I laugh, then I bite my lip and reach out for the shirt hanging on the back of his chair. His eyes are super hot. I steal out of the room with his shirt folded in my arm.
I don’t sleep more than four hours either that night.
I can’t stop thinking about him, and the fact that we were flirting and his eyes were hot and he is so very hot, and I’m not sure I like it.
I toss and turn, then leap out of bed early in the morning. I’m in the office before almost anyone. I set his clean shirt, perfectly folded, on his desk when he arrives—I know it’s perfect because I tried folding it a bazillion times.
“Good morning, Matt.”
I walk by, and he catches my fingers for a second as I pass. “Good morning, Charlotte.”
17
THE TIDAL BASIN
Charlotte
That day after lunch, Matt stops by my cubicle, where Alison is showing me some pictures of him at an event that are making my toes curl.
“How’s my month looking?” He looks at me, and somehow it feels as if “month” means a whole other thing, his gaze is that searing.
I swallow at the sight of him in a crisp business shirt and plain black pants. “Busy,” I hasten to say.
I don’t know how that tiny tilt of his lips can cause such a big tilt in my chest cavity. “Just the way I like it.” He smiles at me, nods at Alison, and Alison quickly tucks the pictures against her chest and leaves.
Matt stays by the entrance for a moment. The area feels a tad smaller as he comes over, walks around my desk, and leans over my shoulder to look at my draft. “When am I free tonight?” he asks.
A shiver runs down my spine, hearing his voice so close.
I try to stop the skip of my heart as I skim down the page and tap my finger to show him.
“Perfect.” He leans over a fraction more, to my ear. “I’ll pick you up at six.”
I don’t ask him where we’re going or why, I simply nod as he walks out.
I’m quaking with nervousness as I head home to change. I don’t even know what to wear but opt for a skirt and a silky top. For some reason I keep changing shoes from ballerina flats to pumps, and the instinctive female urge to look feminine and a little sexy wins out. I suppose I’m not proud of this, but there you go. High-heeled peep-toe pumps it is.
At 6 p.m., Matt is downstairs waiting inside a black Lincoln Town Car, his detail, Wilson, opening the door for me. I’m a nervous wreck. The memory of his whisper keeps tingling down my spine, warm and exciting.
I climb into the back of the car, surprised to notice Matt is wearing black sweatpants and a black T-shirt. And running shoes.
His hair is perfect. He looks like some athletic centerfold for Nike.
As Wilson pulls us into traffic, I study my own attire—skirt and a blouse and heels—and finally ask, “We’re running?”
Matt is staring at my shoes with a tilt to his lips, his eyes rising to mine. “More like some light hiking.”
“I . . .” Helplessly, I look at my three-inch heels. “These are going to be a problem,” I say.
He just smiles at me, but he doesn’t look especially heartbroken. “They are.”
We ride in the back of the town car in silence, and I frown at him, wondering why he doesn’t even seem concerned. Matt has never struck me as selfish.
“Wilson, stop to get Miss Wells a pair of running shoes.”
“Wait. Matt!” I protest.
He grabs a white Nike cap from the back of the car and slips on a pair of Ray-Bans. “Two minutes, we’re in and out,” he tells Wilson as he climbs out and peers back inside. One eyebrow goes up in question. “You coming?”
Two minutes inside the shopping center end up being twenty.
I try on a pair of white-and-pink Nikes that I’d always salivated over, and when they fit just right, Matt glances at Wilson, and Wilson takes the box and goes to pay while Matt and I wait outside the store. People are glancing in his direction as if speculating but unsure, and Matt keeps his eye on his phone to avoid getting their attention.
When we’re back in the car and he jerks off the cap and the sunglasses and sets them aside, I say, “I guess Hamiltons never get any privacy.”
He smiles at me, but with a haunted look in his eyes. “Never.”
We ride on.
He admits, “I’ve almost forgotten what it was like when it was simpler.”
Simpler.
Like . . . taking a hike with me, I realize. People are going to see.
I’m anxious now.
“Turn the car around.”
He swings his head, shocked. “Excuse me?”
“Turn the car around now, Matt.”
He chuckles and drags a hand over his face, as if I exasperate him.
“Really. This . . . can look a way that it’s not. Tell him to turn around.” I drag my eyes to Wilson, then look back at Matt.
“I can’t.” He shakes his head in bemusement.
“Why can’t you?” I’m getting testy, and so is he.
“It’s the only slot on my schedule open and my only chance to be alone with you for a while.” He looks up at Wilson through the rearview mirror when the car stops and tells him, “See you at Jefferson Memorial in a couple of hours.”
He opens the door for me, and I grab my notepad to keep it professional. His lips quirk when he sees that, but he says nothing as we start heading down the trail, which treks around a large body of blue water surrounded by a path that runs all around the basin’s circumference. From here you can see the Washington Monument, the tall columns and majestic white dome of the Jefferson Memorial, and right up ahead, the spot where the first cherry blossom trees were planted.
It’s spring, and the trees are fully bloomed, their long, slim limbs dotted with cherry blossoms.
It’s a chilly day, but the sun warms my face as we walk toward the nearest memorial, which is only a few years old.
“I’ve never taken this walk before,” I admit. I take in the huge marble carving of Martin Luther King Jr. “I’ve only been to this area once, really, when my father brought me to the paddle boats.”
“Robert in the paddle boats? That I’d like to have seen.” He seems amused at the thought as I absorb the thirty-foot-tall monument of a man whose favorite quote of mine is, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”