“Nope.” But while I’m having my fun with Jack, is she bothered? “Do you?”
“Why should I mind?” she asks me. “I don’t live here.”
Too true, I think. More and more, I wish you did.
“Boat’s waiting out back,” I say instead. “Ready to go?”
She reaches down and hoists a duffel bag onto her shoulder, but I grab the strap, skimming it down her arm so I can carry it for her, which makes her smile.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Chivalry, check,” she says under her breath.
“What?”
She cocks her head to the side, her cheeks pinkening just a little. “Bryce never carried my bags or—or opened doors for me, or paid my cab fare. No chivalry whatsoever. But I like it. I want it…you know, with my next-someone.”
“Are you making a list?” I ask her.
She nods. “Mentally. Yep. I’m figuring out everything I want so that I’ll know it when it’s standing in front of me.”
I lead the way around the hotel building and down the gangplank that leads to a dock where our boat waits. We take side by side seats in the back.
“Ready, Mr. Kingston?” asks the kid driving the boat.
“Yep. Thanks, Matt.”
Matt’s parents run the Cascade and I’ve known them for years. He tips his baseball cap at me and jumps onto the dock to release the bow line and I turn to Amanda.
“Tell me more about your list.”
“Oh,” she says, reaching into her purse for sunglasses, which she puts on. “No. It’s silly. Besides, it’s not done. It’s a work-in-progress.”
“Come on,” I cajole, putting my arm around her as Matt starts the engine. “Give me some highlights.”
“Well, I want someone who’s chivalrous,” she says, nestling back against me. “Someone who opens doors for me, and pays for my cab fare, and walks me home after dinner.”
Inside of me, a warmth starts growing in the pit of my stomach, like tinder touched with a match, the very beginning of a fire.
“Someone who wants kids,” she says. “I’ve always wanted kids, but there are so many guys who want to play Peter Pan for the rest of their lives, you know? Eternal children. Too selfish to make room for a child. I don’t want to have to convince a guy to have kids with me. I want to be with someone who already wants them.”
A little kindling is added to the fire and I feel it flare, growing warmer, hotter, more confident in its burn.
“This one is kind of dumb,” she says, “but I want a toucher.”
“A…toucher? That sounds kind of dirty.”
“It’s not!” she says, giggling at me. “A toucher. You know, someone who wants to touch me. Hug me. Hold my hand. Tangle his legs around mine in the middle of the night. Who isn’t embarrassed to give me a kiss in public or wrap his arms around me for no reason. Because he can’t help it. Or he just wants to. Bryce wasn’t much for snuggles or touching.”
Then Bryce was a certifiable lunatic and a bona fide jackass. Because this woman sitting next to me? She is the most touch
able woman I’ve ever met, and that includes my ex-wife. Any man who has permission would be insane not to hold her every second he gets.
And just like that, a log is added to the fire because it’s burning through everything else it’s been given. It’s raging now. It’s fierce and hot as I consider what she wants and who I am.
I’m chivalrous. I love kids. I’m a dad, for God’s sake. And I can’t keep my hands off of her.