And so for a moment either was stuck looking at there other, unaware that they were ….staring
they did not notice until at a certain point, they only became self consciously aware they were doing that. But unaware the other was doing it back
and both tried to smooth over the moment of this with some such casual move like, saying—
“so—“
at the same time
while tilting their heads and looking away
so unaware the other did this until they said what they said at the exact moment
and then they both laughed. Awkwardly. But then it occurred to them it didn’t seem to even matter and if anything, broke the ice of the obvious elephant in the —tourbus
“Ummm….” Adair said and finished her tea, standing up as casually as she could to wash her teacup, going to the sink. With a kind of sigh with seeming casualness, she pulled aside the kitchen curtain to look at the view ….noticing the road outside
“It looks like rush hour traffic is thinning out….” she said by way of conversation and then, by now sort of having read his mind, she said, “maybe you can help me with directions actually—to navigate where to go….” and let that sentence dangle where it may
“How’s that?” Simon stood up to bring over his own tea cup and moved as if to wash it at the sink—but as she moved to her right again unexpectedly just as he moved, her intention to wash his cup for him, they collided in the sudden surprise of their moves. And as he had almost knocked her off her feet with the weight of himself knocking into her, he reached out both hands to her shoulders to steady her.
And it must have been the surprise of the contact. The surprise of his hands on her shoulders. How it felt. And how unexpected the sensation.
Even as she had noticed her attraction to him right away standing there in the travel section of the bookstore. And he seemed to like how she fit into the cradle of his arms as she fell into him—just at that moment. Even as he had only noticed her at the bookstore because he liked the shape of her small ass in the cut off jeans she wore and how long her legs seemed despite her minute height so that she seemed to walk on stilts like a ballerina
“Ehrm….” and politely he held her back from himself, forcing thoughts into civilized directions with a conscious effort to forget the memory of his first glimpse off her ass from across the travel section, “I’d love to help you with directions….” he said
When she said
“Oh!” as he caught here
Then,
“….yeah….” her face deepening in color turned up to him as he looked down at her with those two different shades of green…. one like a teal and the other a like ….sage….with a sweeping fringe of dark eyelashes below dark brows—“uhhh….”
“Where….?”
He seemed first to regain reason but only as he was better schooled to hide it and smiled down at her
“But don’t you need to be somewhere?” Adair asked him
“Fuck it,” he laughed, “I can make up an excuse—‘the flight was canceled’, ‘the pilot has Covid’, ‘I tested positive….’” Here Simon shrugs
Adair laughed and became suddenly caught up in his enthusiasm,
“really?” And she laughed some more, “could you really just do that?”
He looked at he frankly and smiled,
“do you know how many articles I’ve written on travel? Business class, coach, first class—a weekend getaway, ‘a Cotswold’s weekend’ ‘Four Seasons at Central Park….’” and here he fakes an exaggerated yawn, “I’m so tired of appealing to the entitled upper crust ….I’ve been trying to break away from those tired travel guides and do something independently….”
Adair just for a moment took in his look upon her. Then dropped her eyes. She took his cup to wash it and after she dried both cups and secured them in the cabinet beside the kitchen window she said,
“So you want to go on a Fleetwood tour instead, and write about that?”
“Write about it….film it….live the Kerouac dream—who wouldn’t?” and this time his laugh is half mad and ecstatic
And contagious.
She laughs too. They both seem unable to stop.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?” She says again
“I tell you what, if I can pitch this to my publisher ….this would be the break I’ve been looking for—so, where do you need navigating?”
“Well, you see I have the worst sense of direction—I get lost just getting out of bed if I turn the wrong way so…. see, I’m supposed to deliver a dozen Amish quilts and pick up more and —I really suck at directions but they always let me stay there for free, so—I’m on my way first to Philadelphia then New York and then after that Michigan and a few national parks where the quilts are really popular. But the pow wow in New York has Native American trading posts and….”
Only she found herself forgetting what she was saying too lost in her own babble and stopped to say instead,
“are you any good with directions?”
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