Hooking Up With My Dad's Best Friend

I open the door for him, and he slips inside. As he passes, I get a hit of woodsy cologne, and I swear to god, I swoon. That scent is full of memory and promise, combined with a feeling of hunger. Both for food, and for so much more than that.

“Where should I set it up?”

“In the back,” I say, following him. It looks like he bought the entire store and brought it with him.

He starts placing all the containers out. “I made sure to get the orange chicken. I know that’s your favorite.”

“You remember that?” It makes me feel strange. I’ve pushed away our history for so long that it surprises me.

“Of course. I know that orange chicken is your favorite. You love to sleep in on the weekends. Your favorite color is purple, and you don’t like country music.”

There’s an unexpected burst of emotion that swells up in my chest. It feels like too much. All of it, and I have to look away as the world blurs in front of me. I remember things about him too. That he loves to grow his own herbs and cook. That his first favorite book was The Chronicles of Narnia. That he’d much rather be outdoors if he can help it. A thousand memories that had been too painful to hang on to bubble up and through me to the surface. I know him, and now I might get the chance to know him.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his arm coming around me. I close my eyes when he tilts my face up to his so that he doesn’t see my tears. But he knows anyway. “Are you okay?”

I just lean into him, leaning my head on his chest, feeling his strength. “I just…I never let myself think about you. Because I wanted it too badly. Because it hurt to think about you. But I remember all of things about you, and the fact that you noticed anything about me…I can’t wrap my head around it.”

“Why not?”

I can’t find the words. They’re there, but I don’t know how to speak somehow. How do you tell someone that you don’t know how to deal with getting everything that you’ve ever wanted?

I already have a good life. I have a good friends and family, a job and store that I love, and the only missing thing was him. It almost doesn’t seem fair that it could be real. And I don’t know how long it’s going to take for it to sink in that it actually is. So I just wrap my arms around him and let him hold me.

His lips brush the top of my head, and it’s perfect. The most natural sensation in the world. We fit like it was meant to be this way, and for the first time, I’m starting to think that maybe it actually was.

Eventually he moves just a little, and I feel him take in a breath. “Tell me about the store. I’ve never been here other than today. I knew about it, but what made you start a book store? That wasn’t what you planned for in college.”

“No,” I say, pulling away to sit down and feeling a lot steadier. “Not directly at least. Art history doesn’t exactly have a lot of practical applications for jobs if you’re not in a museum field or the education field. But I had a business minor too, and that’s been really helpful.”

“But why a bookstore?” he presses, handing me a container of orange chicken.

I swear that there’s something addictive in this stuff. I could eat my weight in it. “Wishful thinking,” I say. “I loved reading, and when I decided to open a business, I was taken with the idea of owning a bookstore. It seemed romantic to me. If I’d been smarter, I’d probably have gone with something different. I’m glad it’s turned out well, I really do love this store, and I like that we’ve started to be a part of the community. But it hasn’t been easy.”

Bryce laughs. It’s a free laugh, easy, the way I remember it from the moments when he was having fun with my family. “No, I don’t suppose it would be.”

We eat in silence for a few minutes, and I can feel it when Bryce looks over me again. When I meet his gaze, it’s appraising. “Did you really move away because of me? I didn’t have a chance to ask you last night.”

“I mean…” I look away, the night of my graduation flashing into my mind for the second time today. “Yes. I wasn’t running away, I was just…I knew that if I stayed that something would have happened—or I would have tried something again. And at the time, I thought that it never could.”

“You’re talking about the party,” he says.