Here & Now (7 page)

Keeping her out there for two dances, our food is waiting for us when we get back and it doesn’t take her long to pick up the fork in front of her and dive right in.

Another thing I like about her that I’ve never gotten to experience with any of the other girls I’ve been with. She’s someone who doesn’t focus on the fact that she needs to maintain some image or body weight. She focuses on being hungry and just eating.

Cadence is like no other girl in the world.

Ignoring my own plate and watching hers, I wait until she places the fork down, wipes at her mouth with the napkin and meets my eyes before reacting to everything I just witnessed.

Why are you laughing?

“I’ve never seen a girl attack a dinner plate before.”

Sticking her tongue out, making me wanna lean across the table and grab ahold of it with my teeth, she grins before lowering her eyes to the plate.

I couldn’t help it. It looked so good.

“So it had nothing to do with you wanting to get this dinner over with so we could get out of here and back into normal clothes?” I ask the minute her gaze is trained on my lips again.

No. Despite the way I felt when you showed up earlier. I like it here. I’m comfortable.

“So you might want to do this again?”

“I could be talked into it.”

The impact on my heart, the way my entire chest seems to seize the minute she speaks out loud, there’s no mistaking how amazing it feels. I was completely okay with going the rest of the night speaking to her while she signed, but my girl, she’s not having any part of that. Her admitting she’s comfortable, they’re not just words. She’s proving it in actions.

“Does that extend to dancing with me again too?”

“Yes, if you play your cards right.”

“Has anyone told you how amazing you are?”

She blushes then smiles and taps her chin before laughing and I swear, watching how natural it is, my heart starts flipping over in my damn chest.

“Hmm, you know, I think someone just did.”

“Well, if it took them that long to tell you, I might need to have a few words with them. Someone as amazing as you needs to be made aware of it every damn second.”

I don’t wait around for her to reply. I can already tell even before I’ve finished speaking with the tinge of pink creeping across her face that I’ve gotten to her. I don’t need to push for any more. Placing my attention back down on the plate in front of me, I finally settle into a silent moment where the both of us don’t need to be looking at each other, speaking or even touching.

We eat in silence and just be.

Hearing the scraping of her fork a few minutes later, I finally look up and take her in again. Her eyes are still focused on the plate in front of her, but the uplifting of her lips is noticeable.

Cadence really is having a good time. Doing this was the right thing, despite how the night started.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, interrupting my silent watching and putting my focus back not only on her, but to those puckered lips of hers I want to kiss so badly.

“You can ask me anything.”

“Why did you want to do this tonight? The real reason.”

“Who says what I told you when I asked wasn’t the real reason?”

“Because I know you and there’s always more to it.”

She’s right. She does know me, better than anyone, so of course she would be able to see right through me.

“The reason I told you before is true, I wanted to do something for you, but I also did it for me too.”

“What does that mean?”

“I love you and it’s been sort of a rough go since we got back. You’ve been keeping the way you feel about things from me and that’s partially my fault because I let you. I want to change all of that, ya know? I wanna make sure you know how much I feel for you, how much I care and how much I love you. This was one of the ways I could make that happen.”

“I know how you feel about me, Dillon.”

“Do you? Do you know that the only thing keeping me going when I was in Toronto was getting to see you on Skype every day after school and at night before bed? Do you know that a lot of times I couldn’t sleep because I wasn’t doing it with you? Or the way my heart hurt every single time I had to say goodbye to you?”

She has no idea how I feel about her because I’m such an idiot that I just assumed she’d be able to tell just with my telling her I loved her when we were together. I assumed every single step of the way and just like I can’t know unless she tells me or shows me, she can’t be expected to just know either.

I’m calling a rewrite. It’s time to get this shit out. Let her know everything, even if it makes me look like a whipped little boy.

“The last person to ever act like they loved me was my grandmother. When she died, so did love. I told you this before, but you changed all of that. You gave me back what Rebecca and Bruce stole. I don’t just love you for the way you look, the way you make me feel or even because of the way we are together. I love you because you gave me my heart back and then sealed in the hole so nothing else could get to it. Showed me a better way. Cadence, you’re fucking everything to me.”

Shit. I went too far.

She’s crying and I know how she feels about the way people are looking at her tonight so this is the last damn thing I want happening.

Fuck. I need a filter.

Reaching out across the table, I slip my hand around hers again, but this time the grip I have isn’t gentle. It’s tighter, more secure and if she would just look up right now she’s be able to see the apology waiting for her in my eyes and the one that’s just waiting to fall from my lips, loud enough for only her to hear.

She does what I want, but what she sees there, she doesn’t allow.

“I love you isn’t enough is it?”

“No, it’s not, but it’s gonna have to do until we can come up with something better.”

“You’re everything to me too.” She whispers as she brushes away the stray tear that falls from her eye. “I didn’t need this tonight in order to know how you felt because when you look at me, I see it. I hear it, and when it’s not there, you always find a way to do what you just did so that I never have to doubt it.”

“But you have doubted it?”

She nods, but before I can start again she silences me with a squeeze of her own to my hand.

“Yes, but not because of anything you did. I doubted it because there’s still so much I need to learn and to be honest, you’re kind of too good to be true.”

“I’m not that good.”

“Yes, Dillon you are. I saw it that first day, and every single day after that even when we weren’t hearing each other, you proved it. I didn’t give your heart back, it was there all along. This,” she says, lifting herself slowly from her seat until her hand is resting directly above where my heart beats for her. “This is good. It’s better than good. It’s pure and it’s strong and its right, even when you think it isn’t. I always knew it, I just thought that when you realized it, you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

“I’m always going to need you.  I don’t want to imagine where I’d be if you weren’t sitting in class that day. I need you just as much now as I did then and I always will.”

“I need you too.”

Looking from our empty plates to her and back toward the door, I know what’s got to happen now. With the road this conversation has taken, the feelings we’re admitting to, things we should have been saying all along, it’s clear.

It’s time for phase two of the night. The part where it ends with her in my arms and if I have my way, never letting go of her again.

“Let’s get out of here. There’s something I wanna show you.”

Cadence

When Dillon said he had something to show me, this is not at all where my mind went.

As far as dates go, I’m pretty sure there aren’t a lot of people that enjoy being brought to a cemetery. Spending time around the dead doesn’t scream enjoyment, but if what he’s going for is me having a renewed appreciation for my life, the minute my feet land on the ground and we start making our way through the gates, he’s got it.

As we make our way down the winding path, his hand gasping mine tightly, he picks up his pace until we come to a stop nestled between two trees, a large gravestone with the name Murphy etched across it glaring back at us.

I want to ask him why he brought me here, who this person is and what this means for the conversation we were having at the restaurant but he beats me to the punch.

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

He has no idea.

Turning into me, making sure my eyes are level with his lips, he adjusts his body just slightly and points down to the stone marker in front of us.

“This is Bernice Murphy. My grandmother.”

This is the only woman that by his own admission, he’s ever loved. The one person he holds on a pedestal because she’s the reason he even knows love at all.  Dillon brought me here so I could meet her.

“I used to come out here two or three times a week after practice, if I wasn’t dicking around with the guys on the team or having to meet my dad for a fight. I started coming less and less after I got with Amy because I figured she was dead, so showing up wouldn’t matter anymore. The same way I was stupid with you, I was stupid with her.”

I hate the way he talks about himself. He’s not stupid. So there’s things he doesn’t get because he had himself shut off for so long. That doesn’t make him stupid or wrong or a mess the way he thinks. It just makes him human.

“I didn’t show you as often as I should have how much you meant to me. I just assumed you’d know and I did the same thing with her. I think if I really want to make all of that right, I need to start with the both of you.”

“There’s nothing to make right, Dill.”

“Yeah baby, there is. I bailed on her. If it wasn’t for the groundskeepers keeping it clean, this spot would look like crap because no one gave a crap. My dad stopped giving a shit the second she was in the ground and my mom was so doped out I don’t even think she realized that her mother in-law was dead. I was supposed to be the one keeping her alive and I just gave up.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Turning away from the stone and putting his attention back on me, I slide my arm through his until I’m cradled into his side, no longer needing to see his face to say what I want to next, but wanting us connected so I can give him the comfort he needs.

“People make mistakes. You got busy with the team and you changed. I’m pretty sure if she was here, she’d understand and tell you it was okay.”

Lifting my head when he strokes my cheek to get my attention, I see the surprise waiting for me behind his eyes. Even after all this time he never saw that response coming.

“You really believe that?”

“I do.”

“It still doesn’t change the fact that I should have been here.”

“Maybe not, but you’re here now.”

Squeezing me close before pulling away, he makes his way over to the tree on the left side of the grave and slipping the leaves through his fingers he turns back to me, his expression serious, but the hint of some level of nostalgia in his eyes. He’s remembering something and whatever it is, it’s a good memory.

“About six months after she died, I came out here one day and I hated the way the place felt so I got as much information as I could from the groundskeeper and contacted the city. An eight year old kid trying to make adults see sense, it was hard but they finally caved. I planted these.”

The same way I never expected Dillon to be much of a romantic, I also didn’t figure him for much of a gardener either. With the way his mom and dad lived, I just assumed they paid someone for that kind of thing. I never imagined in a million years he would want to do something that beautiful.

It’s amazing how much I still don’t know about the boy I’m in love with.

“I used to slip the groundskeeper money to pay extra attention to these trees after I had them planted. They were as important to me back then as she was.”

“How long has it been since you paid him?”

His head lowers, his eyes completely blocked from my view and it hurts. I didn’t mean to make him feel bad with the question, in fact the reason I asked was because from the looks of them, they’re well maintained, which made me think he’s been keeping up with it for a while, but it’s obvious he took it the wrong way.

“Years, Cadence. I haven’t been here in years doing that.”

“Well then the groundskeeper must have a thing for your grandmother because they’re beautiful.”

His smile hits first and then the lightened look in his eyes follows as he turns back to me and makes his way back over, again letting me slide my arm through his and bringing me into his body.

“How I feel, you were right earlier. I don’t need a fancy dinner to prove it. I just needed to bring you here because this is the one place the way I used to be couldn’t break. Until I walked into your mom’s class, this is where love was. Buried six feet under surrounded by baby trees that aren’t babies anymore.”