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“Hey genius, you forgot to tighten the filter,” Nick said while quickly grabbing a towel and laying it under the car where a big black puddle grew on the cement.

“No, come on, let me do it!” she cried, snatching the paper towels and then reaching for the filter under the hood of her car. “You said I could change the oil myself this time. You promised you wouldn’t interfere.”

“Not true. I said I would supervise. Which means interfering when the fluid that goes in your car is leaking onto the street.” And then his thumb smudged some black grease on the tip of her nose.

“You’re asking for it,” she threatened, poking him with a displeased look while fighting off the love behind it.

“Alright, alright,” he said, a short laugh escaping him. “Hands off.” And he lifted his hands in surrender fashion. Trusting his words, she turned back around toward the engine. But not a second later, his body was against her back and his fingers were subtly covering hers, assisting in securing the oilcan in place.

She reluctantly complied, acknowledging his superiority on the proper tension needed to tighten the can without stripping it. Besides, his body was wrapped around hers, and all she could think of was how pleasant it felt to be in his embrace, and how essential he was to her happiness. And how superb and complete the rest of her life would be with him in it.

Realizing she wanted to add to his life the way he added to hers, she rested her head against his chest. She felt grateful, undeserving, happy, and motivated. She thought for a moment, allowing her mind to consider all the ways she could better herself for him. “Do you think stubbornness is an inherited trait?”

His arms went around her waist. “Why do you ask?”

Hearing his sarcasm, she laughed and moaned at the same time. “I try,” she insisted. “I do. But I think I’m—”

Deftly, she was circled into him and silenced with a kiss to her black smudged nose.

After kissing a few other smudgy spots, he turned her back to the car and while leaning over her to tighten the last connection, whispered in her ear, “You’re exactly what I want.”

I was in the middle of this thought when my phone rang.

“Hello?” I said absently.

Just as I was about to repeat myself, a deep voice said from the other end, “Hey.”

“Hey,” I repeated unthinkingly. My brain forgot to update itself and I half expected him to mention something about the oil I’d spilled, or tell me I wasn’t
exactly what he wanted
after all.

“Meet me at the park tomorrow?” he startled me by saying.

“Um, yeah. Sure.” I caught my breath. “Is everything okay?”

“Just wanna talk for a sec.”

I hung up with the largest gasp in recorded history. We were finally going to talk. At last, what I’d been waiting for.

Chapter 3

Before I arrived at the park I gave myself a pep talk: Don’t talk about
her
, check. Keep the conversation casual and cavalier, check. And DO NOT lose your cool, check. It had been a week since I’d gone to his aunt and uncle’s to see him, and, I wasn’t proud to admit, I’d considered every possible angle regarding their relationship. The favored one was that I misunderstood him; maybe things weren’t as serious between them. That was the angle I wished for, but not the most likely. Still, I was keeping my fingers crossed.

When I walked around a bend and saw the black monster car, my heart fluttered and my thoughts went haywire.

I wondered what we’d talk about, and if my responses would please or displease him. I wondered if we’d go right back to where we left off, or if our exchanges would be tight and uncomfortable. In the end, I would walk away from the park today feeling either delighted or discouraged. The possibilities made my heart beat so fast I couldn’t feel the breaks between the beats.

As I walked closer, he came into view. He was resting against the black monster car, lazily studying people as they passed. My eyes took him in.

And when today’s liaison is over, will I feel as excited then as I do right now as I watch you over there? Will that irresistible self-possession of yours cast its spell on me once again? And will my eyes ever behold anything more appealing than that distractingly drop-dead gorgeous face of yours and the sexy way your simple long sleeve shirt and jeans hug just enough to hint at the remarkable body hiding underneath? Will I ever get used to the crushing desire I feel for you as I stare at you helplessly? As I watch your head tilt down, then turn toward me, and your eyebrow arch dubiously.

Magnificent, complicated creature.

“New car?” I asked as I walked up to him, trying to shift my abandoned thoughts to more levelheaded ones, like how filthy the black monster was. Dried up dirt was splattered all along the sides, and the wheels were caked with light brown guck. It looked as if he’d given it a mud bath.

He pushed off the car and turned toward the park. “Yeah,” he responded. “Like it?” Since he knew full well I wasn’t the flashy type and wouldn’t be impressed in the least, I took the question as a taunt.

Carefully suppressing my adrenalin, I answered, “I don’t know since I can’t see most of it.”

He peered sideways at me, sharing the beginnings of a sly grin.

I wondered where he’d gotten the money to buy such a nice ride. His family was extremely wealthy but conservative spenders. I figured he’d dipped into the money he’d earned over the years working at his dad’s body shop. I’d once heard his mom say the earnings had turned into a substantial amount.

We walked in silence until finding some shade under a cluster of tall trees. But when I saw him find a seat on the small bench to the side, a frisson of pain crawled through me. In the past, our favorite place to hang out was the park. And our favorite way to lounge was with him sitting on the grass, leaning against a tree, my head resting on his stomach. How I used to love the feel of his torso rising up and down in time with his breathing. I loved the way his fingers played in my hair. Or how he’d tickle my bare shoulders with swirls and lines and architectural sketches from his head. Sometimes the sketches would go all the way up to my neck, and he would whisper in my ear little mathematical equations that went along with the sketches. There was nothing in the world more pleasurable.

Those were our little rituals. For some absurd reason that’s the picture I had in my mind for today.

But it was unpleasantly different now. We definitely would not be resting on the grass together. And unfortunately, I wouldn’t feel his fingers on my skin. And neither would he be whispering in my ear. And now I would never stop wondering if
our
little rituals had turned into
theirs
.

Still standing, debating how to proceed, twiddling my thumbs in the process, I heard him say in a wry manner, “Are you going to sit down?”

His off-hand tone made me grin, in spite of myself. “Bossy,” I pressed back, taking a seat on the bench and then brushing the non-existent lint off the front of my jeans. “So,” I pushed on, “how are things going with you?”

“They’re going,” he answered after leaning over and plucking a little dead stem from the ground.

“Did you know I decided to go back to school?”

With a light, careless attitude, he responded, “Is that right?” He sat fully relaxed with his legs spread out, which for some reason fed the little flame already working inside me. The longer I stared at him and the longer his attention remained on the innocent little stem in his fingers, the harder it was to tamper the flame. Right then I realized I was done with the proverbial bush beating and suddenly ready to have a few questions answered.

“So how long did it take to get over me?” I found myself asking, trying to copy his same careless manner.

His face twisted into a sneer. “You never were the subtle type.”

“A few weeks?”

He leisurely shook his head, either not wanting to answer or not wanting to have this particular conversation altogether.

“It’s okay, you can tell me. I want to know the truth. A month? Two? And then what, you decided to ask the first girl you met to marry you?”

He kept his attention on the busy blade of straw weaving through his fingers. “Your second false assumption.”

“So you’re
not
getting married?” I challenged.

“I am.”

Outwardly I allowed no emotion to show. Inwardly I cringed, the dart landing right on the jealousy mark. “When exactly?”

“Already told you.” And the little blade of grass went into his mouth like a toothpick.

Into his mouth! Like a toothpick! Like he could care less!

“Already told you,” I mimicked back like a four-year-old. If I had been watching the scene from afar, I would have fell down laughing. The response was completely ridiculous coming from a grown woman; I was so lame around him.

No laughter came from Nick, which probably meant he was also thinking I was lame. It almost looked like his lips were fighting a smile, though. But the look didn’t last and not a second later, he said, “Knock it off, Heather.”

Though his words were a command, his tone was relaxed, almost as though we were still together, still intimate, still able to squabble and play, and then kiss and make up. Instead of consoling me, it burned.

“Do you live with her?” I was ashamed of myself, but all the more relieved to finally get answers to all the questions plaguing my mind over the last few weeks.

“Where are
you
living now?” he said in response to my question. “With your guy-friend?”

I shrugged.

“You
married yet?” he followed up.

That unhinged me.

I knew it wasn’t fair to start springing blunt questions right in his face, and one part of me said,
You started it. Now cool it before you lose it
. But the other, more vigorous part said,
It’s too late, you’re already flipping irritated
. I tried to hold my tongue, knowing my next comment was a once idle thought gone discarded. But it was no use, and out came, “You’re just like every other pickle-head. You thought I dumped you and your pride couldn’t handle it so you went out and grabbed the first girl who showed the slightest bit of interest. And you have the nerve to ask if
I’m
getting married?”

He gnawed on the blade of grass while absorbing my words, and then finally said, “
Pickle-head,
huh?”

With a stiff attitude, my back turned away from him. But if it hadn’t, I might have seen rather than sensed the twitch of his lips, and might have known rather than felt that it was the first time in months someone had sparked his humor.

But I was too angry to care, recalling how he used to be able to drive me crazy on a whim. I wanted to pummel him!

Conveniently, the tip of his forefinger was right there, nudging my chin. “Look at me, Heather,” he insisted.

And that’s when I smacked his hand away. “Don’t ever touch me again,” I exclaimed.

His splutter of laughter turned me fully to him. “Or what?” His eyes glistened with something close to satisfaction.

“Or I’ll…I’ll…fight back!”

“Will you?” He looked as if he was about to laugh outright.

“Stop it!” I roared.
Stop acting like your old self!
The memories were still too painful to revisit. And this was an old, appealing habit of his: to find my temper amusing. He still knew how to provoke me, all right. “And stop saying my name,” I demanded as an afterthought; his voice alone was driving me over the edge. I recognized with discouraged certainty that my feelings for him had only intensified since I’d been in the coma, intertwined between love and hate.

And even though we were doing something close to fighting, I couldn’t help but feel a rush of joy. It was reviving, glorious. His expressions were as entrancing as they used to be, and his smallest touch still gave me a surge of pleasure, and he was so much man to handle, and I was with him again, talking to him, a part of his life—though what part was the unspoken question.

As I found myself wondering how one person could divide us so absolutely, pain began seeping through my shell of anger, and my joy quickly faded. “Why did you invite me here anyway? To pick a fight with me? To upset me? To—”

“To invite you to a banquet,” he broke in. My head turned toward his unexpected reply. “I won an award,” he continued after a while, “for something I built. And since you were the inspiration behind it, I thought you should come.”

“What did you build?” I asked, instantly sobered.

“Just some final project for school; like a thesis paper for architecture majors. And it’s being featured at a banquet next weekend.”

Though still curious about the project, I asked instead, “What kind of banquet?”

“Every year the architecture department throws an awards banquet to honor the grad students.”

“What about your
fiancé
?” The words slipped out, poison to my lips.