I had no words.
He started laughing. “You did forget. Malcolm’s wedding? It’s next week.”
I placed my hand to my chest. “Right. Right, you invited me to that. Oh my God, you almost gave me a heart attack.”
He pressed a quick kiss to my forehead. “If we were getting married, you wouldn’t forget it.”
Why did he have to say things like that? Was he trying to keep my emotions from reaching any sort of equilibrium?
I walked him to the door and kissed him goodbye.
And then I fell back into bed and replayed every part of the night.
Chapter Sixteen
On Tuesday night, we went on a date. I met him at one of the hole-in-the-wall kebab places off Broadway. I watched in slight astonishment at the amount of food he put away, and concentrated on stealing his fries without him noticing.
He noticed, but let me get away with it. “Guess what we’re doing tonight.”
I looked down at my food. “Eating?”
“I got us tickets to Wicked.”
My elbows banged on the table. “No way! How’d you do that?”
“Well, there’s this thing called money...”
I waved my food at him. “I mean, it’s short notice.”
He shrugged. “We don’t have to go if you don?
?t want to.”
“Um. I want to. Trust me. I love Wicked.”
He gave me a look to convey that he knew. Which I suppose he did, given that I’d made our parents play it on many a drive to vacations. I tilted my head. “What would you have done if I’d fallen out of love with it in the past four years? That would be problematic.”
He grinned. “Nah, I’d just ask someone else to come with me.”
“Oh, real nice.” I shook my head, and then pulled out my phone and tried to look really casual. “So I was looking some stuff up online.”
He barely glanced at me. “You’re terrible at acting casual.”
I gave up on it and leaned forward, pinning Abe with my stare. “There’re all sorts of online courses you can do to finish your degree—”
He stilled. “Does it matter to you that I don’t have it?”
I stopped, confused. “Um, Abe, let’s be clear. You’re a multimillionaire celebrity. You’re talented, you’re successful, and you’re a role model. The only thing that matters to me in what you do with your life is that you’re happy.”
A smile broke across his face, much quieter than most of his grins. “I’m happy.”
I studied him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Don’t let it go to your head if I tell you you’re part of the reason.” He scooted closer to me and looked at my cell. “All right, let’s see these courses.”
The musical was wonderful. We had seats in the center of the orchestra, which was perfect, and the show was perfect, and really, everything was perfect. Even the temperature that night as we left was perfect: cold, but not quite icy, and my coat and scarf were enough to keep out the chill. The moon glowed bright above us, cutting through the drifting clouds. A gentle wind rustled the crumpled leaves lining the sidewalks.
We walked the eight blocks or so up to the park, and then scrambled up the outcroppings of giant ancient bedrock in the southwest corner, and perched ourselves on the top, with a view of the baseball diamonds. I smiled up at him. “You know what? I’ve decided it’s a good thing we’re dating.”