I have to tell you the truth. I’m tired. I need about a month under a hot shower before my joints are going to work. And it sucks, because I really want to…hang out.”
She nodded slowly. “I see. You want to hang out.”
“Ev, I just…this was a big deal for me, you know? I feel like it might not be smart, mixing up the things that I care about not fucking up. The other thing, we have more than one day, you know?” He leaned on the sink. “Oh, boy, I’m going to regret it.”
She’d woken up this morning with none of this to consider. None of it had seemed real, and now it all did. It was too much at once. “If I’m completely honest, I’m a little bit relieved.” She felt the muscles in her back relax. “This was so slow, and now it’s so fast, and I’m not sure I should give all the go signs on the same day.” She drank the rest of her champagne and put the glass down on the table. “I mean, I married my high school sweetheart.”
“I know.”
Eveleth leaned forward. “And he died.”
Dean looked confused. “I know. Did I say something wrong?”
“Nope.” She tapped her fingers on the counter behind her.
“Ah,” Dean suddenly said. “You’re saying just him.”
“Just him.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
She pressed on. “So, I’m just saying.”
“You’re just saying what?”
Eveleth looked all around the room—ceiling, floor, stove, sink, cabinet, other cabinet, table—and then at him. “No warranties. Satisfaction not guaranteed.”
He busted out laughing. He put one arm around her waist and pulled on her until she stepped right to him. She was very aware that he seemed to look at her hairline, then her ear, then her cheek, and then her mouth, before he looked her right in the eye. “I’m not worried,” he whispered. And then he kissed her. The first one had been crazy, the second one had been quick, but this felt like the one that had been coming since they met. Kissing Dean was a lot like talking to him: it was easy. Well, it was easy and it made her want to rip her clothes off. So, still similar.
“Maybe we should have a date,” he finally said.
“We already live together,” she said, looking at him sideways. “I don’t think you can go on a date with someone you live with.”
“We don’t live together,” he said. “You’re going up there”—he pointed—“and I’m going in there.” He pointed again. “That is not living together. Let me take you out.”
“Out where?”
He thought for a minute, tapping his finger on her hip. “Just dinner. Like regular people. Wherever you want.”
“That’s a good offer,” she said. “But maybe we should stay in. I don’t want everybody to gossip. It’s weird. You know I hate…people talking. We can order in. You usually hang out in the kitchen. We’ll eat in the living room.”
“I can do better than that,” he said. “What if we go out of town? Someplace where nobody’s going to care?”
“You’re pretty hot news right now. I’m not sure where that place would be.”
“I’ll figure it out. Someplace small, someplace we can drive to.” He pushed a lock of hair off her forehead. “Let me take you out,” he repeated.
She looked up at him, at his green eyes—gold flecks, thick lashes, such a stupid abundance of good genes—and that little scar he had. She said, “I would love that. When should we go?”
He smiled. “Good. I have to run practice after school Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, so how about Thursday? Thursday dinner. We’ll leave at five since we’re going on the road.” She nodded, and he reached out and kissed the tip of her nose. “All right, Minnesota. Thank you again for everything. Fuck Freeport, and back at it Thursday.”
She frowned as he headed for the apartment. “ ‘Back at it’?”
He called out, “Or whatever,” and he shut his door. Apparently, a sense of mystery now had to be maintained.
THE NEXT DAY, EVVIE CALLED her father and asked if she could bring him some take-out chowder for dinner from Sophie’s. She’d spent the morning reading amazed news reports about how noted failure Dean Tenney had emerged in some tiny hamlet in Maine and pitched, for at least one inning, like he used to. Ellen Boyd had weighed in, as a matter of fact, referring to Dean’s reappearance as “miraculous, grading on a curve of Major League Baseball to exhibition games to raise money for the local PTA.” Eveleth hated the word “bitch”