie had done a hasty search of common millennial phrases, and this was one that had to do with needing information—especially somewhat scandalous information.

  “Yeah,” Starla said, a shy smile breaking the mask of fatigue and pain she’d been wearing up until now. “I want details, too.” That did it. If it would make Starla happy on what was obviously a terrible night, she’d sacrifice her pride and share.

  “Well, first of all,” she said, “do you know what a reverse date is?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “DON’T PEEK,” HE SAID, covering her eyes with one hand. He’d been quick to invite her over again after their reverse date, and he was excited for her to see his belated birthday surprise.

  “How could I peek? You’re covering my whole face with your giant hand.” She sniffed. “Which smells like fish, by the way. What have you been doing, whippersnapper, and do I want you touching me?”

  He let his warm breath drift onto her neck near her ear. “I’m pretty sure you always want me touching you . . .” She shivered a little, turning her head into his neck, and it was very gratifying to know he was reading her right.

  “Not if it’s going to make me reek like week-old salmon,” she replied primly, and he chuckled as he guided her down the hall.

  “Don’t you trust me, Fred? Would I do that to my friend on her belated birthday celebration?”

  She wrinkled her nose at the moniker.

  “You said I couldn’t call you my girl, and calling you my woman sounded so patronizing. So this is on you. Come up with something better and I’ll use it.” Their slow shuffle down the hall finally halted near the kitchen. “Okay, you can look now.”

  She blinked as her eyes adjusted to being open again. Candlelight bathed the kitchen table, on which were two cream plates with gold edges, a small vase of daisies between them, two V-shaped metal tools, and a couple of tiny two-tined forks. A large empty glass mixing bowl sat on the side closest to them for the shells, and each place setting had a small bowl of a sunny yellow liquid that looked like melted butter. But the real attraction was what sat on each plate.

  “You bought . . . crab?” Her expression was blank.

  Uh-oh.

  He rubbed her upper arms, as if he could coax a reaction out of her. “Yeah, you mentioned how much you loved it a few weeks ago, how you’d always had it with your dad when you were a kid. I know things are kind of weird in your family right now, so I thought I’d try to recreate a special memory for you.”

  Winnie’s face went soft. “Oh. Thank you.” She swallowed. “There’s just one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I have no idea how to eat a whole crab. My dad always cracked mine for me.”

  “Oh.” Daniel rubbed his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. “Well. Hmm. Well, hey, how hard could it be? We can figure this out, right? That’s what YouTube is for.”

  “Ah, yes. YouTube. The millennial’s duct tape.”

  He chuckled softly, then led her over to the table. “Don’t knock YouTube, Fred. That’s how I learned to fix my bike, turn off the water at my parents’ beach house at the street, change the oil in my car, bake zucchini bread. YouTube is my everything.”

  “I see. Well, pull it up, then. Let’s see if it can save this dinner.”

  Daniel pulled his phone out of his back pocket and sat down as he opened the app. Winn
ie leaned over his shoulder to see better. That was nice, but he wanted her closer. He could see down her shirt a little, but he forced his attention to stay on the screen.

  “Let’s see . . . Coastal Loving should know, right? That sounds credible.”

  “That’s Coastal Living, Dr. Durand. Coastal Loving would be something else entirely.”

  He laughed, but Winnie suddenly looked chagrined. She must have realized that she’d hit on one of his weaknesses by correcting his reading. It hadn’t bothered him in the slightest, but he could see that she was troubled.

  He pulled her around the chair. “You can’t see back there. Come up here and learn so I don’t have to do this for you. As you so kindly pointed out, I already smell fishy.” He patted his leg, and Winnie’s mouth dropped open.

  “What was that?” She imitated his motion on his leg, and he grinned.

  “Come sit with me so you can see.” He patted it again, his eyebrows bouncing.

  “I haven’t sat on anyone’s lap since I was six, and even then, I didn’t get the pink scooter I asked for. Jolly old elf, my eye.” Don’t laugh, don’t laugh. He pinned her with a sultry stare, and she shuffled farther away from him. “I’m too heavy.”

  He shifted his hips forward, making his lap bigger, waiting.

  “You are ridiculous,” she muttered, crossing her arms.

  “That’s interesting,” he said, rubbing his leg slowly, like he was warming it up for her. “Wanting to be close to you doesn’t feel ridiculous . . .”

  She hugged herself tighter. “Adults don’t sit like that.”

  “A. That’s not true. And B. Who’s going to know?”

  Winnie sighed and let her arms drop limply to her sides as she meandered closer to him. “This is only because I’m hungry,” she said, carefully lowering herself to balance on his right leg. “This isn’t because I’m on board with your childish—”

  He pulled her close and kissed her, craving her taste again; he’d been replaying their hot make-out session nonstop in his mind. Her lips were soft against his, and when she opened her eyes, she looked a bit dazed in the best way. “You have a lot of things you don’t do,” Daniel murmured.

  “That’s true,” she murmured back, kissing him again.

  “Why is that?”

  “Why?” she repeated, and the storm in her eyes told him she was trying to find the right words. “I think . . .” She faltered. Winnie looked into his eyes; he was trying to stay present in her discomfort, watching her, just listening, his arms wrapped around her hips, his fingers drawing light circles on her leg. Give her yourself, Dad had said. He was sure as hell trying.

  She swallowed. “I think it’s because of my dad. Sometimes, when someone who was important to you dies, their family and friends have this epiphany about how life is short and they get a burning desire to carpe diem. They write that novel, or build that treehouse or start that shelter for homeless cats or whatever that they’ve always dreamed of.” She rubbed the short, soft hair at the back of his neck. “I think I sort of had the opposite reaction. I didn’t want to carpe anything. I wanted to retreat from life, to be safe; I think that’s why graphic novels appealed to me. They still contained the drama of life, but they made the world right when I felt . . . left hanging. My mother withdrew from me, and deep down, I felt that I was on my own from now on.”

  Daniel nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving her face. “So you became a midwife. And for all those babies, you’re helping make sure that they’re safe and cared for and attached, making sure their mamas are there to bond with them. You’re rewriting your story, one birth at a time.”

  Winnie stared at him, and her mouth dropped open. “I honestly never thought of it that way.”

  Daniel kissed her. “That’s because you’re the heroine. The heroine never thinks about herself. That’s the sidekick’s job.”

  “Is that what you are? My sidekick?”

  “I’d like to apply, yes.”

  “The vetting process is lengthy, just so you know.”

  “Oh?” He shifted under her, pulling her closer.

  “Yes, it’s multidimensional, very involved.”

  “Is there any reading involved?” Her crestfallen expression told him she wasn’t ready to joke about his dyslexia yet. He should’ve known better.

  “No,” she whispered. “Unless you count reading me like a book.”

  “That kind of reading comes easy. Unlike the letters on the page, you don’t jump around like fleas when I look at you.”

  “What do you see when you look at me?”

  “A mind that can do six things at once. A compassionate heart that can always make people comfortable. A spirit that exudes joy. Not to mention eyes like lava cake, a smile that knocks me off my feet . . .”

  “You don’t think I’m a coward?”

  “No,” he said gently. “I think you’re fighting one battle at a time. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Even Wonder Woman tries to take on one villain at a time.” He paused, watching her carefully. “You’ve been pulling out that lasso of truth more often lately, huh?”

  She nodded ruefully. “It was overdue.”

  “How does it feel?”

  “It feels amazing. And it hurts. And I’m relieved. And I’m disgusted that it took so long, and I’m thankful that I summoned the courage. And I’m lost to undo the damage I’ve done.”

  He tipped his head to look behind her, then leaned to look in front of her. “Where are you keeping this cornucopia of feelings, Wonder Woman?”

  “I honestly do not know,” she laughed. Winnie’s stomach gurgled, and she pressed a hand to her belly as if to rebuke it. The butter was starting to congeal, too, even though he’d turned up the thermostat from the glacial temperatures Kyle kept it at.

  “I think we’d better watch this video.”

  “Yeah, I think so.” She pushed her face closer to his to see the screen better; he could’ve cast it to the TV, but he wasn’t going to reveal that. It was so cute how she never thought of things like that, and this was far better, anyway. She smelled like lavender again . . . She felt so good, pressed against him. He propped up the phone against the flower vase to have his hands free. This was Dungeness crab, not snow crab like the first one demonstrated, but that guy had a cute little wooden mallet with a bottle opener on the end.

  “Why don’t we have mallets?” Winnie asked.

  “Because Ainsley didn’t give me any.”

  “Maybe we should call . . .”

  “No, no, no! If I call her, she’s going to come over and try to show us how to do this.” Her eyebrows high, her mouth puckered, Winnie watched him with eyes wide as he ranted. He didn’t care. “Then she’ll want a glass of wine, and then this won’t be a date! This is a date, dammit. We can do this, Winnie Baker, we will do this—we will prevail over these crustaceans!”

  “Are you done?”

  “Yes.”

  She picked up his crab and cracked it in half with her bare hands, squirting them with juice. They both yelled, then she leaned over, laughing into his neck, and it was the best feeling he’d had all week. She picked up the pick, carefully worked a large hunk of meat out, and dipped it into the butter.

  “Well, look at you, cracking crab like a real Oregonian . . .” The joke died on his lips as she brought the bite to them, holding one hand under it to catch the butter as it languidly dripped from the crab. Desire fluttered in his belly; automatically, his mouth fell open, and Daniel pulled the crab from the fork with his teeth. He watched as she did the same for herself and let her think that it was the taste of the cold, tender meat paired with the warm, salty butter that had him groaning. Winnie grimaced, holding her hands out in front of her, palms down, fingers spread wide, as if she had nail polish drying. “I think I need a napkin.”

  Without overthinking it, Daniel caught her wrist and brought her buttery fingers to his lips, watching her eyes for confirmation that this was wanted . . . and based on the look she was giv
ing him, she was listening to a debate tournament between propriety and passion in her head. “Can I help you out?” he asked, keeping his voice low. He could feel the trembling in her fingers as she nodded. He needed to go slow, he reminded himself. In the past, he’d always rushed into the physical part of a relationship like a linebacker. With Winnie, it felt more like tiptoeing; she’d been burned by the last guy, and he didn’t want to scare her off.

  Holding her gaze, he brought her first finger to his lips and sucked off the butter slowly, swirling his tongue around the tip of it. He watched as her cheeks heated and her lips parted, and Daniel suddenly knew what he wanted for every Christmas for the rest of his life: getting to watch Winnie’s face while he turned her on.

  Down the hall, a door slammed. “Why does it smell like fish in here?”

  Winnie jumped up, pulling back her hand like she’d been burned. She managed to land her backside in her own seat and pick up the crab crackers before Kyle came into the room.

  “Oh. That’s why.” His brother ran a hand through his dark hair, looking around. “Sorry, I’ll, um . . .”

  “I thought you were going to Philip’s tonight . . .” He kept his eyes on his plate so he didn’t accidentally murder Kyle with his gaze. He felt like it was entirely possible that he could shoot laser beams out of his corneas right now. This was the second time he’d ruined a moment when he and Winnie were getting closer.

  “Yeah, that didn’t work out. Cooper’s sick, so they stayed home.”

  “It’s fine,” Winnie said, sipping her wine. “How was your day, Kyle?”

  “Frustrating.” He opened the hall closet and shoved his backpack inside. “I spent most of the day trying to diagnose a patient’s chest pain, and it turned out he was just dehydrated.”

  “I empathize,” she said, rising as she grabbed both their butter bowls. “One of my patients is having high blood pressure, and she’s resisting the medication to bring it down.”