“I can give you a ride back to the hotel, if you want,” Hayden offers as we leave the cool air and romantic lighting of Rum Room behind and trudge down the ramp into the sticky Georgia night. “And bring you here to get your car tomorrow, if you want.”
I peel my thin jacket off and toss it over my arm. “Actually, I’m not at the hotel anymore. I found a furnished house for the month.”
“Oh,” he says. “Well, I can drop you off at your house then.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I actually walked. It’s close. See?” I gesture toward the path in the back corner of the parking lot, which winds into a sparse strip of oak, pine, and palm, eventually curling behind the street on which my temporary housing sits.
Hayden stops on the pine needle–dusted earth just beyond the edge of the restaurant’s front patio lights and studies the dark path, a look of consternation overtaking his face.
“It’s really not far,” I promise.
“I’ll walk you,” he says.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say. “I’m both tall and scrappy. I’ll be fine.”
“This isn’t like New York or LA,” he says.
“In that the rate of crime here is probably a very small fraction of those places,” I say.
“In that there aren’t people all around,” he says. “If something happened…”
I hold up my hands in supplication. “I’m not trying to stop you. Just as long as you know you’re not obligated.”
“Again,” he says, “I do very little out of obligation.”
“It must be so nice to be you,” I tease, bumping sideways into him as I pad toward the mouth of the trail through the trees.
“Because I’m detached and coldhearted?” he says, falling into step beside me.
It makes me think of what Cillian said about him—an unpleasant sort—and I feel a spike of protectiveness, followed by a small, tender ache of sympathy.
“Actually,” I say, “I meant because you can always reach the top shelf.”
“Good point,” he deadpans. “I never stopped to consider how lucky I am.”
“Speaking of that—”
“How lucky I am?”
“Your height,” I clarify. “Can I ask you something?”
He stops and gives me a puzzled frown. “About my height?”
I nod.
“Okay,” he allows.
“How many of your girlfriends have been under five three?”
He stares at me for a second. Longer than a second. I think I might’ve broken his brain. Finally, one low bark of laughter. “What? What kind of a question is that?”
I start walking again. He joins me. “It’s just,” I say, “uncommonly tall men seem to always date absolutely tiny women.”
“Based on what?” he asks, seemingly befuddled.
“Personal observation,” I say.
He shakes his head again. “I don’t even know what to say right now.”
“I’ve just been wondering,” I say. “It always seemed, like, physically inconvenient to me before. But every time we’re at a table together, we don’t fit, so now I’m wondering if somehow evolution did it.”
He squints at me, his eyes glimmering crescents beneath his stern brow. “Did what exactly?”
“Made tall men and short women pair up,” I say. “Like if you’re an exceptionally tall person, does biology just kind of nudge you toward being with someone who takes up less room?”
“For what purpose?” he wants to know.
I shrug. “I don’t know! Maybe because you won’t have to hunt as much if you’re not feeding two gigantic people, or because caves are small and you’ve got to save room where you can?”
He eyes me sidelong. “Add scientist to that list of better jobs you’ve been keeping.”
“Oh, trust me, that’s already on my mom’s list,” I say. “There’s a strong aura of Why are you writing about child stars when you could be solving the climate crisis, Alice that permeates most of our phone calls.”
Once more, he stops walking. I’m used to walking and talking, but it seems like every time Hayden has something he really wants to say or ask, he has to go still first. “What about your dad?” he says now. “Is he any more understanding? About your work?”
“Um, yeah,” I say, still moving, my eyes following the path of my sandals, my pink pedicure almost glowing in the dark. “He was, actually. Or, I don’t know if he understood it, but he was super supportive. He was the more grounded of the two. Loved books and movies and all of that, whereas my mom was kind of all purpose, all the time.”
Hayden’s soft steps resume beside me, muffled and hollow sounding. “Did your dad…Is he gone?”
“Died a few years ago,” I confirm. “My parents were pretty old when they had us, so it wasn’t totally unexpected, but it still sucked. Sucks.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I force a slight smile in his direction. “Thanks.”
“I always feel stupid saying that,” he murmurs.
“I know,” I agree, “but there’s nothing else to say. And honestly, I would say seventy percent of my friends have pretty horrible relationships with their dads, so even if I didn’t get mine as long as I wish I could have, I still feel lucky.”
“You’re not obligated to,” he says quietly. “You can feel cheated, Alice.”
I feel a surprising prickle at the back of my nose and a tender ache in my heart. Not just because I’m thinking about my dad, but because what Cillian said wings through my mind again: An unpleasant sort.
I could never blame Cillian for having that impression, but it bothers me to think of people out there meeting Hayden Anderson and coming away with this partial view of him.
He can be unpleasant. He can also be kind, and even funny.
He can be clueless that you are standing right next to him, but he also might notice you being harassed from the other side of the parking lot and intercede on your behalf.
“I know I can,” I finally admit. “But I’d rather think of it like this. Like it only hurts this much because he was so great.”
And so much reminds me of him that in a way it’s like he’s still here. Especially here, in the Georgian summer, interviewing a woman we’d both always been fascinated by.
Hayden nods to himself, but neither of us says anything for a while. We just hike along the path in companionable silence, our arms grazing every several steps, our skin slightly sticky.
As if reading my mind, he says, “I’ll never get used to this humidity.”
“I kind of love it,” I say.
He looks down his shoulder at me, eyes catching the moonlight. “Of course you do.”
“I bet you can’t wait to get back to New York,” I say.
“More or less,” he agrees. We’ve stopped again, though I have no memory of doing it. We’re facing each other, standing close, the grating chirp of the cicadas filling the night around us. In my peripheral, I spot the back of my house, beyond a slight break in the trees.
I meet his eyes again. “That’s me.” My voice comes out thin and quiet. I can hear my own regret. That I wish this walk could have gone on awhile longer.
Hayden’s chin dips in acknowledgment, but he says nothing. The humidity feels Jell-O thick now, like it doesn’t want me to move a muscle.
I swallow, force another smile. “Well, thank you for walking me.”
“Of course,” he says.
I turn toward the break in the trees, but he says my name, like it’s a question, and when I look back, he takes another step toward me.
“One,” he says.
I shake my head. “One what?”
The corner of his mouth tips up for just a second. “One girlfriend under five three,” he says seriously.
“Oh.” I’m not sure why my ears suddenly feel so hot, but they do.
“And it was like you said,” he goes on.
“More room in the cave?” I say quietly.
Another slight twitch of his lips. “Physically inconvenient.”
The heat spreads down my neck. It routes around my rib cage, like it’s reaching toward him, like it’s knitting us together.
“She couldn’t get anything off the top shelf,” I say.
“And horrible at basketball,” he says dryly.
My nervous energy bubbles over into laughter. His smile widens. It feels like Pop Rocks are sizzling through my veins. Oh boy, I’m in trouble.
Even as I’m thinking it, I’m asking, “Do you want to come inside?”
Even as he’s stepping closer, he’s saying, “I should get home.”
Our stomachs are nearly touching. I tip my chin up to meet his eyes. “Why?”
His pupils flare. “You know why.”
I swallow but it does nothing to defuse the heat in my throat and chest. “Because you have a girlfriend?”
“No,” he says.
“No, that’s not why,” I say, “or no, you don’t have a girlfriend?”
“You talk a lot,” he murmurs.
“If you’ve got something to say,” I reply, “I’d love for you to interrupt me.”
And he does, just not with words. Instead he sets one hand lightly, teasingly, against my lips.
My whole body heats from the sudden contact. From the rough feeling of his fingers, and the smell of his soap, and the awareness that, an hour ago, this same hand was sweeping against his mouth. I’m something more than hypnotized now.
I’m entranced by the featherlight sensation, and by the way his gaze follows the motion when his fingers skim over my bottom lip, pulling an unsteady sigh from me.
My lips part almost involuntarily, the tip of my tongue grazing one of his fingers, and his eyes flick back to mine, darker than before.
For a moment, I’m suspended. Floating in that zero-gravity moment, waiting to see if I’ll fall, or if he’ll catch me.
My weight shifts forward. By the time my stomach meets his, his hands are already on my jaw, his lips impatiently coaxing mine apart.
