All Rhodes Lead Here

“What about you? Do you go on dates?”

The way he said “No” was like I’d asked him if he’d ever considered cutting off his penis.

Something tugged at me then. How much he was trying. How deeply he had to love his child to give up on something he loved and missed so much.

I’m scared of animals that carry diseases, heights, and disappointing people. I’m not scared of dying.

Rhodes really was the hottest forty-two-year-old on the planet. He had to be. At least, I thought so.

He was hugging me back.

And son of a bitch, I wanted it. So I hugged this man more, my arms going low on his waist. He was warm, and his body was solid.

And my God, he smelled like the good laundry detergent.

I could wrap him around myself and live there forever. Cologne be damned. There was nothing better than good detergent.

Especially when it was molded to a body like Rhodes’s. Big and firm. All comforting.

You didn’t survive someone taking a wrecking ball to your existence and not have thousands of fractures to live with the rest of your life.

He was offering to go on a hike with me. Why did it feel like a marriage proposal?

Maybe you didn’t have to get over your fears completely to conquer them. Maybe if you just faced them in general that counted. Or at least that’s what I wanted to believe.

I’d put up a bat house and grabbed a fucking eagle. I’d hiked up a mountain under the shittiest conditions. I could do this.


*

I couldn’t do this.

And that was exactly what I told Octavio, the nine-year-old little boy who had helped me up four times now.

“It’s okay,” he tried to assure me as he pulled me up to standing position again. “You only fell on your face four times now.”

“It’s starting to come down outside,” he said against my hair.

He’d come to follow me home because it was snowing. If my heart could grow a size or two, it would have right then.

He bent down and pulled off his socks, and I swore there was something about his bare feet just visible that seemed more intimate than if he’d been standing there buck naked.

“Well, if you want to sleep naked, I’m okay with it.”

The burst of his laughter surprised the shit out of me, and I couldn’t help but laugh too.

This was so right, there was no reason to rush anything.

“No thanks,” he said once his laugh slowed.

I’d made a lot of people laugh in my life, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt this triumphant. “If you change your mind, go for it,” I told him, totally serious. “My body is too tired, but my eyeballs aren’t.”

You know… I was pretty sure I was in love with him.

And I was pretty sure he might be a little in love with me too.

Life didn’t have to be perfect for you to be happy. Because what was perfect really, anyway?

You’ve got the sweetest, kindest heart, Buddy. It wouldn’t matter what you looked like, you’d still be my angel.

“Maybe we can find a scary movie to watch after this?”

That perked Am up, and I didn’t miss the slight snort out of Rhodes’s nose at the idea of watching something scary on Christmas Eve. I glanced at him and smiled. His sock-covered foot nudged mine beneath the table. I swore that was better than most kisses I’d gotten over my life.

“I don’t know how anybody would let you walk away, and it isn’t going to be me. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Are we clear?”

We love you—I love you—because you’re mine. Because being around you is like being around the sun. Because seeing you happy makes me happy, and seeing you sad makes me want to do anything I have to to get that look off your face.

“It won’t bother you then?” I asked after a moment.

“What?”

“The money.”

He looked right into my eyes as he said, “Is it going to bother me that you’re rich? No. I always wondered what it would be like to have a sugar mama.”