The Arrangement Anthology 1(54)

CHAPTER 5



With a cup of hot coffee in hand, Sean drives without telling me where he’s going. “Seriously,” I ask. “You aren’t even going to give me a hint?”

Sean glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “Nope.”

“Well, you suck.” He chuckles, but I talk over him. “Come on, just one little hint.” The hot little cup warms my hands.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Miss Smith.” There’s a faint smile on his lips. Sean drives for a while and after a few turns, we’re at a toy store.

“Reliving your childhood, are we?” I say, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Perhaps,” he says, noncommittally, and walks around to open my door. I’m not used to it. I already have my hand on the door, and push it open at the same time he steps in front of the door. The result is instant. The door smacks into his waist and forces out a gush of air the same way as if a fat guy slugged his chest.

I jump out of the car. “Oh my God! I’m sorry. Are you all right?” Sean holds his hand to his stomach and bends over. He straightens but I can tell that it hurts from the way his face is pinched.

“I’m fine,” he says through his teeth and tries to smile. The way he looks, something about the way he says it, makes me laugh. Placing my hand on his shoulder, I mean to offer my apologies but I can’t stop laughing. My emotions are so screwed up. They turn on in short uncontrollable bursts. Suddenly, something seems very funny and I have to laugh. Maybe it’s because I’ve cried too much over the past few months. Either way, Sean looks incredulous, which just makes me giggle more.

“Nice, very nice, Avery. I like the suave way you avoided making me feel silly.” Sean laughs with me after he says it. We both lean up against the car, giggling and gasping for air.

“Thanks,” I finally say, looking over my shoulder at him. “I needed that.”

“I’d take a door to the gut for you any time, Miss Smith.” His eyes sweep over my face. They dart between my lips and my eyes. I think he’s going to kiss me, but Sean takes a deep breath and pushes off the car. The moment is gone. “Come on. Let’s get what we came here for.”

Sean takes me by the hand and leads me into the toy store. We have to look on the clearance aisle because the thing he wants is out of season. He’s bent over, digging around in a bin when he stands and grins at me.

“Found one.” Sean plucks a kite from the bin, still wrapped in plastic. It has an extra-long thing of string.

“Are you serious? We came here for a kite?” I can’t imagine what he’s thinking.

“Yeah. My life could use a dash of levity right now.” The way he says it, the way his voice catches in his throat, makes my heart ache. I feel the same way. He can see it in my eyes. “I suspect that you are in need of the same sort of, ah…screw it.” Sean runs his fingers through his hair and looks at the floor before looking back up at me. “I’m trying to sound classy, Avery, but your eyes just make me melt. I can’t think around you. You bring out a side of me that, well, let’s just say that it hasn’t seen sunlight in years. Let’s go fly a kite at the beach. I’ll buy you lunch. We can see how high the thing goes before the string snaps and it flies away. What do you say?”

Stepping toward him, I touch the plastic packaging on the little kite. It’s the ninety-nine cent kind that kids fly. The corner of my lips pull up. “Well, I have plans this evening, but I think I can sneak in a trip to the beach to fly this…” Turning the package over, I look to see what cartoon character is on the kite. But when I flip it over, I laugh so hard that I slap my hands over my mouth. Giggling, I point to the kite. “Holy shit. That’s a pig in a tutu! On a kite!”

Sean grins, “When pigs fly. Apparently, a very pretty pig will be flying today.” He holds out his elbow. “My lady.”

Laughing, I take his arm and embark on one of the best days of my life.





CHAPTER 6



I kick off my shoes as Sean pulls the little kite out of the package and assembles it. The beach is empty today, probably because it’s freezing. The sun is a bright golden ball and the sky is that awesome shade of blue. I sit down and bury my toes in the sand, not caring about the chilly air.

Sean drops his coat on the sand next to me and ties the string onto the kite. “Here you go. Ladies first.” Sean hands me the kite and I take it. I can’t help but smile when I look at the thing. It has a pink cartoon pig doing a pirouette in a purple tutu. It’s perfect.

“Just so you know, I suck at kite flying. Kites hate me. You’ve been warned.” I nod at him, but Sean gives me a quizzical look.