“You can do better than that.” Her lips quivered. “Give me something I can get my teeth into, something I don’t already know about you. Gossip is acceptable. Especially juicy gossip. Surely something exciting happened for you in the last ten years that I don’t know about.”
He thought hard. “I might have to work up to that. Let me tell you about me and Christian though and how we got to where we are now because that happened after you left.” He gave her a smile and took a breath. “Both of us loved tinkering in his father’s shed after school, building things, and it was always my dream to build things as you know. Mom still has the first side table I made her. You know that one she kept by her recliner in the lounge?” He laughed thinking about how proud he was when he delivered it for her birthday and noticed Mari was listening despite the fact it wasn’t juicy gossip. “It’s a bit wobbly but she won’t let me fix it. Pretty sure I didn’t measure the legs properly and that was the cause but she wouldn’t let me take it back to the workshop once I’d given it to her. Says it was made with love and she intends to keep it until it falls apart.” Her breathing had steadied and he was grateful for that. The shrill of the fire engine pierced the air. “Your knight in shining armor is here by the sound of it.”
Her eyes welled again and she blinked the tears away. “I think I have him right here to be honest.” She sniffed, then stiffened, panic in her eyes. “I think I’m slipping farther down the hole. I felt the floor move!”
“No, I’ve got you. You’re not going anywhere. I doubt you’ve moved an inch since I grabbed your hands.” He heard the intake of breath behind him at his lie and silently begged whoever it was not to cry out and tell her different. He’d felt the small movement and tensed ready to fight gravity for her if he had to. If she panicked and tried to kick her way out of her predicament, she could slip to the floor below, possibly dragging him down with her and it was a long way down.
“Do you remember when we first fell in love?”
Her face went through a series of changes. Was she thinking of the good times or the time he let her down? That might not’ve been the wisest thing to ask. He needed to keep her positive.
“We were at a home game. School teams, all the visiting jocks doing their thing showing off in front of the cheerleaders and the local crowd, trying to impress everyone. Huge egos on show. You can imagine the scene and I think I let it go to my head. Teenagers screaming, hot dogs and soda flowing. Guys strutting their stuff like it was show day for all.” The memory brought back more feel-good tingles than he’d experienced in a while.
“One of the players kept looking at you, giving you the eye, or so I thought. It wasn’t a secret or anything how close we were but I didn’t realize how much I really cared about you until that day either.” He grinned. “We were pretty cute together back then too, I might add.” Mari was intent on his story and didn’t look down when the fire crew came into the hotel below.
“Do you remember how I took a knock to the head in the first quarter, sent me to the ground like a bag of sand? Talk about embarrassing to be carted off the field. Especially when cupid had shot me with his arrow and suddenly I had to impress you like never before.”
“Were you hurt bad? I don’t remember that part.” Concern for him rather than panic now showed in her eyes.
“No. Winded more than anything but because it was a head hit, coach made me go to the locker room and catch my breath. So there I was, lying down on the stretcher with my eyes closed trying to get a handle on the fact that I’d been carried off in front of the crowd, embarrassment central, and I sensed someone close by. I peeked between my lashes and you were sneaking into the locker room.”
“No way. That part I really don’t remember. I think you’re making this up, Ethan.” Her eyes widened but didn’t leave his face.
“I pretended to be out of it and waited to see what you’d do. For what felt like the longest time, you stood staring down at me, your hair barely touching my arm. I have to admit, I was pretty hot back then too so I wasn’t surprised. Trim and fit, young and healthy. I was a machine.”
“Yeah, in your own mind until a bigger guy sent you flying.” The voice wafting up from below belonged to Jake Woods, a close friend and local fireman. “I’d call that super fit, stud.”
“Don’t stop, ignore him and tell me what happened next because none of this is coming back to me.”
Ethan continued to talk while Jake quietly assessed the situation. “Eventually you couldn’t help it. You came closer and closer until I could smell your perfume. You smelled like cotton candy too. Still do, so I’ve noticed.”
April called out from the doorway. “It’s that skin cream she uses. She can’t sneak up on me either. I can smell it a mile away. Its old-fashioned rose in case you wanted to know for future reference.”
“Thanks. Anyway, you lowered your head, and I almost bolted. I was so damned scared you’d know I was faking it. Anyway,
