The Falling Kind (7 page)

              He stared directly into my eyes as he said it. His words resonated with me more than he realized. My life had been a pretty simple one for the most part, but unfortunately I also realized in an instant how cruel the world could be. How life-altering it could be in a single split second. There was no way to plan for that.

              “I understand what you mean,” I commiserated.

              “So what about you, what are your life plans?” he asked sincerely.

              “To finish the rest of these tacos,” I teased. “You were right, I’ve never had Mexican food like this. It’s amazing.”

              “Well it’s official then, we can be friends,” he stated with a soft laugh. “But after the tacos, what’s your plan then?”

              I hesitated for a moment. The first thought that entered my mind was that I wondered what his chest looked like without his shirt. I almost wanted to reach out and put my hand on his chest, just to see if it really felt as rock hard as it appeared through the thin fabric. Then I immediately chided myself for those thoughts.
Get it together, Syd.
In what world did my future plans include undressing handsome strangers?

              “My life plans have changed a lot,” I stated honestly. “I graduated in May and here I am, not really sure what I’m doing.”

              “What was your plan originally?” he asked, handing me another taco.

              “Well, this summer I was supposed to be moving to Washington State to start my graduate program in the fall,” I began, not sure of how much to tell him. The full story wasn’t exactly first date worthy. Quite honestly, I would’ve been happy to never talk about it again. “But I’ve officially turned that opportunity down,” I said vaguely. “Sam is still heading out to Oregon though next month and I’ll still be here. So I guess I need a new plan.”

              “Sweet. Then why don’t you move to southern California with me? We’ll start a taco stand,” he joked.

              “That sounds about as random as what I have in mind,” I replied, trying the second taco. This one was full of chicken and avocados with some sort of tangy sauce. It tasted even better than the first one.

            
 “
These other two are spicy,” he explained, completely shifting the conversation. I was relieved by that. I certainly wanted to know more about him, but I can’t say I was all that eager to tell him more about myself. “Do you want to at least try them?”

              I nodded and he held one out to me. I bit into it, trying to decipher all of the flavors. This one tasted like shredded pork. He was right though, the spicy pepper sauce on it certainly had a kick.

              “It’s good, but hot,” I commented once I swallowed the bite.

              “Try this one.”

              I took a quick sip of my Sprite before biting into the next taco he held up. I couldn’t even figure out what was in that one – different meats, some crazy type of chunky salsa. It was pretty fiery.

              “That one’s too much for me,” I said, quickly taking a sip of my drink.

              “I’m impressed you bit into it without even knowing what they were,” he stated with a raised brow. “It’s quickly changing my opinion of you.” He had a boyish grin and I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

              “Do I even want to know what your opinion is?” I mused.

              “Not until I have you figured out. I need more time. You’re an enigma. You’re all pretty and proper one minute, then you’re dive-bar hopping and eating taco stand food the next. You’re all over the place, I can’t quite get an accurate read on you. You have a pig living in your kitchen, but yet you have no hesitation finishing off a pork taco. You’re fascinating.”

              I wasn’t sure if he was completely mocking me, but his tone was sweet. Honestly I couldn’t figure him out either, so we had that in common.

              “Do all the other girls turn down your tacos when you shove them in front of their mouths?” I said lightheartedly.

              “You’re the first girl I’ve ever brought here actually,” he said sweetly. “Usually I just hang around here trying to pick up on ones who already share my love of Tony’s,” he teased.

              I playfully swatted his arm. “Well while we’re on the subject, where’s your girlfriend? Or did you dump her because she was a vegetarian or something?” I joked.

              “No girl,” he replied. “Not for a long time.”

              “I imagine your strong stature and perfect jaw line are quite a turn off for most women,” I said sarcastically.

              “So you noticed my face,” he replied playfully. “Everyone else just stares at my chest. I know what you women go through. The struggle is real.”

              I laughed as he said it, appreciating his sense of humor. I enjoyed being around him even more than I thought I would.  For some reason I thought our dinner might be quiet and awkward, or that I would be so nervous that I would start rambling about baseball again, or something else just as stupid. Instead though, I felt perfectly comfortable to be with him.

              “I’m sure you have to work early tomorrow, but can we walk down by the beach? I want to show you something,” he asked.

              “Tomorrow is actually my late start day,” I replied. “I don’t go in until nine. I don’t have to be home that early.”
Eeek.
An omission that I wouldn’t mind staying out late with him. I hoped the way I said it sounded more casual than eager.

              “Stay here,” he instructed, gathering up our trash. He ran the tray back across the street to Antonio’s and came back to meet me at the table.

              “How’s your arm by the way?” I asked, finally able to direct my attention to the real reason why we were here. After all, I did promise him the night we met that I would look at it again for him. “Did you unwrap it yet? Any redness?”

              “It’s fine,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “I’ve had worse.”

              “Worse than a stab wound? Who are you, Cole Mason?”

              “Like you’ve never been stabbed before,” he said in a mocking tone.

              I laughed. “Are you going to tell me what really happened?” I studied his face as he reached out his hand for mine. I grabbed it and he led me towards the beach, not letting go of my grasp. We kicked our shoes off and I was reminded just how short I was next to him without my heels on. The sand felt cold on my bare feet.

              “I will eventually,” he replied with a smirk. “I’ll tell you what, I know we’re going out on the boat Saturday, but Friday night my friends are having a bonfire on the beach. If you aren’t terrified that’s too much time to spend with me, will you go with me? It doesn’t start until nine, but after midnight, that’s when all my secrets come out.” His smile was so contagious that I couldn’t help but smile back.

              “That sounds fun actually,” I answered sincerely. I wondered if we knew any of the same people or if it would be a totally new crowd. Maybe some of the same people from the bar last night? Then again, I didn’t see him hanging around a particular group of people. Once we spotted each other, he didn’t seem to talk to anyone else.

              “Look over by these rocks,” he said, leading me over to a rougher part of the shoreline. We stepped over some large rocks that were partially in the water. He pointed to a small clearing in the sand. There were weird indentations in the tide. “This is the best place to see the turtles hatching,” he explained, exploring around by the rocks. “See these patterns in the sand here?” he pointed. “This is the spot. Usually this is the best time of night for it. See all those eggs there?”

              “How on earth do you know this exists?” I said excitedly.

              “I’ve been coming here for years, ever since I was a kid. I don’t live too far from here,” he said innocently. “I stumbled upon this spot once, just walking around after dark. Once you see it, you’ll be hooked. Then again, you’ve probably seen it before, given your profession.”

              “Never,” I replied, feeling giddy over the possibility of it. I’d seen documentaries about it, sure. But never the real thing.

              “You might be mad at me for this, but I think it’s a false alarm. I don’t see any movement,” he confessed, gently moving some of the rocks around. “I’m guessing it won’t happen until tomorrow night.”

              “Can we come back?” I said eagerly. “Please? I have to see it. Please?”

              “Yes, I’ll go out with you again. Geez, you’re so persistent,” he teased.

              “This is for the turtles,” I clarified humorously.

              “Right,” he said with a fake disbelieving tone.

              “I have to work until seven tomorrow night. Don’t you have cards or something?” I asked, remembering Antonio’s comment earlier. “Pinochle? Bridge?” 

              “It’s poker, but I can be late,” he said with a boyish grin. “We do it every month. It’s no big deal if I get a late start. Do you want me to pick you up?”

              “Yes!” I said excitedly. “Is seven fifteen too late? That way I can go home and change real quick after work. Will we miss it?”

              “Nah, that should be perfect timing,” he said thoughtfully. He grabbed my hand again and we headed back down the beach towards his truck.

              “Are you going to let me look at your arm tonight?” I asked, genuinely concerned about it. I wasn’t entirely confident I bandaged it up well enough in the first place. Not to mention there was a part of me that wanted to extend our evening beyond just dinner.

              “That would be great,” he replied politely, still keeping a firm grip on my hand as he led me back across the street to his truck. “First let’s go somewhere else. You don’t seem like a drinker, so a bar is probably not a great idea. Do you want to go get some dessert somewhere?”

              “I have an idea,” I suggested as we climbed into his vehicle. “Why don’t we swing by and pick it up to go?”

              “Where am I taking us?” he replied with a sexy grin.

              “Well, you already took me to one of your favorite spots. So let’s go to one of mine.” He started up the truck and pulled out of the lot.

              The expression on his face looked innocent, yet like trouble all at the same time. For a girl denying any romantic intentions earlier… I had a feeling that was all about to change.

CHAPTER 6

              We stopped by a bakery called Sweet Cheeks and picked up some carrot cake, a piece of chocolate pie, and some type of peanut butter parfait. It was definitely overboard, but we had a hard time narrowing down all of our choices. As we drove away, I gave him directions that led back to my apartment.

              “Ah, I get it. You con me into getting you enough dessert to last you a week and then you want to be dropped off at your own house to eat it all by yourself. I’ve been duped,” he said playfully.

              “I want to show you something,” I said, giving him mischievous eyes this time. We unloaded from the truck and he carried our bag of desserts inside. I quickly checked on all of the animals, adding some water to the tortoise’s area and giving Dexter a good belly scratch followed by a bowl of food. He already ate before I headed out, but it just seemed cruel to head upstairs with a huge bag of desserts while he was left alone again.

              Cole followed my lead up to the second story, then up another small, narrow stairway to the roof of the condo. The door opened to a furnished rooftop area complete with a sofa, a couple lounge chairs, two side tables, and a small fire pit table in the center. The couch faced towards the lake. At night the actual water was hard to see unless the moon was shining right on it, but the stars looked magnificent from here and the lights from downtown twinkled in the distance. It was my absolute favorite spot to sit and unwind.

              “This is your view?” he said in amazement, looking around each direction. “It’s incredible up here. You have a view of the lake? This is unreal.”

              “I feel like I spend more time up here than I do inside,” I admitted, setting the desserts on one of the small tables. I turned the fire pit key and a soft orange glow illuminated from the table in front of the sofa.

              Cole sat down next to me on the couch. His leg rested against mine, and I had no desire to protest his proximity. At least half the couch was still open, but I didn’t mind.

              We dug our plastic forks into the desserts, sampling each one and commenting how amazing they were.

              “I think I would eat all of my meals up here,” he stated, leaning back into the couch cushions. “I just can’t get over how beautiful this spot is.”

              “Can you see the lake from your place?” I asked. “Where exactly do you live?”

              “I’m much further west,” he answered, resting his arm on the back of the couch. I knew if I leaned back I would essentially be leaning right up against him. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. I was sincere about my lack of intent on dating anyone seriously. It just wasn’t the right time for me. But sitting this close to Cole was quickly clouding my judgment. “No lake view from my place. I don’t have a good view of anything, really. But I can get to the beach within a ten minute walk, so it works for me.”

              “Why would you want to leave all of this for southern California?” I questioned, referencing his comment about that earlier. I wasn’t sure how serious he was about it.

              “For a change,” he shrugged. “I just want to pack a bag, get on my bike, and ride down the coast. I want to buy some land somewhere, hopefully some place I can see the ocean. I want to surf every morning. And I want to build my own house. Something simple. And I want fruit trees everywhere, and definitely avocado trees. I want to be able to make fresh guacamole any time I want. That’s the life.”

              “That sounds like a good plan,” I agreed, slowly leaning back in case he wanted the chance to move his arm out of the way. Instead it came down around my side. I shifted a bit sideways so I was facing him a little better. I wanted to look at him while we talked. “So what, you’ll build a house, surf all day, and eat avocados? That’s it?”

              “Of course not, I’ll own a bike shop too,” he said confidently. “I’ve gotta make some money so my wife doesn’t have to work if she doesn’t want to.”

              “Oh yeah? And this wife, are you also picking her up riding down the coast?” I said with a playful laugh.

              “Maybe,” he replied with a boyish smirk. “Maybe I’ll kidnap one until she grows to love me. Other than being charged with a felony, what could go wrong?” We both laughed. “What about you? If you could do anything, what would it be?”

              “Honestly, I want to open up an animal rescue sanctuary,” I said dreamily. “I want land and a few barns, and fences…”

              “And avocado trees?” he suggested.

              “I guess that wouldn’t be so bad. I probably would need a garden to keep up with feeding all of the animals. So yeah, I need lots of land and space.”

              “You seem to be doing a good job already in your two-bedroom condo,” he said genuinely.

              “It’s so frustrating, all of these animals that people just give up on,” I explained. “Dr. Nikki, the vet at the clinic, she’s my hero. She takes in every single one she gets a call on, even when she’s over capacity at the clinic. She has a bunch of them at her house too, and then the overflow from that comes to me. She runs a great website to get them all re-homed. It’s really inspiring. I would give anything to be able to help as many animals as she does.”

              “So that’s why you went into veterinary science? To run a rescue? That’s what you’ve always wanted to do?”

              “Not exactly,” I continued. “My parents were pushing for pre-med. My dad is a cardiologist, and he seemed to mistake my listening to his endless medical stories as interest to also become a doctor. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but it wasn’t that. I just wanted out of the city though. Chicago is amazing in its own way, but I just wanted something
different.
Dr. Nikki is an old friend of my mom’s from college. After my mom passed, I came out here one summer to visit her, just to clear my head and get away from all the noise of the city. I absolutely loved the area as soon as I saw it. It was so different from everything back home, and I knew I needed that kind of change. She convinced me to come out here for school and as soon as I saw her working in the clinic, I was hooked. That’s when I realized what direction I wanted to head.”

              “So the Washington thing you mentioned last night, what’s that? You’re not continuing with school?” he asked, sounding genuinely interested.

              “That was someone else’s dream, not mine,” I replied quietly. “I was going there for someone else.”

              “So now you’re doing what you want instead?” he asked sweetly.

              “I’m trying,” I admitted. “But it’s hard. You know, trying to figure it all out.”

              “Well for now this seems pretty good,” he said, lightening the mood. “Dessert, stars, a handsome stranger.”

              “I could do worse,” I admitted.

              He shifted his body against the arm of the sofa with his legs at an angle. He motioned for me to slide sideways so that I was up against his torso, both of us looking up at the sky.

              “Do you know any of the constellations?” he asked, mesmerized by the scene overhead.

              “Just a few basics, nothing fancy. We didn’t have stars like this in the city. I feel deprived now that I know just how beautiful they are in a place like this. I can’t believe I spent all of those years looking at this same sky and I never realized all that was up there.”

              He pointed to a few, explaining some of them to me. He knew stories about the constellations I had never heard of in school. He named some that sounded so unfamiliar to me I wondered if he was making them up.

              “How do you know so much about the constellations?” I questioned. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a science nerd.”

              “That’s all Harvey, he taught me all about them when I was a kid,” he said with a shy tone as if he was slightly embarrassed. “I wasn’t the easiest kid. I went through a lot with my mom and dad at a pretty young age, and sitting outside was the only way I would listen to Harvey at first. When it was dark out I felt invisible, but he always knew I was there, hanging around the cabins. He would start talking as if he was telling an audience, but I was the only one who could hear him.”

              “What happened to your parents?” I asked nervously, unsure if he felt comfortable enough to share it with me.

              “My mom’s been out of the picture for awhile,” he said hesitantly. “I don’t really remember her well. I think I was around four or five when she stopped coming by. She had a lot of addictions, and love wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t cruel to me or anything, don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t a bad mom. She just wasn’t one at all. She was never sober long enough to know what to do. So she never really had a chance I guess.”

              He spoke so innocently, and I was so intrigued by his perspective. She sounded like a whole lot more than a bad mom, but he didn’t sound like he harbored negative feelings about it. I couldn’t understand how that was possible.

              “My dad, that’s another story. He was cruel on purpose. Not just to me, but to everyone. He had some ties to Harvey somehow, even though to this day I don’t really know the details. We lived down the road from Harvey’s property, and I think my dad did some work for him. Of course he was in and out of jail a lot though, so it wasn’t really steady employment.”

              I shifted down until I was essentially laying across his lap so I could look at him as we spoke. It seemed like too personal of a story to be staring out in space as he explained his upbringing. I could see the emotion in his eyes as we talked, and it completely humanized him to me. Before now, he was this huge macho guy that seemed cool and unaffected. But this conversation was so different.

              “I should stop talking, right?” he said, shaking his head. “I know all of this is not a selling point on who I am. It’s a total cliché, guy on the wrong side of the tracks with a rough family. It’s all stupid, really.”

              “It’s not stupid, that was your life. That’s what made you who you are. I think it matters.”

              “Nah, none of that made me who I am. Harvey. That’s the guy who raised me. That’s who I am.”

              “So he took you in when your dad went off to jail?” I clarified, trying to understand the entire timeline. I couldn’t say I ever knew anyone personally with this crazy of a back story. It was fascinating.

              “Yeah, pretty much. I was at school one day, waiting to be picked up. I waited for so long the sun started going down, but no one ever came for me. It took me almost an hour to walk home that night, and no one was there when I showed up. Eventually Harvey realized the situation. He found me lurking around his property when I was supposed to be in class. He let me stay in one of his cabins and he forced me to go to school. I hated him for it for awhile, before I knew better. He had rules and advice for me I didn’t want. It took me awhile to realize that’s what parents were for. I thought he was just a pain in my ass, quite honestly. But I get it now.” He smiled down at me, brushing some of the hair off my face.

              “So now you work for him,” I said softly.

              “Yeah, when he needs me,” he answered considerately. “I have a hard time saying no to him, after everything he’s done for me. But he knows there will come a day where I’ll leave and get out on my own. I really do appreciate everything he’s done for me, but this can’t be it for me.”

              I smiled back up at him and he continued to gently touch the hair by my face.

              “That’s all I have for you tonight,” he said jovially, changing the subject. “That’s my life story. That’s all the good stuff.”

              “I imagine there’s a whole lot more,” I replied, judging by the look on his face.

              “Not tonight,” he said back with a soft laugh. “You have to spend more time with me for that. I can’t just give it all away for free. What about you? Tell me something personal about you.”

              “Sam’s leaving in less than two months,” I said with a sad tone in my voice.
So much for keeping the mood light.
The mere thought of her moving away made me all choked up. “I’m terrified of her leaving. I feel like I’ve never been alone before. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared of anything my whole life.”

              “Why does that scare you?” he asked directly. “If you’ve never been alone, how do you know it’s so bad?”

              I thoughtfully assessed his question. He actually had a good point.

              “I’ve been alone most of my life,” he continued, alternating his gaze from me up to the night sky. “Honestly being with someone seems far more terrifying,” he said quietly.

              “I actually agree with you on that,” I muttered softly. “What about you? What scares you the most?”

              “Honestly, after all I’ve been through in life, I don’t think there’s anything else to be scared of,” he said with a macho tone. I guess he had something there. It sounded like he already lived through a nightmare when he was younger. Perhaps there really was nothing left to fear after something like that. 

              I gazed up at the night sky. It was amazing how I could look at the same view every single night, but it still awed me each time. I looked back at him and he was staring directly at me with a serious expression.