Lengths (19 page)

“Where are we, Deo? I mean, a furniture store?” I turn in a slow circle and take in the cavernous space. As far as furniture stores go, it’s nice, with lots of unique, quirky pieces, and handmade, clean-lined items.
              He shrugs and throws me an irresistible grin that I use every scrap of will-power I have in me to resist. “Well, yeah. It’s got everything we need here. And it’s Cohen’s family’s place, so it’s cool and everything. I didn’t break in, if that’s what you’re wondering. Mr. Rodriguez gave me the keys, so it’s all legit.”
              “I just...I don’t really see what we have to talk about.” I rock back on my heels and forward on my toes and avoid and all eye-contact.
              Deo’s sigh is so long and sad, it sounds like he’s deflating.
              Just when I think he’s all out of breath and confidence, he springs back, a gleam of pure determination in his light brown eyes. “Please, Whit. Just give me a shot. Just tonight. Please.”
              And I can’t say no. Because he’s standing there, wearing that same carefree smile he always has and, even though I’m not close enough to him, I know how his skin feels sand-scrubbed except on his calloused hands and how he always smells faintly like the beach and summer and something very cleanly, essential guyish and Deo, and I just can’t walk away from all the raging temptation that he throws my way.
              “Okay.” I nod cautiously, reminding myself to keep my head around him.
              Deo pumps his fist like he’s just won a giant stuffed teddy bear for his girl a carnival booth.
              “Okay, so, come over here first.” Deo has a little bounce in his step that I haven’t seen him with before. He leads me through the maze of sectionals and end tables until we get to the massive selection of dining room tables. Deo has pulled a shiny, dark one slightly away from the sea of other tables and blocked three of the four sides off with decorative folding room dividers.
              “Where’d you get all of this?” I ask. The table is covered in a burlap table cloth and dozens of small, burgundy colored candles. 

“Honestly? It’s extra from Marigold’s wedding booty. You are coming tomorrow, right?” He pulls out one of the heavy wood chairs for me. I pick up one of the votives and smell it.
              “These smell amazing,” I say, inhaling deeply again.
              “Chai and almond,” Deo identifies. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and he shrugs.               “Marigold is as talented at making good-smelling candles as she is shitty at cooking edible food. These are supposed to be party favors or something. But you didn’t answer me. Are you coming tomorrow?”
              “I think I have to or I may lose my job,” I joke. “But seriously, Rocko and your mom have been great to me since I’ve been here. I couldn’t miss it.” Or you, I think. I’d been wondering if he’d be bringing a date. Marigold had told me it was okay if I did, but I can’t imagine anything more tacky than that.
              “Good.” He’s staring at me in the same glazed-over, swoony way he used to before he fell asleep at night. When everything was good and safe and happy and we’d talk until neither one of us could hold our eyes open anymore. 

“So, what’s on the menu?” I ask. “Or are we just talking?” I blink several times to break his stare.
              “Okay, so, I don’t want you to get mad. Again. But I sort of asked your mom what you might like.” Before I can react to what he confessed, Deo jumps up from his chair and takes two large dishes from the curio cabinet next to our table. I can’t help but tense up at the mention of my parents. Even though things have been okay between the three of us since Deo brought them to town without asking me, it’s still strange to think of him talking to them. Especially since he and I haven’t really been talking.
              I nod to let him know it’s okay with me. At least I think it is. Pretty much.
              “I made pot roast and spaetzle,” he announces proudly. He sets the two dishes onto the center of our table.

I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes in their sockets and my jaw off the table. “Wait, you made spaetzle?”

Deo laughs that deep, gritty laugh that draws me in and makes me want to gobble
him
up.

“Well, technically we still have to taste it. So you can be the judge of what I actually made, because it might just taste like dough balls and onion.  But yeah, I tried.” He uncovers the dish and shows off his creation. It looks so similar to the stuff my grandma used to make for me, I almost choke up.

“Wow, you really went all out,” I say, and I have to rein my voice in to keep it from wobbling. Deo takes my bamboo plate and fills it with the spaetzle and enough meat and vegetables to feed a party of twenty. “I see you inherited your portion control from your grandfather.”
              “Too much?” He stops scooping and hands me the plate. I stab a forkful of a little bit of everything, and Deo watches me as I take the first bite. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is incredible.
              “Deo, you nailed it,” I say around the explosion of flavors that trigger a thousand perfect, happy memories. “It’s perfect, thank you.” 

It tastes like home. Like my childhood. Like every Sunday dinner at Gram and Gramps’s house, when Wakefield and I played out by the lake until Gram had to drag us in kicking and screaming. We thought taking the time to eat would kill us. But, by the time we’d get cleaned up and sat down at her table, we couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. This meal was all of those good things. And Deo had done it. For me.
              I reach across the table and brush the top of his hand and he cracks the tiniest of smiles. But he pulls his hand back before I can really hold it. Because maybe he’s trying to protect himself from me stomping all over him, or maybe he doesn’t want me to touch him.
              “How’s work?” Deo asks. Easy. Non-committal questions are apparently the name of the game tonight.
              “Eh, both jobs are going well.” I try to balance the experience of eating this heart-poundingly delicious food that brings back so many swirling memories of catching tadpoles and fireflies with Wakefield, with the most mundane, meaningless conversation Deo and I have ever had.
              “Both?” His forehead wrinkles with confusion, and I realize that my life has bounded ahead without Deo. For some weird reason, that makes me sad. It makes me even sadder to wonder what’s been going on with him. Somehow, the stuff that’s currently so boring was kind of magical and special when it was just ours, during our time completely alone together in my dark room, on my soft bed.
              “Yeah, my job working for Rocko, obviously, and I took that job with my anthropology professor. The one I talked to you about?” I say with a tiny bit more acid than I meant to use. It’s not meant as a dig, but it comes out as one.
              “Oh,” Deo says, and there’s a whole world of regret and embarrassment in that one tiny word.               He wipes his mouth with one of the brown, recycled paper towels.
              I rush to smooth the tension that’s extinguishing all the happy between us. “How about you? What’s keeping you busy these days?” I don’t want him to feel bad. We’ve already played that game, and it’s exhausting and stupid.
              He still seems to be stuck on the job barb, but he shakes himself out of his daze and gives me version of that carefree smile. “Same old stuff, different days.”  But there’s something hidden in his words.
              “Hmm... Your mom said you’ve been busy with some project?” I venture into the topic of his possible project, even though Marigold had sworn me to secrecy.
              His gold-brown eyes narrow at me, and he points at my dish, reminding me to eat my gigantic mountain of food. I pick up the fork and take another delicious bite, even though I’m already getting too full. When he’s satisfied he answers. “Oh, she did, did she? Well, she’s sort of a lunatic, if you hadn’t noticed.” Deo’s laugh is completely self-satisfied.
              “She is,” I admit. “But I can tell by that shit-eating grin that you’re hiding something. What’s up?”
              His hand reaches out, and I hold my breath, praying he’s going to touch me, and internally scolding myself for being so damn eager. But he just runs one finger along the strap of my dress and meets my eyes. His are dancing with mischief, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.               “New dress?” Deo asks coyly.
              I tug at the navy polka-dot fabric of the Rockabilly-style dress and hope the burn I feel on my face isn’t noticeable. “Yep. Why are you avoiding the question?”
              “Whit, I worship every damn thing about you, you know that. But you really don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to accusing other people of keeping secrets--” I can tell by the look on his face that he tried to stop the words from tumbling out, but still, they fall.
I suck in a sharp breath and bite down on my bottom lip.
              “Touche.” I fight to make my voice come out light and unaffected, trying to play it off as if it doesn’t sting like he’s just thrown me into a buzzing hive of angry bees, but it does. And I deserve every bit of venom the words inject.
              All the humor in his face dries up, and he takes my hand and squeezes it hard, moving quickly, before I can attempt to back away. “Sorry, doll. I didn’t mean that.”
              His eyes are sincere and apologetic.
              I really want to know what the hell Deo is hiding, what project has kept him so busy, why his mom refuses to tell me. But I know better than anyone that I can’t make him talk about it, that I can’t make him trust me or open up.
              “It’s fine.” I shake my head and force myself to put the brakes on my hypocritical interrogation tactics. I also realize, with a tiny twinge of humiliation, how someone can be digging deep and asking questions because they care so damn much it’s scary. But I bury that thought fast, and move on to more pressing topics. Like Deo’s possible dating life, which I hope is nonexistent, even if I have no right or reason to hope that.

“So, your mom’s wedding. Tomorrow. Are you...bringing anyone?”
              He raises his eyebrows and chuckles. “Whit, be serious. If I had a date for Marigold’s wedding tomorrow, would I be here with you tonight?”
              “Why are we here, Deo? After everything, it just seems...” I put my hands up, at a complete loss for words as the sweet-smelling candles flicker and glow between us.
              Pushing his plate to the side, he leans forward and lays it all out, honest Deo style. “I miss you, Whit. And I’m sorry.”

There are a million things I should say. Want to say. One is,
Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.
Another is,
I miss you and am sorry, too.
And, of course, there’s that one that screams the loudest and makes my heart thump and my palms sweat, because I’m afraid it will jump out of my mouth:
I’m an idiot and I need you, so take me home and throw me on our bed and have your way with me right now.

Instead I say, “This was really great, thank you.” I push away from the table. Deo glances down at his watch and swallows hard.

He gets up and walks so close to me, I can smell the clean scent of him over the warm scent of the melting candles. “You’re welcome. Hey, Whit. I know it’s late and you need to get a move on, but I’ve just got one other thing planned.”

My heart is still punching in my chest from his last words and my crazy internal reactions to them, but I’m so curious, I can’t resist asking. “What is it?”

“Follow me.” His voice is low and hard around the edges with a hint of pure stubbornness.

He leans over and blows out each of the candles, and then clutches my hand. He grazes his thumb over the place on my palm that now has a scar from when I busted my ass on the rocks that day at the tide pools. It's a simple gesture, but it feels intimate as hell. I doubt he even realizes he’s doing it.

We make our way past the bunk beds, and water beds, and with each bed we pass, the knots in my stomach weave tighter and tighter.

“Deo, we can’t do this.” We’ve stopped in front of a massive sleigh bed. The only one in the store dressed up with soft, striped bedding and about a zillion and a half squishy pillows. “Just because this place has a king-sized bed, doesn’t mean we have to use it.”

“Well, first of all, it’s a California King. There’s a difference, trust me. And second,
we
aren’t going to use it.
You
are,” Deo says. My eyes clearly spell out, ‘huh?’ so Deo continues. “See that chair right there. Well, La-Z-Boy and I are about to become good friends tonight.” He points to an overstuffed recliner a few feet away from the bed. “You curl on up in that bad boy, and I’ll sleep in this chair.”
              “You’re not sleeping in a chair. Deo, this is crazy. We’re not sleeping in a store,” I protest, for all the obvious reasons two normal, rational people don’t just sleep in a random furniture store.

But Deo’s never been normal or rational, and he’s not backing down. “Would you rather us go back to your place?” Deo says, half-joking. His upper lip twitches and I want to nip at it.

I cross my arms and shake my head adamantly. “No, that’s not gonna happen, either.”

Deo takes three steps toward me. I know it’s three, because with each step closer, I have to take another breath.

“Whit, doll, you look tired. Two jobs? Sleeping alone in that apartment? I mean, I hope you’re sleeping alone. Not that it’s my business, but if you aren’t, just be quiet and humor me, okay? I know you haven’t been getting sleep. There are a dozen down pillows up there with your name on them, nice and firm, exactly how you like them. You will have a fucking instant orgasm if I tell you the thread count of these sheets. And this is real Egyptian cotton. This bed is custom made, just for you, so you can get an amazing night’s sleep. So, stop arguing and  just climb up into the bed, and I’ll be over here.  I promise to keep my hands to myself.” He holds them up to showcase his innocence.

“This is crazy,” I repeat, but my hold on logic and sense is wavering in the face of all those heavenly pillows and Deo’s soothing, lulling, sweet-as-all-hell voice.

“Maybe. But you always knew ‘crazy’ is how I roll.” He shrugs. “Come on. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow for both of us. Let’s get some rest.”