One & Only (Canton) (24 page)

And I had to admit, there was still some small part of me that wondered if that was why Dylan had waited until now to take me out on the town. Our relationship up until now had been stolen kisses at the end of lab times, a few lunches here and there. Technically not so very different than what we’d been doing before we were officially together. We might be boyfriend and girlfriend for real now, but no matter how many times I told myself that, I didn’t really believe it. My slim experience with boyfriends in the past wasn’t sufficient to teach me how one behaved with this boyfriend. This man I loved. This man I was in a week-long relationship with that felt like it should be so much more.

Dylan planned to head home Saturday afternoon, but he’d promised me he’d be back right after Thanksgiving so we could put the finishing touches on our project before the department review period and, he added, spend some quality time together before exams made everything crazy. That meant that if we didn’t go out tonight, it wasn’t going to happen until sometime after break or—knowing the way Dylan attacked his lab work—maybe even after exams. After Christmas Break? By then we’d have been together a month, but would it still feel like no time at all, and also like entirely too long.

These were the thoughts running on a loop while I showered, dressed, and did my makeup. I kept it subtle tonight—none of Cristina’s peacock-inspired eyes. A simple swipe of mascara, a touch of gloss on my lips. I wore a black wrap dress of my own instead of something from my mom’s extensive wardrobe. It had a wide, swirly skirt and a plunging v-neckline that displayed the silver T to perfection. I blow-dried my hair so it had a nice wave but left it down so it floated over my shoulders. And when I was ready I took a long, appraising look at myself in the mirror.

I was not my mother, not my father. I had his eyes, her face and figure, but I hadn’t followed their path. The boy I loved loved me enough to choose me. Loved me enough to make me his for real. It was everything I wanted, everything I’d asked him for, everything I’d thought wasn’t possible for a girl like me.

So why wasn’t I happier?

My doubts plagued me until I heard Dylan’s knock at the door. I answered and the second I saw him, it all fell away. He wore a pair of dark pants and a charcoal-gray sweater that made his eyes practically glow with blue fire. Or maybe it was his expression that glowed.

“Tess,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. “You look beautiful.”

I fingered the skirt. “Yeah, once I’m out of the lab coat, I clean up nice.”

“No,” he replied. “You look beautiful in the lab coat, too.”

He made small talk with my mom, took me by the hand, and led me to his car.

“Where are we going?” I asked once we were seatbelted in.

“Verde.”

I turned to him, eyebrows raised.

“What, don’t you like that place? You spend enough time there. I thought it was your favorite.” He winked at me and pulled out of the parking lot. “Nah, don’t worry, T. I didn’t get to take you out for a birthday drink, and I know a place I think you’ll love. They’re a little swanky and they definitely don’t serve the underage collegiate crowd, so this will be your first opportunity to try it out.”

And so he hadn’t taken Hannah, either, if you couldn’t go until you were twenty-one. Was he purposefully taking me to someplace off the campus radar so we didn’t run into anyone who knew him with Hannah?

Stop thinking like that, Tess. Just stop.

After about fifteen minutes of driving, he pulled up in front of an unassuming brick storefront. A black awning out front had a name painted in gold block letters that I couldn’t quite read from this angle. We approached the front door.

“Alchemy,” I said when the name finally became visible.

“After you, lab partner.” Dylan opened the door for me.

The inside looked like something out of a Sherlock Holmes movie, all exposed brick walls and copper pipes leading every which way. Giant glass vats suspended over the bar were lit from within so their mysterious contents glowed green and gold and blue. The walls were lined with dark glass bottles featuring hand-stenciled labels. We weren’t in a bar—we were in some sort of Victorian apothecary.

Dylan and I found seats at a small, high table, and I perched on the leather-covered barstool, the full skirt of my dress sliding to the side. We opened the leather-bound menus and I perused the offerings, divided into “subjects” like Brews, Elixers, and Potions. We certainly weren’t in Verde anymore. There wasn’t an Amaretto sour to be seen, and despite my own bartending experience, I didn’t recognize half the liqueurs they listed.

“Adorable,” I stated, eyeing him over the rim of the menu.

“Yeah,” he replied. “So…do you have any idea what elderflower tastes like?”

Our waitress arrived, dressed in a high-necked shirt with puffed sleeves and a bustle skirt. After she went through the usual patter, she informed us of a special promotion available that evening. Apparently they’d hired a palm reader to help guests concoct the perfect drink, based on the fortune the reader gave us.

“Interested?” the waitress asked. “I didn’t get a drink because my shift started, but I have to say, I liked my fortune.”

“I’m pretty skeptical about stuff like that,” I said.

“It’s just a drink,” Dylan pointed out. “Not a prescription for life.”

“Oh, honey,” the waitress said to him as she took our menus. “You clearly haven’t had one of our cocktails before.”

In the end, we decided to let the fortune-teller choose for us, just for the story.

She came over, a middle-aged woman in flowing dresses and more than her fair share of bangles. “I’m Madame Misty,” she intoned. “Give me your palm.”

I shied away, chuckling nervously. “You first, Dylan,” I said. “This bar was your idea.”

He shrugged, then gamely held out his hand. “To be fair, I was going for the chemistry angle, not the mysticism.”

I expected her to read the lines on his palm, but she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she looked deep into his eyes for a second, slapped his hand up and down a few times, turned it over once, then took a deep breath.

“You’re on the right track,” she said.

“That’s good to know,” Dylan said with a smile. “What should I drink?”

“Whatever you want,” she replied, her tone just as matter of fact. “Your decision will not be wrong. You are intelligent and ambitious, but you never let that lead you astray. You live by your heart, and your heart is pure. The work you do arises from true passion. The love you know is the same. You do not doubt, and your aim is true. What do you
want
to drink right now?”

“I think we need our money back,” I said. I looked at the lady. “I thought you were supposed to pick for us.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Fine. I will write down what I think, and then we’ll ask your boyfriend.”

“How do you know I’m her boyfriend?” Dylan asked.

Madame Misty turned back to him. “The same way I know she won’t like what I choose for her.” She pulled out a pen and scribbled a note on a cocktail napkin, then slid it to me. “You hold it.” She looked at him. “Now tell me what you want.”

“Whiskey,” he said. “Something with a little spice, but not too sweet so it overwhelms the flavor.”

I unfolded the napkin. “It says, ‘The Golden Heart.’”

Dylan consulted the menu. “It’s on here. Rye, cognac, Peychaud’s, absinthe—what’s that?”

“Sounds kind of like a Sazerac cocktail,” I said. Whiskey, spicy, a tiny bit sweet. “It’s just what you asked for.”

“A believer now?” Madame Misty asked me, her eyebrow raised.

I sighed and held out my hand.

She thwapped it up and down a few times, and a frown crossed her features. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Dylan echoed with a sly grin.

“You will never be free until you let go.”

Well, there’s a tautology,
I thought.

“Maybe she has us mixed up?” Dylan asked. “I was the one who needed to get free,” he explained to the fortune-teller.

No, she had Dylan exactly right. He always followed his heart, he was always true to himself, and he only wanted to do the right thing.

“There is a fire within you, but you’ll smother it in darkness if you aren’t careful.”

“Ouch,” I said lightly. “You’re right about one thing. I don’t think I’m going to like what you choose for me.”

“But you should let me choose anyway,” Madame Misty replied. “For no choice you make can be true while your heart holds lies.”

I snatched my hand back as if she burned it with her touch. How dare she say that aloud—I mean, how did she know? “What should I drink then?” I stated as flatly as I could manage. I would not let her or Dylan know she’d rattled me.

“Love Lies Bleeding,” she replied, then wandered off.

“Ugh, what a fraud,” I said as soon as she was out of earshot. Seriously, what the hell was that? Was she trying to wreck our date? Trying to wreck my life? I mean, that was the only option, right? It wasn’t like she was
actually
psychic.

But he seemed unconcerned by the fortune. “Love Lies Bleeding,” Dylan read from the menu. “Blood orange, campari, gin… That sounds tasty.”

“That sounds bitter,” I said, realizing only after the words left my mouth that bitter was what I sounded.

“It’s just a game,” he said, his tone consoling. “You can order a martini if you want. It’s not binding arbitration.”

And when the waitress came around again, I ordered what the menu called Elderflower Tonic, while Dylan went ahead and got the suggested Golden Heart. We also ordered food. Now that the fortune-teller was safely handling customers on the other side of the restaurant, I started to relax. Dylan obviously hadn’t ascribed any great meaning to her palm reading, and I shouldn’t either. It was just a lucky guess. Or maybe she sucked up to guys while cutting down the women, on the expectation that it was men who’d give her her tips. I knew some waitresses at Verde like that.

The Elderflower Tonic was a strongly herbal concoction served in a tall, slim glass with a sprig of rosemary. The Golden Heart came in a brandy snifter. Both were delicious and as we sipped our beverages and chatted, the date quickly got back on track.

“Do you have plans for the summer yet?” he asked me as we ate.

“I’m not sure if I can plan past next semester,” I replied. “If we don’t win this symposium, I may not be able to afford to finish at Canton. I might have to take a semester or two off to make some money.”

His eyes widened. “Tess—it can’t be that bad, can it?”

I shrugged. It might not be. My mom might be able to talk Dad into at least loaning me the money. Now that he was over his anger at me transferring to Canton behind his back, surely he wouldn’t begrudge me a few thousand dollars a semester. Not after all the money he was saving on my apartment out at State. “Well, I was getting money from my father when I was at State, but he’s not giving it to me anymore.”

The problem was, I didn’t want his money anymore.

“That sucks.” He eyed me, frowning with concern. “You never talk about your father.”

“We aren’t very close.”

“Does he live here in Canton?”

Alarm bells started ringing in my head. “Yeah.” I took a drink.

Dylan didn’t pursue the topic. “I guess we’ll just have to win the symposium then.”

“I’ll drink to that!” We clinked glasses and Dylan’s blue eyes met mine as we sipped.

“But seriously…plans for this summer?”

“Why?”

He put down his drink. “Because I got a paid internship with Solarix, and when I was speaking to my contact this morning she mentioned they may have another opening.”

My fork dropped to my plate. “In Colorado?” The bioengineering firm was responsible for the largest-scale protype algae farms in the country.

“They pay for housing, too.” He looked hesitant for a moment. “Is it too early to ask you to spend the summer with me?”

Yes. No. We were barely together, in fact, but it felt like we got some credit for the two years that came between.

I decided on the safe option. “Probably too early to ask for certain, at least,” I said with a laugh. “Unless you’ve also been empowered to offer me a job.”

“But Tess, you’re perfect.”

“How much does it pay?” I asked. Even with housing covered in Colorado, if I stayed here and worked at a lab at, say, Canton Chem, I could still pick up shifts at Verde to help make some extra cash.

But then, I wouldn’t have Dylan. Solarix meant we could be together, far from Canton, far from Hannah and Dad and all our secrets, like the old days when we were at Cornell and I didn’t feel like I was lying to him with every breath.

Ugh, that stupid fortune-teller. Was she going to ruin my whole night?

Instead, I let Dylan tell me about the job. I let him weave a beautiful fantasy of the two of us, the scientific power couple, living together in an apartment in Colorado, working together day after day in a lab.

“And summers in Colorado, they’re so gorgeous. I don’t even know—do you like hiking or fishing or any of that stuff?”

“I definitely like walking,” I said. “And eating fish. I’ve never caught one, but I’m willing to let you teach me.” I’d like to do all those things with him. And more.

By the time they cleared our plates, the spectre of the palm reader’s warning had all but vanished. The waitress handed us dessert menus, but Dylan put his hand over mine.

“I’ve got something waiting at home,” he said, his face full of promise.

A shiver rippled over my skin. “Something sweet?”

“I hope so.”

I couldn’t wait.

TWENTY-ONE

We couldn’t pay the bill fast enough. We walked back to the car, hand-in-hand, and Dylan was frustratingly vague about what exactly his plans were for dessert.

“Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?” I asked. “Tell me that at least.”

He grinned as we drove back to campus. “As soon as you tell me what mineral it is that you eat.”

“Salt?” I suggested after a moment.

“Touche. Then there’s definitely some mineral in it. And animal. And vegetable, for that matter.”