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“This is so not like me. I just don’t get it.”
“Well, maybe now’s the time to start.”
I stand in front of my open closet like a deer in headlights. I have zero idea what to wear. In my cyber viewing, I can see he’s usually urban chic or classically European in his dress. I don’t want to appear too casual, like I don’t care, or too dressed up so I look like I care too much.
After a frozen fifteen minutes, Sylvia hollers a few Spanish swears my way then picks out my favorite black empire-waist swing dress and some strappy flats for me to wear. I start to pull my hair back so I don’t mess with it all night, but again I get scolded and she starts to hide all our hair ties from me.
I finally leave the parking lot at about six-thirty. I program the address into my GPS and hit the highway. It turns out his temporary housing is halfway in between where they were filming and the heart of the city. Sylvia and I drove through the town twice already. I actually have a few of my clients who stay in that area when they have to be in Georgia for extended periods of time.
It’s the perfect place. There are several smaller shops nearby, as well as a few parks for walking and losing yourself in nature. My directions take me into the neighborhood the same way I’ve gone before. I get this serious feeling of déjà vu with the last few turns the voice tells me to make.
As I reach my destination on the right, as the voice says, the house feels very familiar to me. I don’t know if I’ve seen it in a film or on the small screen, but it definitely gives off a sense of comfort as I lock my car from the sidewalk. When I whirl my head around to the front door, it’s open with Rafael leaning against the frame watching me. Slowly, a smile breaks across his face. I walk inside the fence made of waist height hedges just past their flowering point. He doesn’t move.
“This is beautiful,” I tell him.
“Yes, it is.” He finally moves toward me a couple steps, offering his hand down the two stairs toward me. Slowly, I slide my hand into his and feel the connection that’s been there from our first meeting. “You’re right on time.”
“I wasn’t sure I would be. It took me a while to get ready.”
“You could have come to me just awake and be beautiful.”
“That sounds like a line.”
Rafael kisses the back of my hand. “Not if it’s the truth.”
He leads me into the simply decorated front room then closes the door. The windows facing the street are partially open so the breeze is cooling the space. I can smell the scent of a musky candle coming from the center of the coffee table and the spices from whatever deliciousness is for dinner.
When I’ve seen some of my clients in their temporary housing, it still feels so much like a hotel space. Not here. Rafael has a couple of succulent plants in the window with a couple of river rocks between them. On the coffee table sits a couple of books. Both are classics: The Old Man and the Sea and The Wind in the Willows. Then on the mantle, just beneath where the television hangs on the wall, are a picture of his beautiful dog and another of a younger version of him with who I assume are his parents.
“Looks like you’ve made yourself at home here.”
“I like to be comfortable. I don’t want to always feel as if I’m at work. Home is the place I don’t have to do that. Home is a feeling, not necessarily a place,” he states matter-of-factly as he lifts my purse from my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I stare up into his perfectly ocean blue eyes. A few tiny lines appear as he also greets me with another of his equally beautiful smiles. “You know, you shocked me with this invitation.”
“Why, Ava?”
“If I’m being honest, I don’t know, why me? Do you feel comfortable just talking to me and wanting to say goodbye to someone you’ve spent time talking to?”
“I have to work on my approach if that’s what you understand to be true.” He gently reaches down for my hand and lifts the back of it to his lips. “Would you like a glass of wine? Dinner will be a few more minutes.”
His soft lips, when they meet my skin, send a shiver down my spine. “Wine? Yes. Wine would be great.” In my head I’m also adding the words and needed.
“Are you cold?” he asks as he walks through a cased opening dividing the front room from the eat-in kitchen.
“No. Not even a little.” I think I hear a faint whistle from his lips as he keeps his back to me, uncorking the bottle and pouring what I hope is a red that packs a punch. “Dinner smells good. Do you need any help?”
That’s when I notice the two-person table hidden in an alcove at the back of the kitchen, perfectly set and facing a private backyard with trails of rose bushes under the windows. “Help? No. I simply need your company,” Rafael says as he offers me a wine glass from his hand.
I quietly take the glass and sit at the round table’s right. The smell of the flowers from the outside and the vapors from the red under my nose immediately give me a high I haven’t felt in a long time. This feels like a date. I was not and am not prepared for all I’m feeling in his presence. I stand near him and I dream of kissing him for real. I know what his lips feel like on the back of my hand. I’ve dreamed of what his lips, and tongue, could do to me. It’s all becoming a mess in my head. I have to take control and lock myself up. I don’t want to end up hoping for anything.
“Are you all packed?” I ask.
“I am. I’m shipping a couple of boxes back home and taking the rest with me. I won’t be going home right away.”
“Oh? Taking time to see a bit more of the country before you go?”
“Yes and no.”
