Page 20 of Drawn Together

Sixteen

Word of the day: languor

Definition: An english word from Latin for a dreamy, listless state of gentle melancholy and pleasure

Watching Fletcher attempt to ride a bike is like watching a baby giraffe on roller skates during an earthquake. Big hands with fingers out-stretched, rapidly shaking against the handlebars, the tires below him in never ending wobbles.

I should mention this was his idea.

Last night, my phone vibrated while I was brushing my teeth, and I sprayed toothpaste on my mirror from how quick I jumped to see if Cedric had approved my newest draft.

Except, it wasn’t the old man I really needed to hear from for the sake of my ego, it was Fletcher.

Which, now that we have started seeing each other twice a week, made me just as excited.

Fletcher: You can ride a bike, right?

Me : It’s been a while, but I think so. They say you don’t forget.

Fletcher: They do say that. I have an idea for book club tomorrow.

Me: Can’t wait.

I went to bed giddy and restless.

Turns out you can forget how to ride a bike.

Fletcher curses at the ground as he skids to a stop by accident, again. I happily glide up next to him.

“I used to be able to do this.”

“I’m sure.”

He gives me a glare. “I could.”

I imagine back when he could ride a bike better, he probably wasn’t this tall and lanky.

The thought of a tiny Fletcher doesn’t even seem possible—like a seven-year-old wearing aftershave and teaching everyone around him the importance of broad synonyms. Now, he’s all elbows turned out and long legs squished, even with the seat at its highest setting, whereas I am struggling to reach the pedals.

Everyone else with the same brand of rented bikes seem to struggle on my side more than his.

“These citibikes are massive. How are you struggling this hard?”

“Can you just…shh, for one minute so I can focus?”

Considering the traffic, these bike lanes are huge—way bigger than the trail in Maine I rode on as a kid—but, it doesn’t matter to Fletcher, because he is using up the entire lane.

Wheels bouncing from one white line to the other.

We’ve been getting stared and honked at for the last ten minutes, and I do not mind one bit.

“I bet everyone thinks you’re a tourist.”

“They do not.”

The couple passing on their own bikes stare as Fletcher flexes his brake again and send me a look that screams ‘ugh, tourists.’

The weather today is perfect—a high of sixty-eight, the warm sun peeking through the minimal clouds—with golden and bronze leaves scattered across the sidewalks.

It’s borderline chilly, but just right with a big, puffy sweater and ripped jeans.

Fletcher's green henley is pushed up over his elbows, forearms flexing as he manages to move forward in a somewhat straight line.

He has a lot of veins. Just sitting right there. For the world, and I, to see.

“You know…” I force my eyes up to his face, which is solely focused on not embarrassing himself. “I’m not sure how we could have a two-hour conversation on these things.”

“I wasn’t planning on us biking two hours straight,” he grumbles.

Then he better ring it in, because I have a feeling we are going to be here a while.

“What are we doing, then?”

He grunts a curse as the front tire hits another curb. “Prospect Park.”

“But I’ve been there before?”

“Not where we’re going. Talk when we get there. I can’t focus.”

So, I follow him and his horrible bike skills the whole way there, watching his forearms in our silence.

He’s right. I have certainly never been here before.

This part of the park is bursting with light, a watercolor of auburn and tangerines—golden maples, fiery red oaks, orange elms.

With a coffee cup warming my hands, I sit for a moment just to take in the view.

Fletcher insisted we stop at Cafe Regular on the way, where I ordered a honey cinnamon latte and he got some kind of ‘golden latte’ that he insists is good for his immune system with turmeric, ginger, and black pepper sprinkled in it.

Sounds like a disaster of a drink to me, but whatever.

A tiny bronze plate in front of a nearby bench tells me we’re at Fallkill Falls. It’s tucked away, not fully secluded—as we have passed a handful of others on our walk here—but quiet enough where we can easily hear each other and listen to the chirping birds and babbling brook.

“Cool, huh?”

Cool? I give him a look and he smiles, dimple flashing me.

“It just reopened after being closed for like thirty years. I think a lot of people forgot about it. I did too, until that morning.”

He doesn’t have to explain what morning—I assume it’s the one where I nearly tackled him on the opposite end of this park.

“I walked all the trails that morning and ended up here. Thought you might like it.”

He seems to have a knack for that—finding things I like.

It honestly feels like we are stumbling into a secret spot in the middle of Brooklyn that only fairies and troll goblins could know the passcode to get into.

I can hear the water trickling behind the trees around us, but I have no desire to move from this exact spot with multi-colored leaves swirling around in brisk sweeps of wind.

My shoulders shake a little. With the steady drop of the temp since we left our bikes at the renting station, I should be cold.

But my eyes are so caught up on what’s around us that I can’t be bothered to focus on something as trivial as body heat.

We’re in an autumn-themed kaleidoscope surrounded by dull noises of distant conversations and flowing water.

A baby laughs. Shoes scuffle against the concrete path leading to a nearby stone bridge. Fletcher clears his throat.

I turn at the last sound and see he’s laid down a red and white checkered blanket in the broad span of green grass, and he is waiting for me to sit down first. He lifts his book of the week— Anne of Green Gables —and the pink flowers on the cover match well with the pink on his neck, cheeks, and the very tip of his crooked nose. It makes me want to pinch it.

I know he is wanting to get straight to it, but I think there’s a lesson to be made here.

“You know what I think your problem is?”

“Besides my poor coffee choices?”

“You think you have to be a romantic in order to romanticize.”

“Well, don’t you?”

“Not at all. There’s nothing romantic about this moment—”

He mutters low, “Well, I wouldn’t say nothing.”

“But, I can take time in my day to appreciate the…smell of crisp apples. The laughter of an old woman behind us. Kids carrying around freshly sharpened school supplies. The soundtrack of Sleepless in Seattle. Nora Ephron’s kitchen.

Wool scarfs. Those pretty lamps with the stained glass that look like the windows in an old church—”

“Alright, I get it.”

I gesture a hand out. “Your turn.”

“For?”

“Romanticize. Give it a shot Mr. Mumpish.”

He stares at me in horror.

“It was my word of the day yesterday.”

“That’s the most vile thing I have ever heard, and I don’t even know what it means.”

“I’m docking points the longer you put this off.”

“Alright…uh…” He glances around. “There’s a squirrel choking on a nut over there. Wait, no he threw it up. The ground is cold, despite the blanket. My backpack is really, uh, backpack-y.”

“Wow. Laying it on thick, aren’t you.”

“Let’s agree to leave the romanticizing to you and finding the horror in things for me.”

“Agreed.”

I move to the right of the blanket and squat down, very thankful I didn’t go with the sweater dress option I had laid out. I lean back on both hands, legs stretched out. When Fletcher seems to be satisfied with my placement, he sits down, too.

“This is so nice.” I breathe in the crisp air.

It’s clean and musky, I think from the damp leaves—earthy, crisp, and a little sweet. Then, there’s my delicious coffee, and Fletcher’s monstrosity in a cup. It all mingles together in a scent I’d like to push into a candle and light on my dining table next to some fresh cut purple and orange mums.

He shrugs and pulls his sleeves down, and my eyes lock on his henley—deep forest green. “Ryan’s favorite color.” I reach over to tug on the wrist, and the way he is staring at my fingers, I feel like I shouldn’t have done that, so I sit on my hands instead.

“Lenny told you?”

“She did. It all makes sense now, him being her brother and all.”

“She took it pretty hard. I hate that you only know this version of her.”

“I think Lennon is one of those girls I would like every version of.”

Fletcher grins at that. There’s that dimple again; I want to stick my pinky in it.

“She’s a great person. Just not the same person.”

“I probably wouldn’t be either if I went through what she did.”

“You should talk to her about it.”

I jerk back and take my hands out, picking at the cracks of my cream polish. “Oh, right. Sorry, you probably don’t want to—”

“No, Flora.” His hand reaches out and wraps around my wrist. Heat gatherers low in my belly. “I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to talk about it with you. I just meant…you’re easy to talk to. And, I think that would be good for Lenny. To talk to you.”

“I am?”

“Very much.”

“Oh.”

His thumb is caressing the pulse point on my wrist, and my stomach is clenching. “Surely you get that often? I don’t like talking to anyone, but with you it’s so easy.”

I’m not given the chance to really answer, as Fletcher sets his cup off the blanket and pulls his corner tight to cover the grass enough where we don’t have to be forced to sit with our legs touching, then grabs his copy.

“So, thoughts?”

“Can I be honest?”

“I would prefer that, yes.”

“I…haven’t finished it yet.”

He gasps like I’ve committed blasphemy, and I giggle. “I know, I know. It’s been an insane week, and I told Lennon I would read Embermoor with her—”

“Again?”

“But, I have like thirty pages left, if you don’t mind waiting for me to see if the grandkids escape.”

His wicked grin gives me no spoilers on the book's ending, and I love it.

“I don’t mind waiting for you, Flora.”

I smile at that, flipping over on my stomach and kicking my feet up with my paperback, and climb into another world of arsenic-laced donuts and twisted desires. Shockingly, Flowers In The Attic is very much not about flowers in an attic. Who would’ve thought?

We stay like that for an hour, soaking in the warmth of the sun through our sweaters.

Fletcher on his back, one arm triangled behind his head, and the other holding his book up to the sky.

And I am on my stomach, kicking my feet in the air while finishing the last of the Dollanganger children.

The breeze ruffles my pages a little, chill bumps tickling up my spine.

Beside me, Fletcher hums softly—quietly—like he barely even knows he’s doing it.

My eyes lock in on my current page, but my brain doesn’t take any words in.

No runaway endings or plot twists can be kept in my head right now.

Nothing but the steady thrum of conversations passing us by, the sound of the wind rustling the ever-changing leaves, and Fletcher’s humming slowly lulling me into a deep sleep—one I don’t think I ever want to wake from.