But the logical cells were soon overrun by the impulsive ones that screamed yes.
“That sounds nice,” I said.
He fished his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call my driver.”
Chapter 15
Lukas
Art pulled over amidst the evergreen trees of Discovery Park. On our left was the dark expanse of the Puget Sound. The moon overhead, nearly full, glowed on the surface of the water like a giant white orb. Stars glistened overhead and upon the dark mirrored water, winking as if greeting Kayla and me as we got out of the back seat of the Rover.
Kayla breathed in the crisp fall air and wrapped her arms around herself. She hadn’t brought a jacket, merely a thin knit cardigan, so I shrugged out of mine and draped it over her shoulders.
She thanked me with a smile and I noticed that the stars twinkled in her eyes, too.
Art told us he would wait for us there. He had a book with him on the passenger seat he was eager to read and I told him we’d only be forty-five minutes or so. We left him behind and found our way to the footpath along the Sound. About ten feet below, the water lapped at the edge of the rock wall upon which we walked. Had it been daytime, it would have been difficult to hear each other over the shrieking seagulls and ocean traffic sounds, but at night, it was pleasantly quiet. A hush fell over the Sound at this time as the city began tucking itself away to sleep.
Kayla hid a yawn behind one hand and gazed out at the water. Across the Sound, the lights of Bainbridge Island competed for attention with the starry night sky.
“I had a nice time tonight,” she said as she tucked her hands in the pockets of my suit jacket. “Thank you for dinner.”
“I’m glad you joined me. Eating dinner alone is never as enjoyable as sharing it with someone.”
“Do you eat alone often?”
“I do,” I admitted. “One of the demands of the job. But I enjoy my own company.”
“You always have.”
That was true. As a kid, I’d spend hours upon hours locked up in my room, working away on my computer. My mother never understood it. For a while there, I think it might have even scared her. She was always knocking on my door with a glass of lemonade, asking if I was going to go out and play with my friends that day. I’d remind her that I was thirteen and I didn’t need to go outside and play anymore. My imagination was being put to proper use with the computer.
Over the years, I became more of a recluse, and she became more concerned. Now as a grown man looking back, I could see why some of my behaviors were red flags to her. She worried that I was giving up the tail end of my childhood—which I had—in favor of something indulgent and antisocial. She never could have known then that those tireless hours in my room as a teenager would be what led me to this future.
Hell, she didn’t know now. Her dementia had stolen those truths from her years ago.
“What are you thinking about?” Kayla asked, bumping me gently with her hip.
“The past. I think I’ve thought about who I used to be more in the week since I reconnected with you than I have in years. A decade even.”
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Is that a good thing?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
A cloud passed in front of the sky and the Sound grew slightly darker. Kayla’s eyes still caught the starlight as she gazed up at me. “I think if we’d had more as children, we never would have ended up where we are now. I think maybe this is how things were supposed to be so that we could make means of our own to help others.”
I liked the way she looked at things. I’d never considered myself an optimist but that was certainly what Kayla was. She saw the good in people and things before she ever saw the bad. Whereas I proactively looked for the bad.
However, I never liked to think that things were how they were supposed to be. I didn’t believe in that. Things were the way they were. There was no because, no explanation, no logical or explainable reason for it. There couldn’t be. How could I find a reason that would appease my fury about my mother’s dementia?
I couldn’t because one such reason did not exist.
“What do you think?” Kayla asked. She stopped walking and turned to me. The moon peeked back out from behind the wisp of a cloud and she cocked her head to the side. “Do you think we would have turned out the same if we’d lived different childhoods? Grew up in nice houses on nice streets?”
I peered down the Sound. Up ahead, probably six or so miles, was my house.
“I don’t know,” I conceded. “Probably not. I doubt I’d have worked as hard if I came from something instead of nothing.”
Kayla reached out and took my hand. Her fingers were tiny in mine and cold. “You didn’t come from nothing, Lukas.”
Her breath vaporized in the air and she smiled at me. Really smiled at me.
Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled her in close. Kayla let out a startled little gasp, but I silenced it with a kiss. She trembled in my arms until I cupped the back of her neck and the small of her back and held her like she was mine.
After that, she let out a breathless sigh and draped her arms behind my neck.
The kiss deepened and a cool breeze blew off the water. Neither of us felt it, even though it blew her hair around our cheeks. She clung to me fiercely, and for a moment, I thought things might get a little out of control.
But she broke the kiss.
“Lukas,” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“We… we shouldn’t do this. I’ve missed you.
