Love - From His Point Of View!: Meeting at Midnight

“It does, doesn’t it?” She put her hands on her hips, surveying her work. The streak of green paint along her jaw curled up at one end, as smug as her smile. “Though I still say red would have worked, the green looks great. Refreshing.”

She’d brought me some paint chips to choose from that morning. I’d held out for a lighter, warmer shade than she wanted, being more familiar with translating the way a color looked on a tiny chip to an entire room. “You were right about the room needing color.”

“Well!” Her eyebrows rose. “A man who can admit he was wrong. Color me amazed.”

“You have brothers,” I muttered. “Or used to. You probably murdered them and buried the bodies.”

She let out a peal of laughter. “Watch it, or you’ll end up with a green nose.”

“To match yours?”

She lifted a hand to her nose. The bracelet she never removed slid down her arm. “It isn’t…”

“It is now.”

“I must look like a little girl who’s been finger painting.”

“No,” I said slowly. “You look like an uncommonly beautiful woman. Only slightly green.”

The smile she turned on me was different. Hesitant.

“Why have you never married, Seely?”

Her smile faded, as if it were on a dimmer switch and I’d just turned it down. “You’re changing the rules on me. Feeling safe, are you, over there on the couch?”

My heart began to pound. I didn’t have to figure out what she meant. “Not safe at all. You?”

She shook her head and bent to get the narrow brush I’d told her to use around the baseboards. She took the brush and the paint tray over to the window and settled on the floor, giving me plenty of time to wonder why I’d suddenly taken us both into the deep end.

Because I wanted her to know, I decided. I didn’t want her to have any doubts that I was interested, even if I couldn’t do anything about it yet. I wanted her aware of me the way I was aware of her.

I wanted an answer to my question, too.

For a while, it didn’t look as though I was going to get it. She seemed totally focused on the strip of wall she was painting next to the baseboard. At last, not looking up, she said, “I lived with a man for several years. His name was Steven. Steven Francis Blois.”

I chewed over that for a moment, then offered, “There was a king of England named Stephen Blois. William the Conqueror’s grandson.”

She snorted. “Oh, yes. Every time Steven was introduced to someone he’d say, ‘no relation.’ When they looked confused or asked what he meant, he’d grin and add, ‘to the former king of England, that is.’”

She bent and dipped her brush in the paint. “It was cute the first dozen or so times I heard it.”

Sounded like she wasn’t hung up on the man anymore. Encouraged, I said, “Stephen wasn’t much of a king. Weak. The country was torn apart during his reign—barons chewing on other barons, eventually civil war.”

“I don’t think Steven knew or cared what kind of a king his namesake had been. He wasn’t interested in history.” She chuckled. “Actually, he was an accountant.”

“An accountant.” That sounded safe and dull. Of course, a builder might sound pretty dull, too. “Doesn’t seem like your type.”

“Do we have types?” She studied her handiwork, then shifted to touch up another section. “I thought he had an open, inquiring mind. He was very New Age, you see. Into meditation, drumming, psychic stuff.”

Had he given her that chakra bracelet? I frowned. “Doesn’t sound like any accountants I know.”

“But he was still looking for rules, you see. Pigeonholes instead of answers. He didn’t think outside the box—he just used a different set of boxes.”

“So you’re not still stuck on him?”

Now she looked up. “I told you about Steven because you asked why I’m not married. While we were together, I took that commitment very seriously. We were involved for six years, and lived together for five. But it ended with a fizzle, not a bang. That was over two years ago.”

Steven Francis Blois must be a fool, to have had this woman for six years without marrying her. But maybe he’d wanted to get married. Maybe, for all her talk about taking the commitment seriously, she hadn’t been interested in taking that last step. “So, was it you or him who thought living together was a good idea?”

Her lips twitched. “Something tells me you don’t think much of living together without marriage.”

“It isn’t a moral thing for me. I just, ah…” Couldn’t think of a tactful way to put it. Well, I’d warned her I was blunt. “It’s always struck me as half-assed.”

She didn’t seem offended. “I take it you’ve never lived with anyone. What about marriage? Why have you never taken the plunge?”

“Uh…”

Her eyes lit with amusement. “Ben. You did open the subject for discussion, you know.”

I guess I had, though that hadn’t occurred to me when I blurted out my question. “I was serious about someone in college. Didn’t work out. After that…well, for several years I was too blasted busy. Felt as if I had to set a good example—couldn’t very well tell Charlie and Duncan how to act if I wasn’t being responsible myself. And Annie. Lord.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how single parents do it. I didn’t have time for much of a social life. Or the energy.”

She made a listening sort of sound, and resumed painting. “Annie’s the youngest, right? She’s been an adult for a while now.”

“I wasn’t in a hurry to get tied down right away, once Annie went off to college. I guess I got out of the habit of thinking about marriage. It seemed like there was plenty of time.”

“I imagine you were due a spell of blissful freedom. You’d been shortchanged on that when you were younger.”

“By the time I started looking around…” I shrugged my good shoulder. “It’s been suggested that I’m too picky.”

She paused in her painting. Her eyes were serious when they met mine. The blue seemed darker, subdued, like a pond shadowed by trees, hiding what lay at the bottom. I wondered if she was thinking about Gwen and the child we shared. “And are you looking now? Is marriage what you want, Ben?”

“I’m forty years old.”

She waited, letting her silence point out that I hadn’t really answered the question.

I grimaced. I had opened the subject. “I want marriage, yeah. Kids to fill this old house with noise, skateboards, dolls, friends. Younger brothers or sisters to give their big brother a hard time. And a woman to share those kids with me.” Someone who’d clutter the bathroom with female paraphernalia, and sleep beside me at night. Someone who would stay.

Her smile flashed, but somehow it seemed off. “Those skateboarding kids will turn into teenagers, you know. Your experience with your brothers and sisters didn’t put you off?”

“It wasn’t so bad. And maybe I learned a few things.” I’d had about all the serious talk I could take. “What kind of teenager were you? Wild or studious? Not shy,” I said definitely.

She chuckled and dipped her brush again. “Not studious, either. Though I wouldn’t say I was wild, exactly—I couldn’t bear to worry Daisy, so I didn’t go too far. But I didn’t have much sense. Is there anyone in the world as sure of themselves as eighteen-year-olds?”

We traded stories of our teenage days for a while. It looked as if she’d be able to finish up today, which wasn’t bad for someone who’d never painted a room before. Of course, I’d helped a little. It didn’t hurt my shoulder or my knee for me to sit on the floor and paint the strip next to the baseboards. Seely had argued some about that, but eventually she’d seen reason.

She was on the stepladder tackling the section next to the crown moldings by the time I figured out what was nagging at me.

Seely seemed open and outgoing. She swapped funny stories about growing up and spoke cheerfully about her eccentric mother. She’d told me about Steven, who I guess had been the one big love of her life.