Free Just the Man She Needs by Gwynne Forster

her waist. “I hope and pray that you’re real, Felicia.”
    What an odd thing for him to say at the moment. She wouldn’t pry, though. He seemed content, even happy, and that was what mattered. From Columbus Circle they strolled along Broadway, and even in the night, she saw the great boulevard as she’d never seen it before, bustling with energy and alive with secrets. “Where have I been living?” she asked herself.
    “You’re so quiet,” he said.
    “I—I’m taking it all in. The streets are alive with people, cars and buses. The screeching of tires seems so controlled, as if wary. The subway rumbles along noisily beneath us. One radio spews rap and another delivers a drummer’s paradiddle. The odd and, somehow endearing, sounds of the city. It’s a strange, modern kind of music, atonal but with its own special rhythm. I’ve lived here all of my life and I never heard it before.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Do you…does it sound that way to you?”
    They entered the Lincoln Center Plaza just as the center fountain sprang to life. After it dazzled its audience, he walked with her to a table. “I’m having Cointreau,” he said. “What would you like?”
    “Tia Maria, please. Thank you.”
    He placed their orders, leaned back in the chair and gazed at her. “You asked me if I heard that music. I may not have heard the same music that you heard, but I heard some.” He reached for her hands and held both of them. “The way you talked to me as we walked along Broadway, with every word, you made love to me, Felicia. I wished I’d had something on which to write, and I could have kept those thoughts forever. Don’t tell me you always think like that. Your columns are written by a realist, but your descriptions of this night were the thoughts of a romantic, and one capable of deep feelings. Where do you think this budding relationship is headed?”
    She felt exposed, naked, and she was tempted to tell him that he was way off, that he had misinterpreted her words, but she had promised herself to be honest with him, so she said, “I don’t know where this is headed, Ashton. I hadn’t thought at first that it would go anywhere.” She looked away, for his eyes seemed to drag her into him.
    “But now you know better,” he said. “Where do you want it to go?”
    “That question is consuming too much of my time lately,” she told him. “I’m not even sure I want to answer it.”
    “I’ll tell you what I want,” he said. “I want a chance to know you, to find out whether what I feel for you has staying power. That means spending a lot of time with you, getting to know the most personal things about you. What makes you cry, laugh. What hurts you, makes you happy. I want to know everything about you.”
    She wanted to know that and more about him, but he wouldn’t learn it from her mouth. If he proved to be the man she thought he was, in time, he’d know her well enough. “Can’t we…take it as it comes?” she asked.
    He winked, and a grin formed around his lips that nearly unglued her. “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing? I’ll be in Rose Hill with my granddad this weekend, and I usually leave Friday. Can we see each other Thursday evening? What would you like us to do?”
    “I don’t know what you like, Ashton. If it were summer, we could have a picnic or go bicycling in the park, maybe even take in an outdoor concert, but it’s still too cool for all that. Anyway, I don’t do much other than work, so you’ll have to decide. We can’t stay out too late, though. I get up early on weekdays.”
    “So do I, and if that’s a hint, I’d better take you home.”
    At her apartment door, he handed her the key that she had entrusted to him earlier and she opened the door. “Would you like to come in for a minute?”
    He stared down at her. “You sure?”
    She nodded. “I don’t think you should kiss me in the hallway. Do you?”
    “As long as you think I should kiss