The Other Boy (20 page)

“How about the perfect combination of old and new?” Maddy suggested.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant. Actually, it’s the perfect combination of Napa and Maddy.” Maddy looked up at him in surprise and delight. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest. It was the closest they’d been, Maddy realized, since that day in the lake. He felt just as good now as he did then; better in fact. His warm arms felt so safe around her, she never wanted him to let go. He must have felt the same way, because he squeezed her a little tighter before finally stepping back. They were both smiling a little self-consciously, but this time Maddy didn’t look away.

Maddy collapsed onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling after she’d confirmed that night’s cooking lesson with David. Who would’ve thought this was how her summer would end up? She rolled over onto her stomach and remembered how David’s arms felt around her. Just then, her BlackBerry on the bedside table rang. Maddy picked it up and looked at the screen.

Morgan.

“Hey, babe!” she said.

“Hi!” her friend squealed. “How’s everything going?”

Maddy smiled dreamily at the ceiling. “Awesome, actually.”

“Wow. Um, didn’t you just break up with Brian?”

Morgan paused. “
And
NOT tell me or Kirsten?”

There was a moment of pregnant silence. Morgan was completely right, of course. The truth was, Maddy had been a little scared of how her friends would react. Why would anyone break up with Brian Kilburn, the sexiest guy they knew? Maddy realized she had done a lot of new things this summer. “Mor, you’re right. I should have called. It’s just … well, everything’s been a little crazy.”

“Okay. I’ll forgive you
if
you tell me what happened with you two. We’re dying to know.”

Maddy rose restlessly from the bed and wandered over to the porch. She gazed out at the Napa afternoon bathed in a rich yellow glow of sun. “We were just growing apart. I mean, he came up here to visit and it was really weird. It wasn’t fun at all. I felt like I couldn’t talk to him anymore.” She stopped and took a deep breath.

“And there’s something else… .”

Morgan screamed right in Maddy’s ear. “Stop right there! I knew it. You hooked up with that guy David, didn’t you?”

“No!” Maddy said, a little more emphatically than she meant to. “I mean, not really. We haven’t hooked up … yet.” She couldn’t help smiling to herself a little.

“But we have been hanging out a lot—and Mor, he’s really cool.”

Morgan sighed. “Well, obviously you’re going to hook up. I’m so jealous. I haven’t made out with anyone since your party, practically. It’s so great to have a fling at the end of the summer. Too bad you have to leave him in a few days!”

For a minute, Maddy didn’t understand what her friend meant. “Well, I might not have to. He goes to Westside Public. And Mor, I have to tell you—I think this thing between us is more than a fling. I mean … I really like him. I want to keep seeing him once we’re both back in the city.”

“What?” Morgan said incredulously.

“I … I think we might try this thing out—being together back home.” Maddy faltered a little. She heard Morgan inhale sharply.

“Maddy. I love you, and as one of your best friends, I have to tell you when I feel like you’re about to do something stupid. And this is really, really stupid!”

Maddy didn’t respond.

“Look, you’ve spent the whole summer mucking out stalls or whatever you’ve been doing, and you and that guy have been all alone up there, so it’s natural something would’ve happened with you guys.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s been more than that—”

Morgan let out an annoyed-sounding sigh. “Look, let me lay it out for you. Whatever it’s been, you’re coming back to the city now. You have a whole life here. How do you know a guy you met in Napa would fit in with us? I mean, what would you guys
do
together?”

“I don’t really know … ,” Maddy said slowly. It was true that Napa wasn’t like the rest of the world—the ordi-nary rules didn’t really apply. She felt so close to David now, but could they maintain that when they weren’t in Napa? They were from very different worlds. Her head was starting to pound. “Mor, I have the worst headache.

I’m going to get off and find some Advil.”

“Wait! I totally forgot the whole reason I called!”

Maddy groaned. “You mean it wasn’t to tell me that I was making all the wrong decisions?”

“No, but I’m glad I did. I’m having a party at Tangerine for my birthday on Wednesday and you have to come. I can’t celebrate without you!”

“And I can’t let you celebrate without me! But we’re not supposed to get back from Napa until Thursday,”

Maddy told her.

“Beg! Maybe they’ll let you come home early,”

Morgan insisted.

“Maybe,” Maddy said without much hope. “They’ve mellowed out a lot since we left. I’ll have to get them at the right moment.”

“Well, at least try, okay?”

“Okay. Bye, babe.”

“Bye.” Morgan hung up.

Maddy dropped the phone on the floor and closed her eyes just for a second, the warm afternoon sun streaming from the balcony doors onto her face. David’s image floated in front of her. They were standing in the tasting room again. He had his arms around her, but this time he was kissing her. His lips were warm and delicious. Maddy felt herself relax, the stress of the conversation with Morgan floating away. She and David were walking through the grapevines. She could feel his strong hands on her waist… .

The radio in the kitchen was on when Maddy knocked softly at the porch door of the cottage. She hadn’t been able to decide between the ultra-casual faded jeans and a white gathered eyelet tank top or the more flirty pink jersey sundress. She’d gone with the jeans in the end. David had seen her at her worst; self-consciousness was out the window.

“Come in,” she heard David call. Sufjan Stevens pro-vided the background music as she opened the screen door. The little kitchen with its neat wood cabinets and long marble countertops smelled like warm chocolate.

David, wearing an army green T-shirt and jeans, stood at the counter, mixing something in a bowl, a striped dish-towel flung over his shoulder. He looked incredibly sexy. He glanced up as she entered, his hair falling in his eyes a little, and grinned at her.

Maddy held out a tub of strawberries. “I thought maybe we could use these.” The little red heart-shaped berries looked gorgeous. “I picked them up at the farm stand.”

“Well, well, maybe you’re not a hopeless cook after all,” he teased. He motioned her over to stand next to him and examined the berries while she examined him.

She stared at the muscles in his arms as he dumped the berries into a colander and ran water over them. “So, we’re making chocolate mousse cake,” he explained.

“Strawberries will go great with that.”

“That sounds so good… .” She laughed, inhaling another strong whiff of warm, rich chocolate.

“It is—the chef at Mondavi used to tell me that he would serve this when …” He stopped and smiled mischievously. “Let’s just say this was a dish to impress the ladies.”

She laughed. “I’m impressed.”

“Come here—I’ll show you how to mix this,” he offered.

“Okay.” She stood close to him at the counter, watching as he poured a stream of melted chocolate from a small saucepan into a bowl of smooth, shiny batter. His strong arm blended the chocolate in streaks.

“See, you want to sort of fold it in very gently in kind of an oval shape, instead of mixing around and around.”

He glanced at her and smiled. “You want to try?”

“Sure.” She took the spatula and tried to imitate him.

“Here, try it like this,” he said after a minute, and she felt his hand close around hers. He moved so that he was standing just behind her.

“Like this?” she said, though she wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the batter.

“Mmhm,” he said. He sounded like he wasn’t paying attention to the batter either. She leaned back into him just the slightest bit, still folding the batter, though by this time the chocolate had long since disappeared. She could feel him inhale at her touch, and the muscles in his chest tensed a little.

Ping-ping-ping!
The timer on the stove sounded. He exhaled and stepped away from her over to the stove.

“The layers are ready.” The scent of cake filled the kitchen as he pulled a pan out of the oven. Maddy wandered over to the refrigerator and peered at some photos stuck there with magnets. She squinted at one of two tall guys with their arms around each other’s shoulders, standing in the sun at the top of some mountain.

“Is that you?” she asked.

He turned around to see what she was looking at.

“Yeah. That’s my buddy Jim. We hiked to the top of Bismark Peak in Utah last summer.” Something started bubbling in a copper saucepan on the stove and David quickly bent over to reduce the flame. Maddy eyed his turned back. The temptation was just too great. She plucked a berry out of the colander, took aim, and pitched it at him. It bounced off his head and fell to the floor.

“Hey!” He whirled around to face her, already laughing. She giggled and threw another one, this time catching him on the chest.

“Okay, I see how it is,” he said. “Well then, how about this?” Before she could react, he scooped a spoon-ful of batter, closed one eye, and took aim, catapulting the cake across the room and catching her right in the face.

She squealed and wiped her eyes. “You jerk!” She darted across the room, scooped up her own glob of batter, and let it fly, splattering his shirt.

He dove across the kitchen table, trying to catch her, but she slipped away from his grasp and ran to the other side. They faced off, grinning, until he held up his hands. “Truce, okay? I give up.”

“Okay.” She relaxed and turned away before feeling something soft hit the back of her head. A strawberry fell at her feet. “Ooh! You’re going down!” she yelled. In one quick movement, she grabbed the colander out of the sink and, evading his hands, dumped the entire contents on his head. Strawberries fell pattering at their feet like fat red raindrops and rolled to the far corners of the room.

Maddy stood, hanging on to the counter, trying to catch her breath from laughing so hard at the sight of David with the colander still on his head. With dignity, he removed the metal helmet and placed it on the counter. “Do you know you look like a raccoon?” he asked, pointing at the mask of shiny brown batter now beginning to dry on her face.

“I know,” Maddy gasped, starting to regain control of herself. “Help.”

“Here,” he said, running a clean dishcloth under the faucet. He took hold of her shoulder with one hand and with the other wiped at her cheeks. Maddy stopped giggling like someone had turned off a switch. David looked down into her face, suddenly serious. She inhaled sharply.
He’s going to kiss me, oh my God, he’s going
to kiss me.
She hoped he couldn’t feel the slight trem-bling of her shoulders under his hands. From somewhere outside, the song of a killdeer reached her ears.

But David’s face filled her field of vision. He leaned down and she closed her eyes. For a brief moment, his hand tightened on her shoulder. Then she felt it drop away. Maddy opened her eyes in surprise.

David abruptly turned back to the stove. An awkward silence descended as he stirred something furiously. She was totally confused. Wasn’t he going to kiss her? What happened? Did she have something in her teeth? She stared at David’s back, trying to gauge his feelings from his posture. But his rounded shoulders told her nothing.

They had been having such a good time. And he
was
going to kiss her. Maybe he was nervous. Maybe—she hated to think of it—he was having second thoughts about her. “Um, well, I should get back,” she heard herself saying in a small voice.

He turned around with the saucepan in one hand.

She was flooded with relief when she saw his face—

desperate but not angry.

“Okay,” he said in a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “See you later?”

“Definitely!” She tried to load all of her feelings into that one word. He nodded. They stared at each other for one long minute and then she made herself turn calmly and open the screen door, leaving him in the middle of the kitchen.

Maddy was folding T-shirts into her blue suitcase when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,”

Maddy sang out. Mom had said she’d be bringing up the shoe basket from the back hall. But it wasn’t Mom standing in the doorway when she turned around—it was David. She caught her breath. “Hey,” she managed.

“Hey.” For the first time since she’d known him, he looked awkward, like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

“I was just packing—”

He spoke at the same time. “Do you want to go—”

He tried again. “Do you want to go for a drive?”

Maddy paused. She wasn’t counting on anything after what happened earlier that evening. “Sure.”

His face lit up. “I’ll wait for you downstairs in the truck, okay?”

“Okay.” He turned and left.

Maddy went over to the mirror on the wall and stared at herself. Her eyes were wide and sparkling and her cheeks were pink. All she needed was a little lip gloss.

She quickly brushed her hair, letting it hang loose and shiny over her shoulders.

The cool, deep night surrounded her as she stepped out onto the front porch. The crickets were chirping in the trees, matching the rumble of the idling pickup truck. David sat in the cab, his elbow out the window, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

“So, are you kidnapping me?” Maddy teased as she got in.

“Definitely.”

“Great.” She settled next to him on the seat as he sped down the gravel driveway. Her hair blew against her face as the wind swept through the open windows.

Neither of them said anything, but the silence was peaceful. The radio played softly as the truck’s head-lights cut through the darkness. Maddy closed her eyes for a minute and let her head rest on the back of the seat.