The Light Between Us

by Poppy Parkes

  “Writing,” Derek repeated, nodding in encouragement. “Well, that certainly does seem to fit you better.”

  “What do you mean?” Ruth asked, wrinkling her nose.

  “Well, I don't know you all that well,” he said with a shrug. “Yet, anyway. But I can see that there's this . . . something to you. Like you're drawing your life from a deep well within. It's what makes you so mysteriously, wonderfully attractive. Writing just makes sense with that.”

  Her blush darkened. “Well. I don't even know what to say.” She smiled up at him.

  “Then don't say anything,” he murmured, pulling them to a halt on the dirt path. “Just let me kiss you.” Derek lowered his face to hers, blood roiling through his veins faster as her breath wafted against his skin. But before he could land a kiss, she pulled her hand from his and dodged away.

  “Only if you can catch me first,” she said with a grin, then turned on her heel and took off down the path, away from him.

  Derek stood stupefied for a moment. Some inner voice of derision spoke, Catch her? How immature. But immediately a playful spirit rose in him and drowned that starched voice, and he raced after her, tie flapping over his shoulder. Maybe it was childish, but he didn't care because it was also fun. And it'd been so long since he'd had such fun with a woman – or anyone, really. It was an innocent kind of fun, and felt deliciously refreshing.

  His breath came faster as he dashed along the path, his feet unused to running in dress shoes. Ruth's hair billowed out behind her, leaping up and down in time with her movement. She looked back at him over her shoulder, laughing. “Come on, slow poke!”

  Something grew inside of him as he ran, something that felt old but also young, and familiar in a distant sort of way. An enjoyment of the movement for its own sake, his arms and legs pumping, heart pounding in his rib cage, the air flowing through his hair, streaming over the skin of his cheeks . . .

  Delight. The word came to him, and it seemed laced in magic and an alluring unknown. He was delighting in this, reveling in the game, in the exuberance of breaking out of the expected. When was the last time he had been able to use that word to describe a part of his life? He couldn't remember, and though he might not have thought so a week ago, that suddenly seemed like a very bad thing.

  Ruth disappeared around a bend in the path up ahead, and he recognized that they were entering the Public Garden. The damp, lush smell of loamy, well-tended earth filled his lungs as Derek pressed himself to run even faster, feeling a sheen of sweat build up under his shirt collar.

  He rounded the bend, and suddenly she was right there, catching him by surprise, throwing her arms around him as he tumbled into her, pressing her lips soft and hard against his. He gasped, reeling from the shock for a moment before returning the kiss, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her body against his.

  His hands were everywhere, traveling the valleys and peaks of her body with a mind of their own, urged on by the desire coiling crimson and hot in his gut. He felt her pelvis press against his, and groaned. Her fingertips massaged into his back, tantalizing his neck, his ears, making him pull her all the closer as if they could literally become one body.

  At last, reluctantly, Ruth pulled away, she left her head tucked close in to his, their breath a symphony. Her curls brushed against his cheek, and he shivered.

  She smiled and took his hand, leading him again, this time through the Garden.

  They walked in silence along the manicured, twisting paths, past oaks and elms and other trees whose names Derek could have learned if he'd cared to stop and read their accompanying plaques. But he didn't want to interrupt the intimate quiet that had fallen between himself and Ruth. He shivered again, savoring the feeling.

  A final turn in the path gifted them with a view of the lagoon that spread across the center of the Garden.

  “Come on,” Ruth said, tugging at his hand insistently when Derek paused to take in the sight.

  He smiled, intrigued. “What's the rush?”

  “That,” she replied, extending an arm. Looking at where she pointed, he saw one of the swan boats that ferried passengers about the lagoon docked, with a handful of people boarding. Smiling even wider at this unexpected adventure, he followed.

  Ruth dropped his hand as they neared the dock, moving to the ticket booth and purchasing them seats on the boat. Then the pair boarded, choosing seats at the very back, well away from their few fellow passengers.

  Derek drew Ruth closer to him along the bench they were sitting on. She rested her head on his chest. “This is quite the treat,” he spoke into her hair, the tendrils tickling his lips.

  Sitting up, she stared at him. “You've never ridden the swan boats?” she asked, incredulous, gesturing at the boats' namesake, the gigantic man-made swan that roosted on the boat behind them. The driver took his seat there and the boat pulled away as Derek shook his head.

  “No, never,” he said.

  “Well, I'm glad I'm able to fill in this glaring gap in your Boston cultural edification, Mr. Stone,” she teased, giving his shoulder a light shove.

  “I never knew how remiss I was.” He placed both hands over his heart and feigned an expression of contrition. “Will you ever be able to forgive me?”

  “I'm sure I could find it in me,” she purred into his ear. Then she pulled away. “Okay, my turn to ask a probing question.”

  “Hmm, probing,” Derek said, arching an eyebrow. “I like the sound of that.”

  She slapped his arm playfully as the boat paddled around the lagoon. “You know that's not what I mean.”

  He raised his hands as if in surrender. “Ask away. My life is an open book.”

  “Okay.” Ruth paused, swallowing hard, as if steeling herself for the question. “What's the deal with this whole one night stand shtick you've lived for so long?”

  “Shtick?” he repeated, raising both eyebrows now.

  “Now you're the one avoiding the question.”

  Derek sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. He wanted to be open with Ruth, wanted to let her in . . . but damn, it seemed like it was going to hurt. Everything in him screamed to run. If he hadn't been on a boat, he might have.

  “Derek. Hello.”

  He opened his eyes. “Couldn't we start with an easier question? Like, my favorite comfort food?” Leaning in close, he whispered conspiratorially, “It's a plate of spaghetti with mozzarella cheese melted over it.”

  “Okay, that is kind of the ultimate comfort food, I'll give you that,” Ruth said, cocking her head at him and fixing him with a stern gaze. “But my question stands. I want to know what made you get so hard with women – and,” she added as he opened his mouth to crack a rather crude joke, “I do not mean that kind of hard.”

  He sighed again. “Fine.” He drew a suddenly tremulous breath. “When I was in high school, there was this girl. Denise. Denise Parker.” He hadn't meant to, but he spat the name. He wiped clammy palms against his trousers, feeling vaguely ill in a way that had nothing to do with riding on a boat.

  “And you liked her,” Ruth prompted, tucked a wind-tossed curl behind her ear.

  Derek nodded. “I did. She was my first crush. And when I asked her to go to the prom with me, she said yes. I was totally elated – I mean, she was way out of my league.” He scowled, remembering, and hating the remembering. He had spent so much time trying to run from and ignore this seminal relationship experience, and now here he was laying it out before a woman who could very well turn out to be just another Denise. Fuck. Derek tugged a shaky hand through his hair.

  “And then what happened?”

  “Well,” he said, feeling as if his tongue moved through mud as he spoke, “I went to pick her up the night of the prom. Had a great corsage and everything. And . . .” His voice trailed away.

  Ruth took his hand in both of hers, caressing the skin on the back of his hand with her thumbs. “And . . . ?” she said, voice gentle.

  Derek shook his head. “She wasn't there.
She'd gone to the prom with another guy, and there I was, standing on her front porch arguing with her very confused parents. They must have thought I was insane, or at least an idiot.”

  “Wow,” said Ruth, wincing. “That is – wow. How horrible.”

  “I don't know why she said yes when I asked her. She and her friends must have planned it to embarrass me. Nothing else makes sense. But . . . why?” he said, more to himself than to Ruth, frowning. “Why would she do such a thing? Why even bother?”

  “That is horrible,” she said again. “I'm so sorry you had to go through that.”

  “It was really messed up,” he agreed. “And after that, I vowed to never again let a girl get to me like Denise had, ever.”

  “I can understand feeling like that,” said Ruth slowly, eyes brimming with empathy. The knot that Derek hadn't realized was clenching at his stomach slowly began to unwind itself as he realized that she wasn't going to laugh, or blow his story off. So far, that critical voice inside him snarked.

  He shrugged. “I guess you could say it was also partly revenge by proxy, treating women the way I have. I could never get back at Denise, so I took it out on a stream of women who reminded me of her.”

  “Do I remind you of her?” Ruth asked shrewdly.

  “No.” The immediacy and firmness of his answer surprised even him. “I don't know how I could tell, exactly, but I knew as soon as I saw you that you were different somehow. Better than she was. And so far, you're proving me right.”

  Ruth frowned. “No wonder you were so angry when you came by this weekend and found Sam at my place. That must have been kind of nightmarish for you.”

  “Yeah.” He tried, with limited success to suppress a wince at the memory. “But like you said, it's not like we were together or anything. Misunderstanding, remember?”

  “I know. I'm not saying it wasn't a misunderstanding, but . . . I'm still sorry that something I did might have rubbed salt in an old wound.”

  Suddenly Derek's heart felt too big for his chest, expanding with gratitude. He gathered her up into his arms and clasped her tight.

  Ruth wound an arm out of his embrace and cupped his cheek tenderly with her palm in a way that made him have to swallow back sudden tears.

  “I'm so grateful for you, Ruth Hunter,” he said at last in a choked voice. “I don't know why you're giving me a shot, but I'm so grateful.”

  Taking one of his hands in hers, she planted a light kiss on its back that sent tremors through him and made him wrap his arms around her again even tighter. “I'm grateful for you, too,” she whispered.

  They stayed that way for the remainder of the ride, the swan boat puttering them around the lagoon under the watchful eyes of the downtown Boston buildings towering beyond the Garden's trees. But Derek barely saw any of it, lovely though the sunny autumn ride was. All of his attention was trained intently on the feeling of Ruth's body curled against his.

  He never wanted to let her go, wanted to spend every waking moment with her. He'd spent so long fleeing from exactly this, and now that he'd finally stopped running he felt painfully aware of what he'd been missing out on.

  But, he thought to himself, if I hadn't been the way I was with women, maybe I would have settled down with someone else, someone who is not Ruth. And he couldn't imagine wanting to be with any other woman more than he wanted to, loved to, be with the woman who was somehow resting in his arms so trustingly.

  I don't deserve her, he thought to himself yet again, but damn, do I want her.

  * * *

  “So,” Derek said, arching an eyebrow at Ruth. “It's my turn.”

  They were holed up in a dim and cozy corner of a restaurant on Boyleston Street that served the self-proclaimed best New England clam chowder in the city. Ruth had ordered them two bowls of it, and they'd spent the better part of ten minutes arguing the chowder's merit. Now the downtown workday lunch crowd was just beginning to filter in, making the restaurant with its dark wood paneled walls feel less austere.

  Ruth arched her eyebrow right back. “My turn for what?”

  He leaned in over the table. “To tell me something true about you.”

  “Something true?” Her voice fell thoughtfully, eyes taking on a faraway sheen.

  “Yes. Something real. Like about your writing,” Derek suggested. “Since you quite literally dodged my curiosity when we were at the park.”

  “Well, we were at a park,” she replied, brown eyes glinting mischievously. “What else are you supposed to do at a park?”

  “And now we are at a restaurant. And what else does one do at a restaurant but talk?”

  “Eat,” Ruth pointed out.

  “And talk,” countered Derek, “unless you're an embittered married couple, which we are certainly not. Yet, anyway.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You see embitterment in our future? That's rather bleak.”

  Derek blinked, uncomprehending for a moment, then chuckled. “You know that's not what I mean.”

  The thoughtful expression returned to her face. “Then tell me what you did mean.”

  “That we are not a married couple yet, obviously,” Derek shot back, then felt goosebumps run up and down his arms.

  Did I seriously just say that? he wondered, feeling his eyes grow as round as saucers. I practically just proposed. The chill was replaced by a creeping, crimson blush. He seemed to be blushing a lot since he'd met Ruth. And now he was apparently adding putting his foot into his mouth to his repertoire. Classy, he thought.

  “I'm sorry,” he said hastily, shaking his head. “I didn't mean –“

  Ruth held up a hand. “If you're about to apologize for telling me that I'm a woman you'd consider marrying, you can stop right there.”

  Derek stared, feeling flustered. “Ah. Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Um, may I ask why?”

  “The way I see it, I either want to be single or married. I don't want to date or sleep around.” She shrugged. “So if I'm going out with a guy, he's going to have to be a guy that I'd consider marrying.”

  “And . . . am I that kind of a guy?” he asked, barely believing that this sort of a question could enter his mind, much less leave his lips. “The kind of guy you might marry, I mean.”

  Ruth smiled, and the vision of it made Derek's stomach swoop pleasurably. “I'm here, aren't I?”

  He smiled back, although his felt more nervous than Ruth's smile looked. “You are, although I can't imagine why.”

  “Because just like you see some mysterious something in me, I sense something in you, Derek. It's something that draws me to you, even though logically I know you don't have the best track record with women. I like you. Kind of a lot, actually.” Her eyes seemed to darken, smolder.

  “And I like you, kind of a lot,” Derek said, repeating her words back to her in a gently teasing voice, even though he meant every word.”

  “Does that scare you?” she asked, meeting his gaze square on.

  He fingered the handle of the spoon laying dormant next to his nearly-empty bowl of chowder. “Should it?” he countered, knowing he was stalling.

  “I'm not saying it should,” Ruth replied. “And I imagine it does scare you, given your non-committal way of being with women.”

  Derek shook his head. “It should scare me. I meant, it would have, just a couple of weeks ago. But with you . . . it's more exciting than anything else, to be honest. Which,” he snorted, “in turn makes me fear for my sanity somewhat.”

  “You know,” she said, snaking her hand across the table and folding her fingers around his, “you're doing pretty amazing for, um, a womanizer.” She winked, making him guffaw. “Okay, I know that sounds weird. But it's true. You are certainly exceeding my expectations.”

  “Oh?” He caressed her hand with his thumb. “And what did you expect from this seasoned womanizer?”

  “I didn't think you'd be able to get through one date without trying to get in my pants.”

  “Ouch,” he said, leaning back wit
h a wince.

  “I don't think my expectation was unreasonable, given your history,” Ruth said, jabbing him in the shoulder with a finger. “But I really am glad to be proven wrong. Really really. Keep proving me wrong, okay?”

  “I'll do my best. I am doing my best.”

  The corners of her lips turned up in a smile. “I know. I see it.”

  Derek leaned across the table so that his lips brushed her skin as he spoke. “Ruth,” he whispered in a husky voice. He heard her breath catch.

  “Yes?” she breathed back.

  “You have once again skillfully avoided my question.”

  He felt her lashes feather against his cheek as she blinked once, twice, making him shiver. “Question?” she repeated, and he could hear a quiver in her voice that matched the one that had just tremored through his body.