Biker's Virgin

"No," she said immediately, almost too fast.

"Tiff, I mean anybody at all, it doesn't have to be a girlfriend. Do you know if he's taking girls home? Dating?"

"No, Vee. He isn't."

"Are you sure?"

"I know he's been seeing his friend Donovan again and they go out to bars, but he isn't seeing anybody, not even casually."

"Great," I sighed.

"Why? I thought... I thought you were done with him."

"He left me this box at my door earlier this week. It had a note in it. He wants to meet up and talk. He basically said where to meet him and that he'd be waiting there every day at the same time till I showed up."

"Have you talked to him?"

"No. It's going to take more than just a letter to see him again."

"I can tell you for a fact that he isn't playing you," she told me. "If he wants to talk, maybe you should hear him out if nothing else. Then you can hear it from the horse's mouth."

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Guess that's all I can ask you to do," she conceded. I thanked her for telling me and hung up.

The boxes had started showing up on Tuesday; it was Sunday now, almost a week. How long would it be before he gave up and stopped going? Had he been going at all? Was I too late? If I was then it was my fault for thinking the offer didn't have an expiry on it.

But if Tiffany's facts were straight and he wasn't seeing anyone, that meant that he was serious about... About what? Something. Us getting back together? All he had said in the notes was he wanted to talk but, it made sense that maybe that was what he wanted. The only way to know for sure was to go talk to him.

Talk. Just talk. If he really wasn't seeing anyone else, that meant he was at least serious. A talk, I could give him that much.

Chapter Fifteen

Roman

She's not coming, I thought for the millionth time. Again. She's not fucking coming. I had been checking the clock since it had hit one. It was almost two now. If she was showing up, she should have by now. There was late and there was this. This was a blow off.

That first day, I understood. After a couple after that, I could still see why she wouldn't show. It was almost a week now, though, and I was getting tired of sitting out on this blanket waiting for someone who wasn't even thinking about showing up. When did it cross the line to just pathetic, waiting for her like this? I wondered. It was one thing if I knew I could count on seeing her, but that hope was dying a little every day.

Did I have to go to her place to talk to her? No. I knew Ron. She wouldn't like feeling like I was backing her into a corner, making her talk to me when she didn't want to or when she was still mad and needed time to cool off. That was why I had given her the option to come to me when she was ready. Question was when the hell would that be? Maybe she wasn't trying to get ready. Maybe talking wasn't even something she was thinking about doing in the first place, so there was nothing she had to get ready for.

I wasn't buying all this food to eat myself, but it was looking like that was what I would be doing again tonight. I sighed, putting all the food back into the basket. Would I be back tomorrow? That was the thing, I could say that I wouldn’t be, but I would. It was getting harder every day and maybe I just wasn't taking a hint, but I would.

A flash of white through the trees caught my eye. I looked, making out a person coming towards me. Nobody had ever come through the trees to the clearing when I had been here. I doubted how many people actually knew about it. I held my breath recognizing the figure coming through the trees. Her dress was white and her hair was down, loose and a little messy around her shoulders. It was her. She came. She hadn't blown me off.

Something told me that I should be standing when she came up to me, so I did. The past year had been good to her. Maybe the image I had had of her in my mind just hadn't been close enough to the real thing, that was why I couldn't look away from her. She looked angelic when she wore white. I was so glad that I had gotten back just in time for sundress season.

"Hi," she said softly, coming up to me. I restrained myself from touching her; she probably wouldn't want me to.

"Hey."

"Can I sit?" she asked.

"Please," I said. She sunk down to her knees, sitting on her legs. Her dress rode up so I could see part of her thighs. The movement distracted me a little. It wasn't like I hadn't seen it before, it had just been so long since we had both been here, since that day we had ditched class the week before finals.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, sitting facing her. She said that she was. I pulled the spread out of the basket. Mini quiches I had bought from a bakery and some brownies. She ignored the quiche, going straight for the dessert.

"I didn't think you were coming," I said.