Page 100 of Someone Like Me
My latte has gone cold, but I still sip it. I’m not ready to leave just yet. If we head back, Drew might send me home. I know exactly how I want to spend the rest of the day, and going back to Janine’s isn’t anywhere on my agenda.
And right now, I just want to be with him. I set down my cup, reach for his right hand, and pull it across the table.
“What are you doing?” He sounds startled — and slightly amused — but he doesn’t pull away.
Instead of answering, I trace the tip of my index finger over the calluses at the top of his palm. I wonder at the rough handling it must have taken to form them. “Can you feel this?” I ask, letting my barely-there touch skim over the blunted pads, the Mount of Mercury through Jupiter.
It’s barely audible over the music, but I catch his breath hitch. His voice drops to a whisper that tickles my ear. “Yes.”
The sudden strain in his voice makes me feel powerful, like an enchantress. A lazy smile claims my lips as my fingertip continues its winding journey. The touch is so delicate, so secret, but the knowledge that it affects him lights me up.
“Is this all from working on cars?” I ask, forced casualness in my words. I love touching him. I could do it all day and never get enough.
“That,” he says thickly, “and lifting.”
My eyes flick up to his. “Lifting weights?”
He nods. “Everybody lifts inside.”
This shouldn’t surprise me. He’s in terrific shape. Nobody has arms and shoulders like that without some kind of exercise, and it looks like he’s been doing it for years. But it makes me want to show him crow, scorpion, or standing split.
“What about now? Are you still working out?”
Drew gives me a half shrug. “I don’t have a gym, but I improvise. Body weight mostly, but old tires at the garage come in handy, too.”
My finger ventures over the deep lines in his palm, the Linea Vitalis and the Linea Naturalis. I study the lines as I go, looking for breaks in their continuity, counting creases.
“You reading my palm, Guppy?” Drew asks, his voice laced with humor.
“Maybe,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat. “Though I’m no palm reader.”
His chuckle is low and rumbly. “Something tells me you’re better than average.”
I shoot him a look so he doesn’t miss me rolling my eyes. But in truth, as much of a novice as I am, I do notice a few details I like. His lifeline — the one that seems to separate the thumb from the rest of the hand — is long, deep, and unbroken.
And he bears one marriage line.
But I don’t share these facts or my reckless feeling of gratitude for them. Teasing him is much more fun. “Well, this line here,” I say, stroking the line of fate and career that runs up the middle of his hand. “This is your obstinate line. It shows how stubborn a person i—”
“What?”The word is part exclamation, part suspicion.
“And as you can see, yours starts way down here.” I tickle the base of his palm just above the inside of his wrist. “Which means you’ve been ornery ever since you were born—”
In a flash of movement, my finger disappears in his grip, and I squeal with laughter. Drew’s eyes are narrowed on me, but he’s fighting a losing battle against his own laugh. “Sorcerer,” he mutters, making me laugh harder. But all humor dies in my throat when he tugs my finger up to his lips and kisses me reverently on the palm.
And suddenly, I’m ready to go.
“I have to work tonight,” I blurt. “Baby duty, I mean. I take a shift with Janine’s baby Aaron—”
Drew blinks, his gaze curious. “You stay up with the baby?”
I huff a self-conscious laugh. “Yes. It sounds weird, but it’s working out for all of us. I take the middle shift so Janine and James can get a good stretch of sleep, so I can’t spend—” I’m about to sayspend the night again, but I stop myself. Who said anything about that? I blush deeply at my own flub and try to recover. “What I mean is… what are you doing for the rest of the day?”
I can’t believe how needy and stupid I sound. Who shows up at a guy’s house in the middle of the night half-sloshed, crashes his shower and his bed, and then claims his Sunday?
But Drew doesn’t look uncomfortable. He doesn’t look eager to escape. He grins at me.
“I need to check in on Grandma, but then I think you were going to show me some handstands.”
