Nothing More Beautiful (8 page)

“Maci?” he fished.

“Sorry. Maci Goodwin.”

“Goodwin,” he said, examining the name.
“That’s a strong name.”

“Not as strong as Forte,” I pointed out.
“Originating from
fortis
.”

He laughed. “Quite right. You know words
pretty well, I take it?” he asked, fidgeting with the book he held.
I caught on to his nervousness then, and it was odd to observe,
since it was nearly impossible for me to form a brief answer.

“Crossword buff,” I replied. “I also read
dictionaries sometimes.”

He nodded, his movements rather jerky. Did I
make him as anxious as he made me? That was a silly question—of
course not. I had to escape, had to get far away from these bizarre
and troubling feelings.

But before I could get the words out, he
asked, “So, do you live around here?” The blunt question floored
me. He must have caught on to my agitation, as he followed up with,
“I ask because I wanted to walk you home. It’s the least I can do
after knocking your leftovers into the street.”

I analyzed his offer. Despite my wish to
flee, another part of me desired to stay in his company. After
debating with myself, quickly listing the pros and cons, I settled
on an invitation. What harm could it do, right? “My car is on
13
^th
and Irving if you want to walk me to it.”

His smile widened. “I’d love to.”

The idea of foraging for books at Powell’s
was now replaced with intense fascination with Vince, and the
incident, while sobering, was also exhilarating. We strolled beside
each other, and I had to fight my feet that challenged every step I
took, trying to shift into speed-walker mode.

Vince broke the brief wave of silence. “So
where was the mac and cheese from?” His voice was smooth once
again, with a seductive silky quality, if that were possible for a
man.

I pointed at Henry’s as we passed the
restaurant, turning up 12
^th
Avenue. “I had a date.” The
words slipped out before any filter intercepted them.

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows. “And how come
he’s not walking you to your car?” His straightforward manner
attracted me even more, showing the confidence I was now searching
for, since it had chosen to abandon me at such a crucial time.

My cheeks went crimson. “Bad date,” I said,
attempting to match his frank tone.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Sorry my friend hit your car,” I blurted,
directing the conversation onto a new topic. “She has a problem
with road rage.”

“It was barely anything,” he said. “Mary
Jane is just fine.”

“Mary Jane?”

“That’s what I call my Mustang, after Mary
Jane Watson from Spiderman.” He laughed to himself. “You could say
I’m a bit of a comic book enthusiast. Not sure if you noticed, but
she’s painted like Spiderman’s costume.”

“I was having trouble seeing that day,” I
admitted. I hitched onto the better subject. “I name my cars,
too.”

“Like?” He cocked his head at me,
interested.

“I have Eddie right now,” I told him. “He’s
an Escort. I always use alliteration with the names. Before Eddie,
I had Carrie the Corolla, but she died a few months after I got
her. Before that, I had Gary the Golf, my first car. He was stolen
when I was in high school down in Oregon City.”

“Oh, when was that?” he asked, nonchalantly,
as if he weren’t asking get-to-know-you questions.

“2007,” I answered, my nerves still frantic.
“My senior year.” The urge to kiss him had increased over the
passing minutes as we headed for Irving Street. Conflicted, my
brain hadn’t stopped debating whether my decision was a good
one.

“Really?” He sounded utterly surprised.
“Only a year after I graduated. . . I would’ve
pegged you for a few years younger.”

“Thanks,” I said, accepting the compliment.
At least I thought it was a compliment. “So, what’s the book about
that had you so enthralled?” My words were coming easier now, my
mind turning around despite the hard throb of my heart.

“This?” He raised the book. “It’s just a
writer I’ve been following for a while. I read the book when it was
self-published and now it’s been picked up by Orbit, so I’m reading
the new editions to catch the nuances. But to answer your question,
it’s about thieves and love and
power . . . with a lot of killing.” I flinched
a little. “Not your cup of tea, I take it.”

“Not really, no,” I said. “I’m a sucker for
historical romances.”

He waved his hand left at the street sign “I
like the honesty. I haven’t read any, myself—though I’ve read a few
contemporary romances.”

I couldn’t believe we’d walked seven blocks
already. Conflicted, I didn’t want the conversation to end, and at
the same time, I couldn’t get away fast enough. “Did you enjoy
them?”

“A few.”

“This is me,” I said, nodding at the purple
escort. We stopped at Eddie’s back bumper. One lesson I’d learned
from my last two dates was that I no longer wanted to ask men out.
No, I was going to leave that up to them. If they really wanted it,
they’d make a move, right? Standing in front of Vince, My mind
disputed this course of logic, begging me to release the words,
“Want to get coffee?” But instead, I kept my lips tight.

“Again, sorry about your leftovers,” he
said. “I have some work to finish tonight, so I won’t keep you. It
was good to finally meet after the last two times.” His brilliant
teeth shined as he looked at me.

“It was good to meet you, too,” I said,
awkward, my nerves out of control. I was afraid my mouth was going
to say something unpredictable.

“Hope to see you around the gym,” he said,
waving.

“You too.” My smile had become twitchy, my
body shaking. He turned and headed down 13
^th
. The
keyhole gave me trouble as I tried unlocking the door. I drew in a
deep breath and exhaled, collecting myself. Why did the
driver—
Vince Forte
, I repeated in my head—have such a strong
effect on me? It simultaneously scared and thrilled me. Ugh! All my
feelings that surrounded the man contradicted each other. Slightly
trembling, I started up Eddie and drove in the opposite direction.
Even though it was a circuitous route home, I didn’t want to chance
passing Vince.

I patted myself on the back for not asking
him out, though I knew Danielle would have been disappointed. One
bad date in a night was sufficient and it was obvious he wasn’t as
interested in me as I was in him, so it was probably for the best
we had gone our separate ways.

The conversation played repeatedly in my
head the entire drive home, and I scrutinized all that I’d said and
tried desperately hard to remember all that he’d said. But why? Why
was I putting so much effort into understanding the encounter?

The question kept me up most of the
night.

THE NEXT MORNING I
related
the night’s events to Danielle and Ashley, neither believing my
encounter with Vince. They also found it hard to fathom the nerve
of Josh for sending such lame and vulgar texts after an appalling
date that ended by splitting the bill. It made for a good laugh for
them, but it doused my enthusiasm for going out on another date,
especially one produced by an online source. After a gym excursion
with Danielle and Ashley—which, in spite of their audible hopes,
was Vinceless—I met up with Bridgett and unloaded the story, asking
her advice. She told me to wait for an invitation and not to worry
over relationships. But then again, this was advice from a woman
who was seeking only sex as a result of a failed marriage.

In the end I chose to heed it. Before I
crashed for the night, I checked my phone and saw the new message
from ThePortlandPirate. He was actually one of the profiles I’d
bookmarked for later, a top candidate. He wanted to meet for dinner
and a movie, so we set it up for the following Wednesday. It was
the first night in a while that I slept decently.

WEDNESDAY BROUGHT MORE
PRE-DATE
jitters. My heart was preparing for another
letdown, and my stomach knotted, making me queasy throughout much
of the morning. After work, I went to the gym and braved the second
floor alone, secretly hoping to bump into Vince. Only a few people
populated the level. The ellipticals were all free, so I chose the
one by the window.

Fifteen minutes into my workout, another
woman joined me on the machines, taking the one right beside me.
The rest were still vacant.

I thought my headphones would dissuade her
from conversation, but she turned to me and said, “Hi, I’m Emma.”
She was taller than me with straight, luminous blond hair and
milky-white skin, but she had the same bust, and the same slim,
straight body shape as I did. The paleness of her green eyes held
my gaze for a second, stunned. They were very unusual and somewhat
haunting. She wore a baby-blue racerback tank and supremely short
shorts.

I removed my earbuds, though they weren’t
very loud. “Maci.” I stuck out my hand in a trained, reflexive
fashion. She gripped it with a soft, delicate touch that bordered
on fragile.

“I’ve seen you around a few times on the
weekend, so I thought it’d be nice to introduce myself,” she said,
starting up the elliptical on its lowest level, which signaled her
eagerness to carry on our chat, since she was clearly in shape.

“Yeah, I normally go up to the third floor
during the week when I’m alone.” I slowed down to match her pace.
“My friends like to push me into meeting guys.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I know how that is. So,
do you do any races? You look like you do.”

Her topic change threw me off for a
heartbeat, and I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or skeptical.
Backhanded compliments plagued the world of women, and she looked
like the type to sling double-edged words. “I used to,” I answered,
wiping my forehead with the towel I brought from home. I hated
sweating in public. “But I haven’t in a long time. I’m doing the
Hood to Coast this August, though, so I thought I’d get in here so
I don’t look like a total fool out there.”

She was nodding in a casual,
not-really-listening sort of way. “That’s cool. I’m doing Bridge to
Brews in April and a few after that. I’m not ready for a commitment
like Hood to Coast.”

I laughed. “I’m not really either, but my
friend talked me into it . . .” An awkward pause
settled in and I thought about putting my earbuds back in, but then
decided I didn’t mind talking. “I’ve heard the after-party is
pretty great.”

“Where’s that again?” she asked, looking at
the TV with a home improvement show on it.

“Seaside.”

“Oh, right,” she said, nodding as if the
information was popping into her brain. “Yeah, I’ve heard that it’s
worth doing at least once, but three legs and sleeping in a
van—brutal.”

I shot her an all-lip grin, not knowing what
else to do.

“So, do you have a place to stay?”

“For Hood to Coast?” I asked, for
clarification. She nodded. “Um—I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”

She turned and made eye contact. “Because I
have a place in Cannon Beach, and you can stay there, if you
want.”

I scrunched my face, suspicious. “But I just
met you.” There was no masking my incredulity.

She was beaming, her stainless white teeth
sparkling under the bright gym lights. “I’m one of those people, I
guess. Generous. Or I try to be. And you seem like a nice person,
so if you want the place for that weekend, it’s yours. I rarely go
there, anyway.”

“That
is
very generous,” I conceded,
at a loss for words. “I’ll have to talk to my friend who’s running
the show, but that sounds
wonderful . . . thanks—uh, Emma.”

“No problem. And you can call me Em if you
want,” she said in an energetic voice. “Remind me when you’re done,
and I’ll put your number in my phone and call you later with the
details.”

“Okay, sure.” And just like that, it seemed
I’d made a new friend. As we talked, something began nagging me,
and I realized it was her age. “If you don’t mind me asking,” I
started, pausing in a moment of hesitation. “Well, it’s just you
look so young—”

“And you want to know how I own a beach
house?” She raised her eyebrows. After I shrugged, she continued,
“The house belonged to my great aunt, who I was close with all my
life until she passed away. My uncles live back East, and she
rarely saw my cousins, and I guess she thought I should have it
over my parents, so she gave it to me.”

I didn’t quite know how to respond, so I
made an apologetic nod and said, “Sorry about your aunt.”

“Don’t be. She was old and lonely, and it
was her time. Anyway, that’s how I ended up with a beach house at
24.” So she was a year younger than me. I had placed her at 21.
“Have you ever watched the show Dexter?” she asked after a minute
or two.

“It’s in my Netflix queue, but no, I
haven’t.”

“You should,” she said. “It’s great. Though
I like the books better, it’s still worth watching. I’m on the last
season and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Well, maybe I’ll watch it when I get
home.”

She nodded vigorously. “Hey,” she drew my
attention again. “What do you think of him?” She pointed with her
eyes at the benches at the front and I noticed Vince lying on his
back with two dumbbells over his head.

I went pink, sweating even more. I dabbed my
face with the towel.

“Pretty
hot
, huh?” Emma said,
noticing my reaction. “I’ve been eyeing him for weeks, since the
place opened. He’s always here with that big guy”—she nodded at
Vince’s bearded friend—“but I’m pretty sure he’s not gay. Ooh,
wouldn’t you like to lock him in your bedroom for a few hours,
right? I’d say he’s an eleven.”

I had seldom rated men the way I knew men
rated women, not just because I found the scale offensive, but also
because I never really had anyone to do it with, since Danielle
couldn’t care less about a man’s attractiveness, and she only liked
making vulgar sexual comments about men because it goaded my
sensitivity on the subject.