He sits on the arm of the couch, facing me. “Libby, I don’t want to be merely ‘someone.’ We’ve established that you don’t even need me in order to, well, get the job done, for lack of a better way of saying it.” When I avert my eyes, he says, “So what I’m trying to get at is that I think we need to be intimate in other ways before… that way.”
“You’re not normal,” I state, defeated. “What kind of guy passes up such an easy opportunity?”
“One who wants to sleep at night? With sore tackle, granted…”
When I figure out what that means, I burst into involuntary laughter.
He smiles, relieved. “It’s not that I don’t want to. Trust me. I want to.”
“Stop mollycoddling me,” I demand lightly.
“Stop pressuring me,” he jokes in return. “No means no.”
“Who hurt you?” I mean it in jest, but his expression turns serious. “I was just kidding,” I hurriedly say. “You know, because you asked me that once.”
He nods. “Of course. Right. Sorry. Only… I wasn’t kidding when I asked you.”
“I know. That’s what makes it funny. Or not. Just forget it.”
He seems to do so fairly easily. “So.” He stands up and stretches. “I should probably get going.”
My disappointment is complete. True, I started out the night with my only goal being to kiss him, but I got greedy in a hurry. Now I’m dissatisfied to the nth degree. But I can hardly argue one minute that I’m an adult, then pout like a child when I don’t get my way. So I rise and say, “Okay,” brightly, as if I really am okay with it.
He grasps my upper arms and bends his knees a little so he can look me in the eyes. “Do you want to brave the predicted thunderstorms tomorrow?”
The thought of not seeing him the next day fills me with melodramatic despair. “Yes! If it rains, we’ll figure out something else.”
Fortunately, he agrees. Then he catches my mouth with his. It’s a lot less frantic than the last kiss, but it has the same effect on my insides. I’m not sure if I’m glad or disappointed that it’s short.
“Go away,” I tease.
“Absolutely.” He walks to the door, which is about three steps away. “I’ll, uh, see myself out.”
After he leaves, I catch Sandberg staring at me from the foot of the bed, where he’s waiting fetchingly for me. If a cat could roll his eyes, he would.
15
I cancel my next two appointments with Dr. Marsh and screen his calls to check up on me. I’m not ready to talk to him about Jude, now that he’s really my boyfriend (I’m confident about that fact now—we definitely do things that people don’t do with their friends). I don’t want him to say anything or ask any questions that would put a damper on what I’m feeling, which is near-constant euphoria mixed with a little bit (okay, a lot) of sexual frustration. And Dr. Marsh has a real knack for putting a damper on things. I think it’s one of the first skills he lists proudly on his resume.
About the only thing that could make my life more perfect right now would be if the Cubs had a chance of making it to the post season. But not so. Fall is almost here, and my team is well out of it, as usual. The boys’ll be hanging up their pinstripes for a few months with the usual promise of “Wait till next year.” But for some reason, it’s not as disappointing as it usually is.
I’m more interested in rounding some bases of my own.
Unfortunately, I’m not a sprinter. By any stretch of the imagination. I’m more like the veteran catcher trying to run on two bum knees. And Jude’s the pitcher who has a mean throw to second and is keeping me close to the bag.
He’s also a crafty guy when it comes to not giving me many chances to tempt him. At least that’s the construction I’m putting on it so that I don’t take offense and assume he just doesn’t want to sleep with me at all. I’m choosing to trust his original statement that he wants to get to know me better before taking that step. And I’m trying not to think of the possibility that he won’t want to take that step after he gets to know me better.
Fortunately, he’s keeping me too busy to sit around obsessing, like I normally would. We’ve been to more Chicago venues in the past few weeks than I’ve been to in my entire life. There are plenty of places that I’ve never visited because it’s no fun to go there alone. It’s a blast experiencing these things for the first time together. It’s especially funny when Jude assumes I’m the all-knowing local and I end up being just as clueless as he is.
And I hope I’m giving him what he wants: insight into my personality. I think I am, anyway. The other day, as a matter of fact, he got out of the car after I drove us home from the Medieval Times Dinner and Show (which was non-stop hilarity, by the way, even though I don’t think it’s intended to be as funny as we found it) and said proudly, “My testicles didn’t try to re-ascend once during that drive.”
“You’re getting to know me and trust me,” I replied pointedly, putting plenty of emphasis on the word “know.”
“I think it’s because you’re actually driving more safely. But you may be right about the other,” he admitted, smiling at me over the roof of the car.
“I know I’m right,” I boasted.
He grinned even more broadly and fingered the radio antenna. “Don’t get too confident yet, though.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, I won’t. I know you’re right there to knock me a down a few pegs and dash my hopes.”
But I really thought he was getting to know me better, on my terms,
