Fragmented (22 page)

We ordered wine and our rabbit food and a three-piece jazz band began to play on a small stage in the rear of the restaurant. The music wasn’t too loud and it played a nice compliment to the overall ambiance of the place.

“I love this kind of music,” I said, tapping lightly on the table in time with the drummer. “My Uncle Jerret owns a record store, so we always had music playing in the house. That’s probably what I remember best about my childhood—dancing in the kitchen with Jerret and my Aunt Olive.”

Raleigh’s lips curled up in a soft smile. “I love that visual. Tell me more about Memphis?”

My fingers stilled on the table. “That’s about the only fun story. The rest might be a little heavy for first date conversation.”

“Is that what this is?”

I fiddled with the utensils still rolled up in their cloth napkin. What were we doing out to dinner together if this wasn’t a date? Had I misread her completely?

“Relax, Harper.”

I looked up from the place setting to settle my gaze on her face. The votive candles on the table made her features glow with warmth.

“I can see you silently freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out.” I let out a deep breath and tried to relax with the long exhale. “But I’m worried we’re not on the same page.”

Her eyes squinted in the dim lighting of the restaurant. “In what way?”

“I thought this was a date.”

“It is.”

“But you said—”

“I didn’t realize you thought this was our
first
date,” she interjected. “That’s all I meant.”

“If it’s not, then what was our first date?”

“How about when I asked you to Harvestfest?”

“I was still dating Jenn then.”

Her mouth fell open. “I didn’t realize …”

“No one did,” I said quickly. “I wasn’t very forthcoming about our relationship to anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Can we not talk about exes?” I dodged.

“Sure. No Memphis, no exes … what are people supposed to talk about on first dates?”

“So we’re back to this being our first date?”

“Well, I can’t tell our future grandchildren that we went on our first date while you still had a girlfriend.”

“No,” I smiled. “I suppose we can’t.”

I reached across the table and took one of her hands in mine. I rubbed the pad of my thumb over her knuckles. It was something I’d never done with Jenn, but something struck me about the moment, and I had to touch her in some way before it passed.

After that, dinner and conversation went better than any date I’d ever been on before. We laughed and talked long after our dinner plates had been cleared and the last of the wine had been consumed.

When our waiter brought the check at the end of the meal, I snatched up the bill folder before Raleigh could react.

“Harper,” she frowned. “Don’t.”

“No way.” I shook my head and slipped my credit card into the plastic holder and handed it back to our server. “I’ve got this.”

“I’ve got money. Lots of money,” Raleigh said. “My parents were wealthy even before the insurance money came rolling in.”

“Just let me do this, okay? I like doing nice things for you.”

“I can’t even keep track of how many kind things you’ve done for me. You’re far too generous.”

She grumbled a little bit more, but she finally conceded and let me pay for dinner. Outside of the restaurant, the sidewalk was alive with Chicagoans enjoying the mild evening. The sounds of the city on a Saturday night surrounded us. Taxis circumnavigated slower cars, and braver souls than I battled downtown traffic on their bicycles. A pack of young professionals laughed loudly and shouted amongst themselves as they waited for a walk signal at the intersection.

I breathed in deeply, enjoying the brisk air of the clear night. The sky was cloudless, but no stars could cut through the light pollution of the city. The dark sky was like a blank canvas. “Where to next?” I asked.

It was still early in the night, but I wasn’t familiar enough with the neighborhood to suggest a good bar, and I didn’t know if that was even her scene. We’d split a bottle of wine, but that had only amounted to two glasses each, which we’d modestly sipped over the meal.

“I know technically this is our first date, but would you think differently of me if I asked to see your apartment?”

“Of course not. I’ve seen where you live; it’s only fair you get to do the same.”

Her long eyelashes fluttered and her voice dropped. “What if I asked to see your bedroom?”

“I live in a studio apartment,” I laughed with mounting nerves. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”

We took a cab back to my apartment instead of braving the L. The cab ride was silent, with us each staring out our respective backseat windows. The closer the taxi inched to my apartment complex, the more nervous I became. When we reached my apartment, I let Raleigh pay for the cab fare, sensing she might refuse to go on a second date with me if I continued to insist on financing everything.

We continued in silence as I unlocked the building’s entrance and used my key to call the elevator. Raleigh quietly took it all in, but made no comment about what she thought about the place where I lived. The elevator opened on the ground floor. A few of the building’s residents spilled into the lobby and their voices filled the entryway. They were talking at a regular volume, but it sounded so much louder after the extended silence that Raleigh and I found ourselves in.

Once the elevator reached my floor, I held my arm in front of the sliding doors so they wouldn’t shut before Raleigh had the opportunity to maneuver her chair out of the lift.

“Turn right,” I navigated, speaking for the first time since we’d decided to move our date to my apartment. “It’s apartment 906.”

Raleigh stopped in front of the grey wooden door and waited patiently while I fumbled with my key ring. In my distraction, I passed over my apartment key twice and momentarily panicked that we were locked out.

On the other side of the closed door was a tsunami of clothes. “Sorry about the mess,” I apologized. I strode inside and immediately scooped up an armful of clothes from my futon. I plucked additional shirts and pants and bras from the breakfast bar and other surfaces in the limited square footage apartment.

“Have a hard time deciding what to wear tonight?” she observed with a wry smile.

I tossed everything onto my closet floor and shoved the door shut. “Don’t tease.”

“Are you sure?” The tip of her pink tongue peeked out from between her plump lips. “I thought that’s why you invited me up here.”

“Are you thirsty?” I squeaked out.

I hopped over to the kitchen cabinets and produced a bottle of clear booze. I was too distracted to read the label. It could have been flavored vodka or gin for all I knew.

I pulled two still-damp glasses out of the drying rack near the sink.  “Can I make you a drink?”

Not waiting for an answer, I unscrewed the bottle’s top and splashed some liquid into the bottom of the glasses. More of the alcohol spilled onto the countertop than got in the glasses.

Raleigh came beside me and placed a solid hand over my shaking one. “Why don’t we have that drink later?”

I set the bottle on the kitchen counter. “How are you so calm?” I marveled.

“I’m terrified, Harper,” she said solemnly.

“You don’t look it.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice schooling my emotions. I suppose it’s a defense mechanism. Whenever I’m scared or feel uncomfortable, I overcompensate with confidence.”

“That’s some defense mechanism.”

“It has its advantages,” she admitted. “But not when it comes to being intimate; I have a hard time letting other people see me be vulnerable. And what is intimacy if not vulnerability?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted. “I don’t even know how to kiss you. Is it offensive if I lean over you? Do I crouch down, or is that even worse?”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem kissing me at my aunt’s,” she pointed out.

“Because we were both on your bed.”

“Then why don’t we go on your bed?” she suggested with a shy smile. “If it’ll make you more comfortable, I mean.”

“Yeah, uh, I could do that,” I agreed.

There was a pile of clothes heaped on my bed, but at least the sheets hiding beneath were clean. I swept up all the clothes and dumped them onto the floor of my already overflowing closet.

I had never done anything like it before, but Raleigh was patient and encouraging and didn’t make a big deal when I nearly knocked her wheelchair over as I struggled to transfer her from the chair to my bed. She wasn’t heavy, but I was so afraid I might jostle her and hurt her that I probably made things more difficult than they needed to be.

“Where should I put this?” I asked, motioning to her empty chair.

“You can park it over by me.” She nodded to her side of the bed.

“Do you need anything else?” I fretted.

She patted the space beside her. “Only you beside me.”

I slipped onto the bed and curled up next to her. She rolled onto her side and immediately took my hand in hers.

“I’m sorry if this feels deliberate,” she apologized. “I know it kills spontaneity.”

“Overrated,” I gently smiled. “I think this is working out just fine.” Being beside her like this lessened my anxiety. Rolled on our sides, face to face, neither of us needed the use of our legs. Our hands and mouths worked just fine.

She leaned towards me, and I met her in the middle for a soft, lingering kiss. She teased me with the softness of the lip lock, pulling back when I moved to deepen the embrace and surging forward when I feared she wanted to stop. With no aunt to walk in on us, we were in no danger of being interrupted. The knowledge of that scared me and thrilled me at the same time.

“You look absolutely edible in this dress,” I said, touching my fingers to the bottom hemline of her pleated skirt. “I can’t believe I made it all the way through dinner.”

She continued to caress my face with the softest of touches. “They probably would have asked us to leave,” she noted with a wry smile.

“Yeah, but think of what a great story it would have been to tell our future grandkids.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she remarked. “I think this is turning out to be a nice story right here.”

I laughed. “You’d really tell our grandkids that we slept together on our first date?”

“Who said anything about sleep?”

She cradled my face in her hands and pulled me in for a second, wet kiss. Her teeth found my lower lip, and I reflexively grabbed onto her hipbone when she gently bit down.

Her sharp gasp had me jerking away.

“Are you okay?”

Her breathing was ragged, and her normally bright eyes were lidded. “S-slow,” she panted.

Her hand fell on top of my hand, which had remained on her hipbone, mindlessly rubbing circles through the soft material of her skirt. She lifted my hand from her hip and relocated it higher on her waist. “We’ll get there,” she promised, “just give me a chance to get warmed up.”

I’d nearly forgotten the sensitivity of her hipbones because her accident had reassigned her erogenous zones. “I’m so sorry. I forgot about that.”

She stroked her thumbs over my cheekbones. “Don’t apologize.” Her hands left my face, and she fiddled with the buttons at the front of my shirt. “You could have made this easy on me and worn a zip-up shirt,” she said, making a face. “Velcro would have worked, too.”

“Maybe I wanted to make you work for it,” I returned.

I popped the top button of my shirt, and she loosened the next. We worked in tandem until every last button had been freed.

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” she murmured when the final button had been undone.

“You are an incredible dork,” I grinned. “It’s a good thing you’re so fucking beautiful.”

She ran her palm up the plane of my abdomen and parted my shirt so it fell open at the front to expose my bra.

“You’re falling behind,” I noted, commenting on my open shirt while the buttons on her dress remained secure.

“Or you’re getting lazy and making me do all the heavy lifting,” she taunted back.

“Heavy lifting? Are you calling me fat?”

“Hardly.” She drummed her fingers against my bare ribcage. “In fact, I think I need to plump you up.”

“Now you sound like an evil witch who wants to eat me.”

Her hand covered her mouth and stifled a fit of giggles.

I pulled her hand away from her mouth. “Let it out. You’re allowed to laugh. Sex should be fun.”

“I’m having fun,” she said, picking at the edge of my shirt. “With you.”

Her eyes fluttered closed, and she pressed her mouth to mine. We shared another kiss, and I kept my hands firm at her waist, waiting for a sign that it was okay to go a little further. She teased me with her tongue and held me by the tails of my unbuttoned shirt. I hissed into her mouth when our bodies finally met. The contact of stomach against stomach and bound breast against breast increased the intensity of sensations.