She kind of wanted to laugh herself despite her fluster, but instead she managed a disapproving frown. “Just like a man. One hand job and he immediately turns obnoxious.”
It helped. That he was so clearly unself-conscious. It meant she had no reason to be self-conscious.
“I’ll work on reining in my obnoxiousness. You ready?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. How long were you wanting to go? Should I pack some snacks?”
“The answer to that question is always yes. Do we get to raid Eva’s goody shelf?”
Serena kept a shelf of her pantry devoted to Eva’s little snack packs. Crackers. Chips. Cookies. Fruit snacks. Keith always liked to investigate the offerings and grab a little bag of something himself.
Together they picked out a few snacks, and she added a couple of apples and bottles of water from the refrigerator, and then they were ready to go.
They drove out to a state park that had good hiking trails. From there, they walked a couple of hours through woody hills before they reached a spot with a good view to rest. They found a big tree to lean against as they broke into their food supply.
Serena was feeling good—with that satisfying tiredness that comes from enjoyable exercise and fresh air. Nothing awkward or strange had happened between her and Keith today. In fact she felt closer to him than ever.
This was fine. It was all fine. She had nothing to be scared of.
“How’s Eva doing this weekend?” Keith asked after about five minutes of comfortable silence.
“She’s fine. I talked to her this morning. Scott always fills his weekends up with activities. Today they’re going to the zoo. So Eva is excited, and she doesn’t know he does it because he doesn’t know how to just hang out with her.”
“At least it makes the weekends something for her to look forward to. It would be hard if she didn’t want to go visit her dad.”
“I know. So she’s happy. And Amber tries too hard with Eva, but at least she makes a real effort.” Serena managed to not roll her eyes at the thought of her ex-husband’s less-than-brilliant new girlfriend. “It’s fine. A lot better than it could be, considering how things were when we first got divorced.”
“That’s good. I’m glad it’s gotten better. I know how hard you had to work to make that happen.”
He sounded like he meant it. They were sitting quite close, and she loved the outdoorsy scent of him—like dirt and sunshine and Keith. She leaned her head against his shoulder in a spontaneous affectionate gesture.
He wrapped his arm around her and kept it there.
She could smell him more than ever now. His body was hot and firm. She couldn’t help but love how it felt.
“This doesn’t feel strange to you?” she asked after a minute.
“What?”
“This.” She nodded down toward the way they were sitting together. “You know what I mean. It doesn’t feel strange to you?”
“No,” he said slowly, as if he were thinking through his response. “It feels good.” After a pause, he added, “Are you feeling weird? Because I can back off—”
“No. You don’t need to back off. I was just thinking it’s weird that it doesn’t feel very weird. If that makes any sense.”
“It’s not that different than the way were together before, Serena. It doesn’t have to mean everything in your world is different. We’re still the same. We’re still just as close as before. All we’re doing different is touching more than we used to.”
“I guess so.” She choked on a little giggle. “You’ve got this down pretty well.”
“Got what down?”
“Playing it real cool so you don’t spook me.”
He chuckled and tightened his arm. “You don’t seem very spooked to me.”
“Yeah. I guess not. But I could be at any moment. So you better watch it.” She grinned and tried not laugh, warmed by his answering smile.
His gaze heated as he looked down at her, and her breath hitched at the shift.
“I’m going to kiss you in about ten seconds,” he murmured. “So if you don’t want that, let me know.”
“I... I...” It wasn’t hard to process her feelings. “I think I’d be okay with that.”
“Good.” He leaned down and brushed her lips with his, causing all the nerve endings in her body to jump to attention. Then he tilted his head farther to the side and kissed her a little harder. Longer. He caressed the line of her lips with his tongue.
Serena’s blood was pulsing everywhere as she tangled her fingers in his hair and softened against him.
It felt so good.
It was so inexplicable—that kissing him felt so good.
She would have been perfectly content to kiss him for a lot longer—even out here in the open air and sunshine. But he pulled back after a minute with a little smile.
“Is that all?” she asked rather stupidly.
He laughed and pushed himself up to his feet, extending a hand down toward her. “That’s all for now. No sense in moving too fast.”
She appreciated that he was being careful, but her body was suddenly alive, wanting to feel a lot more of him.
Surely moving a little faster wouldn’t be the end of the world.
KEITH WAS ON SUCH A high that he wasn’t sure he’d ever come down.
This morning he’d woken up brimming with anticipation and had to talk himself down by reviewing all the reasons why things with Serena could fall apart at any moment. She wasn’t sure of this yet. She was worried about ruining their friendship. She was wounded by her difficult marriage. They needed to go slow or she would get scared and pull away.
But she’d gone on the hike with him. She hadn’t run away the way she might have. And when they’d gotten home, she’d said she needed to shower and rest some but had added with a shy upward glance that maybe she’d see him later.
Keith’s head was close to exploding with joy as he walked over to his own apartment. Everything was going so well in such a tricky situation that a smart man would be expecting the floor to drop out beneath his feet at any minute.
But maybe it wouldn’t.
Maybe they could actually do this.
He decided a shower was a good idea, so he took one before he stretched out on his couch, listening to music and scrolling on his phone. He was too distracted and jittery to focus on watching anything or working on a project, so he killed time, mostly just imagining what they would say and do when he saw Serena later tonight.
A knock on his door a couple of hours later surprised him. He hadn’t been expecting Serena so early.
When he opened his door, he found her in tears.
“What is it?” he demanded. “Is Eva okay?”
“Yes. She’s fine.” Her face was red and blotchy. Her eyes swollen. And a couple of tears streamed down her face as he watched. “It’s... It’s...”
When she couldn’t get the words out, he stepped out of the doorway to let her in. They ended up on the couch together before Serena had controlled herself again. “I’m sorry,” she managed to get out. “I don’t mean to be such a mess.”
“You’re not a mess,” he said, sliding one arm around her since she looked so small and broken. “Just tell me what’s going on because you’re starting to scare me.”