(no subject)
Galaxy City
Gramma Marlene’s shop, Angel Critters, occupied the ground floor of a tidy brick Tudor in one of the quirky-artsy neighborhoods of Galaxy City. The building fronted onto the street, planters of geraniums flanking the shop’s door.
The back yard was mostly taken up by patio, patio furniture, and a garden that was more garden statuary than garden plants. It also had a waist-high fence, a whimsical gate, and stepping stones meandering through the grass to the bottom of the exterior steps leading up to the second floor entryway landing.
Up there, above the shop, was the cozy, amiably cluttered apartment where Gramma had lived ever since selling the house she and Grampa Howard had shared and raised their family in. She’d said she didn’t need all that space, those big empty rooms too lonely and way too much effort to keep clean.
The spare room had been Blue Pyra’s for a while, but was back to guest-room status now, and Ammy’s temporary quarters until the workers finished at Helios Towers, and William and Sean returned from New York.
Arthur parked under the covered breezeway between the house and its cottage-sized detached garage. He bounded out and circled the car to open Ammy’s door, clasping her hands as she rose from the seat.
“I’ll walk you up?” he asked, also opening the gate for her.
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s such a long way, and dark, and scary.” He set a protective guiding hand at the small of her back, and aimed a vigilant stare out at the sleeping neighborhood around them in case there were villains lurking in every shadow. She giggled.
Not that it was even very dark … the streetlights from out front and the next block over shed a mild ambient glow … and besides, Gramma had left the porch light on at the top of the steps, a low-wattage frosted bulb in a rose-crystal glass tulip-shaped fixture.
But if Arthur wanted to walk her up, she wasn’t going to argue.
And if …
If he …
Most of the drive here, she’d been struggling in her mind about the him-and-Bex thing. Broke up? Broke up? Him and Bex?
He hadn’t told her, which triggered a priority overthink about why he wouldn’t have told her.
What if he hadn’t told her because he didn’t want her to go and get her stupid silly hopes up or something because then he really would have to give her the speech about how though he loved her as a friend and maybe even liked-her liked her a little, but even so it was just mostly a platonic thing … and he hadn’t wanted to have to tell her that, not wanting to embarrass her or hurt her feelings or make her feel like more of a dunce than she already did …
Except, what if he hadn’t told her because she’d still been with Greg at the time and he didn’t want her to think he was … what? … making some kind of play for her? That was crazy … wasn’t it? Or what if it wasn’t?
Who said it was any of her business anyways? Only, they were friends, friends told each other about major events in their lives. What if he thought she’d already known? But if he knew she hadn’t known, how could he let her go on torturing herself by feeling so guilty for letting herself feel the way she felt when she was with him while he still had a girlfriend, and … augh!
At least he hadn’t told everybody except her so then someone would suddenly go and mention it in front of the whole group and blindside her again and they’d all be there to watch her get the news, watch it hit her like a sledgehammer, Straight-A’s Ammy supposedly so smart but looking like the world’s biggest idiot while they stood there smug and smirking and all, “Oh, you didn’t know that?”
Or what if he hadn’t told her because he did have something going with Maggy …? And worried she’d be upset, take it badly? Which would have been even worse to get blindsided with, like she’d thought at first she already had when Maggy just strolled in …
Except Maggy and Lee …
So …
Arthur wouldn’t have done something so cruel or callous … would he? She couldn’t believe that. It would kill her if she had to believe that. Not in public. Not on purpose.
Then, finally … dawning through the overthink in a spreading clear brilliance to outshine all her muddled cloudy doubts … there’d been a single realization.
He wanted to be here. With her. To spend time with her.
If he’d rather have been with Bex or Maggy or any of a hundred other girls, she couldn’t have stopped him. She knew she couldn’t compete on that scale. Couldn’t have won him or stolen him or seduced him away. She was just … just herself.
A goof, but his goof? Herself was enough?
Maybe it was, maybe it honestly truly was.
Which meant …
For real?
Oh, please, for real?
They climbed the steps to the second-story landing, and stood under the porch light on a cheery welcome mat with its design of angel-puppies and angel-kitties. Turned facing each other now.
Backlit, his gooped-up blond hair gleamed like spun gold, and his eyes were the deepest dreamiest most azure they’d ever been. His expression was earnest hopefulness, not unsure, but a little bit shy.
And …
Would he kiss her goodnight now? Was he going to? Was he really? Would he?
Ammy almost couldn’t breathe. They had been so close, there in the car out at Inspiration Point … she’d felt so sure that he would, yearned for it so much … while at the same time thinking that if he did, if he actually did kiss her she would faint on the spot.
Arthur took her hands in his again. Their gaze held … held.
He leaned in. So did she.
The door popped open and Gramma Marlene stuck her head out. “Ammy, dear, is that y- oh!”
*
(( to be continued … ))
**