“How’d your soup go?” he asks.
“Fine. Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
I tell him about the mushroom incident on the way back to his place.
The house Luke lives in isn’t much bigger than a trailer. He parks and takes me inside through the front door. His parents are asleep, but they have three grown sons, are used to girlfriends who sleep over, and don’t mind if their fourth and youngest, at eighteen, now does the same. We go to his closet of a room, mostly just a dresser and a bed. The bed is one of those cheap ones that feels like it might collapse if you move too much on it.
“So what’s going on with you leaving?”
I fill him in on how Estella’s nephew’s been wounded in Afghanistan, and how Dad’s asked me to fly out with her to see him in a few days. I also tell Luke how weird this will be for me—to be alone with Estella for so long, sharing a hotel room with her and visiting a close relative of hers I’ve never met.
“Can’t she just go alone?” he asks.
“You’d think so. But Dad’s convinced she needs help.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know, maybe a week? We’re playing it by ear.”
Luke looks warmly at me and touches my actual ear.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. I’ll just miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
He draws me in closer to him. “I wish I could’ve tried your first solo soup.”
“Oh, sorry—I was so busy, I didn’t think of bringing you any.”
“That’s all right.” He kisses me and pulls at my shirt.
“I was in morel hell making that soup.”
He smiles and kisses me again, sliding his arms around me. I love how it feels when he holds me like this; I just sink right into the comfort of being here. But then after awhile he surprises me by unbuttoning my jeans.
“Uhh...”
“Just a little,” he says.
“But if we start, we won’t want to stop.”
“We’ll stop.”
He comes over me, kissing and caressing me as his hand works its way around to the back of my jeans. Then he shifts me so he’ll have clearer access. I tense up slightly.
“It’s okay,” he whispers, and we start making out again. His fingers wind up moving closer and pressing against me.
“Ahhh,” I breathe, still highly uncertain—I mean, it feels great and I hate to disappoint him. But when it gets so hot and heavy, it makes it harder to put on the brakes. And sex is something I don’t think I’m ready for yet. “Stop, Luke. Please.”
He does. My eyes open. “See? I stopped.”
I smile. “Very good.”
“Very good as in you liked it?”
I cuddle against him, smiling still. “Maybe.”
“Maybe sounds promising.” He strokes my hair. “Beauty girl.”
He’s sweet. He holds me in his arms and explores his newly-claimed turf a few more times before morning. But at five-thirty his alarm goes off and we have to sneak me back home. The kiss goodbye takes longer than usual this time, because of the new development. He’s obviously extremely pleased about it. He can’t stop smiling.
“You’re a goofball,” I tell him.
“You’re fantastic.”
I kiss him one last time. He draws me in closer, and I climb over the console so I’m pressed into him. The steering wheel is pushing up against me, which actually works in his favor. “Mmm,” he says, hugging me tightly. Luke’s told me he likes having me around—in his bed, on his lap, next to him, near him, beside him. When we were in school together he’d meet me after almost every class and often cut class just to be with me at lunch. But he just graduated and I still have senior year to go.
He gives a small wave and watches me leave. Once I’m back in my room, I shuck my shoes, bra and jeans, thinking about him, how he touched me and how he wants me and what it might be like to let him go further. I don’t know why I’m hesitating with him, exactly. We’ve been dating long enough. Most couples probably would have by now. I just feel like once we do have sex everything will change, get so much more serious. The physical would be nice. But then Luke would want me over there all the time. He’d want me to move in with him as soon as I graduate.... I do love him, but a part of me is concerned it might also become kind of smothering. I don’t know. I guess I just like things the way they are.
I climb into the bed and decide to let myself sleep in. After all, I don’t have to be at work until two. Unfortunately, Shelby is used to waking up and being fed early. She sits next to me, staring at me with her stomach growling until I force myself up on my feet to go feed her.
Shelby’s a Cavalier King Charles spaniel—not the most athletic of dogs, but very sweet. She’s about twelve years old now. I’ve had her since I was a little kid. She was a birthday present to me and I love her. So, I wait for her to finish her food, give her new water and then let her out. She has a doggie door she can use on her own, but we’ve gotten into the habit of the full door-opening treatment in the morning. No doggie doors before coffee or something, I guess, I don’t know.
She goes through her freshly-opened door and then turns and waits for me to leave so she can do her business in privacy. It’s kind of cute, but I’m too tired to care. I leave her to do her thing and crawl back into bed to sleep for another hour. After I get up again later, I take a fast shower, change and make my way back into the kitchen, where I find Estella hovering over the stove.
“Morning,” she says. “Coffee?” She’s staring at the little espresso pot and clearly fighting back tears.
Poor Estella. She’s a wreck over this. “He’ll be fine,” I say, realizing this is probably zero comfort to her. “They have state-of-the-art care for our soldiers now.”
Suddenly I’m in a hug. I try to hug her back. But the truth is I was raised mostly by a man and I’m not used to being touched by anyone other than a boyfriend or maybe my aunts the few times I’ve met them. But Estella, I know, is very touchy-feely. Thankfully she pulls away from me pretty quickly. “Sorry, I’m a bit of a disaster.”
“I understand,” I tell her, and suddenly the coffee explodes, boiling over and leaking through the seal. Estella reaches for it with a bare hand.
“No, don’t!” I move her aside, shut off the stove and realize, looking at her, that Estella is barely hanging on. She’s a woman on the verge of a complete meltdown.
“I can’t do this,” she says mostly to herself.
My guess is she thinks her nephew is either dead or on the verge of death and they’re not telling her. Poor Estella. Poor Julian. I glance at the table and see an open photo album there, next to a water glass. She must have just been looking at it. “Are those pictures of him?”
“Yes.”
I go over and take a look. To be honest, I was expecting to see baby pictures, or pictures of him as a little kid, but these must have been taken only a few years ago. Julian looks about my age in the first picture. He’s lounging on the grass in a T-shirt and jeans, all straight nose, cheeks and angular jaw. His toast-brown hair is tinged with blond. There’s a devilish curve in his upper lip. His eyes seem amused—and annoyed. “Wow.”
Estella smiles, obviously pleased by this reaction. “My sister