Page 51 of Counting the Days

They stared at each other for a moment. It felt like they were deciding whether to actually go paddleboarding or just move into her bedroom. After she’d explained her anxiety abouthaving sex, Danny had decided to let her make the first move toward second base, so he broke the spell with, “Where’s your board? I’ll put it in my truck.”

He detected a hint of disappointment on her face while she directed him to a small shed on her property. He hoped she knew how much he wanted her, how quickly he would have pressed her up against that shed…and lifted her dress. How could he communicate that he was hopelessly attracted to her without making her feel pressured into having sex?

He searched for the perfect phrase that would capture how sexy he thought she was while also displaying his patience, and he came up with: “We have the same paddleboard.”

“Really?”

“Yep, same exact, mine’s in the truck.”

He internally sighed at his lameness, picked up her paddleboard, and headed down the stairs to hide his full humiliation and half erection.

They parked in Venice. They got out of the truck and each stripped down to their bathing suits. Rhea wore a white bikini. Danny wore black board shorts. They walked around to the back of the truck and each took another moment to look at the other. Again, it felt like they were deciding whether to actually go paddleboarding or just lock themselves inside the truck for the rest of the afternoon.

“You look…really good.” A slight improvement from “We have the same paddleboard,” but not exactly a slam dunk.

She flushed. He stepped toward her, and their mouths connected. Danny was flooded with her softness, the sweetness of her tongue, the delicate sounds in her throat. He cradled her face and kissed her until it felt like maybe a police officer might encourage them to move it along.

She pulled away and smiled. “I missed you.”

“Yeah…same.” His voice was thick, and he cleared his throat.

They removed their boards from the truck bed and carried them a few blocks. On their walk, they passed beachgoing families with small children. A man with a newborn in a Björn, shielding the baby from the sun with his hands. Two women crouched in front of a sobbing toddler, speaking in soothing voices: “But, sweetheart, you already had a Popsicle.”

A man pulled a thick-wheeled wagon full of beach supplies while yelling at his daughter to “slow down”andtugging on his son’s hand, encouraging him to “hurry up.” These sights usually made Danny cringe—the unpaid labor, the stress, the overall parental enslavement—but as he watched Rhea clock the same sights, he began to see them through her eyes. Was she seeing enslavement or familial bliss? Was part of her already starting to regret continuing this relationship? Was she longing to delve into Popsicle negotiations with an illogical toddler?

They launched from a dock on the Venice Beach canals and paddled on smooth water lined with palm trees and multimillion-dollar homes. They ducked under low walking bridges. They glided past families on brightly colored rowboats, and each time they did, that same anxiety returned. He could not shake the foreboding; he could not stop hearing his sister’s ominous words: “She’s not gonna let this kid stuff go.”

Danny watched a small girl in a rowboat wave at Rhea. Rhea smiled and waved back. He felt jealous, as if Rhea were having an affair and her lover was the concept of motherhood. What was he getting himself into? And was it too late to turn back? Rhea adjusted her sun hat and looked over at him. Her hair fell over her eyes as she grinned; it was far too late to turn back. He was hopeless.

249Days

On date number five, Rheaand Danny went to LACMA.

One week earlier, on date number four, while hovering over bowls of steaming ramen, they’d discovered they both had an appreciation for art, and they watchedthesame art history show on the BBC. It was an obscure program in America, and the fact that they both happened to watch it created yet another moment of smug rejoicing in how much they had in common.

It was in these smug moments that Rhea felt such solid certainty she had made the right choice; she and Danny were made for each other. She knew from every interaction that they were supposed to be together for the rest of their lives, and she would have known this even if she had not met him on a golf course or run into him randomly at asoulmate retreat.

They walked around LACMA hand in hand. Holding Danny’s hand felt homey, as if they were made to fit together. And every time they touched, no matter how innocently, she felt heat rise in her body. Since they had not yet gone past first base, there was an underlying longing in their clasped fingers.

Rhea always waited at least one month before having sex with a new partner, and although technically they’d starteddating over a month ago, they had taken a break before Esalen, so she’d decided to restart the clock. Abstaining was becoming quite challenging, so she had to really focus on distracting herself when she was around him.

They wandered through exhibits, each pointing at whatever painting grabbed them the most. They were playing a game and had to pick their favoritebeforereading the label next to the piece. They were continuously surprised to discover that the majority of the paintings they pointed to turned out to be works by famous artists. Thus proving the most famous artists were indeed the most talented, or, Rhea argued, they were just so used to seeing the famous works throughout their lives, they had been subconsciously trained to prefer those techniques over the less famous ones. Or, Danny argued, they unfortunately had very basic tastes that matched the rest of the general populace. It was fun little games like this that distracted her from dragging him inside the darkly lit Zheng Chongbin video installation and ravishing his body.

When they were sitting outside at the LACMA café, sipping cappuccinos, Danny casually floated the idea of taking a trip to France to see Impressionist art. The thought of taking a European vacation with Danny made Rhea feel like she was living inside an Impressionist painting; a soft-edged, pastel-colored image of the two of them walking along the Seine floated through her head.

She had been to Paris once, when she was twenty-nine, with the boyfriend du jour. She mostly went for the fashion, which was breathtaking, but the romantic portion of the trip was unmemorable. With Danny, however, she knew every moment would be perfect. She saw him unzipping a suitcase and hanging his clothes next to hers in a Parisian closet. She saw him lying next to her in a Parisian bed, and her cheeks flushed. AroundDanny, she was a teenage boy; her thoughts always circled back to sex.

After date number three, he’d put her paddleboard in her shed and walked her to her door. They made out on her front porch. She unlocked her door and looked back at him suggestively, waiting for him to join. He stepped inside and pulled her close, kissing her neck, her face, her lips. He picked her up and put her down on the couch, and just as he was moving on top of her, she said, “Wait! Sorry, I don’t mean to be a weirdo, but I need more time.”

“I totally get it.”

They sat next to each other and talked for several hours.

After date number four, he walked her to her door, and they made out on her porch again. She abruptly pulled away from him, breathing heavily, and said, “I have to be inside—I mean, go! I have togoinside—good night—thank you for ramen—”

She shut the door, leaned against it, slid down to the floor, and curled into the fetal position. Abstaining from having sex too soon had never been quite this brutal.

From her ball on the floor, she pulled out her phone and sent a text:Just to be clear. I wanted you to come inside. I just don’t trust myself around you and horizontal furniture