a world-weary shrug and an ironic grin anytime anyone brought it up. But no response had been half as effective as my latest reply, which not only halts the line of questioning, but usually puts an abrupt end to all further conversation. “Oh, no!” I say, fixing them with my best wide-eyed gaze. “We’re from New Mexico.” The question marks form in a bubble above their heads as I make my escape.
Brad kept his head tilted down, peered at me from under his eyebrows and grinned. He looked quite guilty. And sooo fine.
“It’s my name, right?” I asked him.
He didn’t say anything. I could tell he wasn’t about to get tricked into saying something wrong. He was probably thinking this was a hot spot. Guys are never really sure where the land mines are so they try to be really careful to avoid setting one off accidentally. At least in the beginning, they try.
But I had no hot spots. Not anymore. Just lots of little frozen places. “Don’t worry about it. It’s my own fake ID, my camouflage. I love my name.” And just how dumb did that sound?
“Me, too,” he said with not a hint of irony. “Dylan’s great.”
Now what? I was stuck to the spot. Manly Man appeared to possess some kind of magnet, an intense gravitational pull. I couldn’t budge. It always took me a while to get a rhythm going when I was first talking to a guy, even one I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be talking to. Or maybe especially then. I just knew I was a whole lot easier with a breezy tempo. I made a stab at it. “I guess I should properly introduce myself. Glad to meet you, Brad Davis. Sky Dylan Stone,” I announced, turning my hand into his palm for a shot at a breezy handshake. “Sky with no cute little ‘e’ on the end.”
“Sky Dylan Stone.” He rolled it around on his tongue, tasting it and laughing at the same time. I watched his mouth as he said it. All other issues aside, it really was an incredible mouth. It was saying now, “Where’d it come from? Your name.”
I took my hand back and looked away from his lips, off to the side. So I could concentrate. “Who knows?” I shrugged. “My mom’s been typically vague on that point.” I laughed a little then, thinking about it, about her, seeing her again in my head.
“Oh, I don’t know, Dylan,” she’d said, laughing, when I’d asked about my name. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Which was her favorite explanation for the stuff she did back then, her only excuse for the reckless years.
I put her away and looked back at him, smiling, plunging ahead with my breezy tone. “She said the Dylan part came from Bob Dylan. She and my dad really loved that old guy. Still do.” And God knows, it could have been worse. She liked Jimmi Hendrix and Janis Joplin a lot, too. Or, heaven forbid, Roy Orbison. I could just hear her. “Well, Orbison, darling, what can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“It’s not so bad,” I continued, “I like Dylan’s songs okay—well, the words to his songs. I think his voice must be an acquired taste.” I saw my mom again, thirty-some years ago, in halter top and hip huggers, hair to her waist parted straight down the middle, acquiring a taste for Dylan with a bong and a beanbag chair. “Anyway,” I breezed on, “Nobody calls me Sky, except my grandma. Thank goodness. I’ve been Dylan since birth.” I stopped, suddenly aware of the important distinction between breezy and windy, not even sure which parts I’d said aloud. “It suits me just fine,” I mumbled, puttering down to a halt.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Kinda no-nonsense and poetic both.”
Ooh. I liked that. I stared at his mouth again.
“But Sky…” He let the thought trail. “Sky’s magic. Sky…just floats off your tongue.”
I shouldn’t have been looking at his mouth. I flushed red at the image. It’s okay to be a visual person if your visions don’t play out on your face for the whole damn world to witness. I pictured myself, legs dangling, head and arms thrown back, floating off his tongue. I blushed.
“So…no more images of shapeless clothes and stringy hair?” I croaked, probably sounding way too earnest and intense.
His look took in the straying curls and vacuum packaging. “No, no. Sorry about that. It’s just that I quit trusting my friends ever since they hooked me up with that Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleader who was uncomfortable with silence. Hell, my ears are still throbbin’. But now it’s your turn. You tell me. How’d ya have me pictured?”
Lord. That smile again. He could have been talking about worm farms for all I cared. I didn’t answer. I was thinking that this was what a heart-melting grin must look like. A true Texas-boy smile. Impossible not to get pulled in. That was the magnet. The beautiful teeth, those fantasy lips, the smile that tugged over too far to the right. It made you want to stick around, hang out. Maybe I could learn to like bowling.
“Dylan?” he coaxed, eyebrows up.
I forced myself to look up at his eyes, or at least his eye. I could never look at both of someone’s eyes at the same time without mine crossing. I just picked one and stared at it. Come to think of it, the saying is “look him in the eye” so maybe everyone does that. I like it when I find evidence that I’m not totally weird.
His eye was pirate black. I could hardly even see the pupil. I looked right at the bridge of his nose to see both of them at once. They were so, so dark, not dazzling like his mouth, but deep and unreadable. I wondered what our children would look like. Stop it, I ordered.
His question had hung in the air too long; I decided not to answer. I gazed back at him, smiling my version of Mona Lisa’s smile. Then I had this image of a baby smiling when you don’t know if it’s grinning or having gas and decided to just plain smile. I felt the heat in my body, wanted him to touch me again. The quiet hung between us but it didn’t worry me. It was a good thing. Unlike Chatty Cheerleader, Silence would be my friend.
He read the vibes, stepped closer and took my hand again, holding it to his chest, cupped loosely in his. “You wanna go somewhere?” he asked in a kind of croaky whisper. “Now?” If this had been a movie, he would have said, “Let’s get out of here.” He was good in this new role, husky voice and all. I knew he knew the effect he had, knew he did it on purpose. He was too close. I wanted to step back, get a little space, but he’d tightened his grip on my hand and I’d have had to yank it to get it loose. I willed myself still and tried to read the vibes, tried to get a sign from those night-black eyes.
And then, pop! The bubble burst. My mom always said I got too tangled up in my own antennae. I felt myself spiraling into rapid cool-down, getting uncomfortable, antsy. I looked around to see if I could see my date, see if maybe he’d like to take another stab at a rescue. He was gone.
I shook my head, telling Brad, no, sorry, no, I was busy. That’s what I said to guys who made me nervous. But this time it was true. Somewhere out there I had a date, a date anxious to relive my special moments of humiliation on the dance floor.
“Come on. Just coffee. I’d like to get on out of here. I’ve enjoyed about all I can stand of the funny looks.” He tilted his head at the people walking by, sneaking peeks. I’d been in my own world, thought we were alone. “How about it? We leave now, you’d have time for just a little coffee. Yes?” He stepped back, turned down the heat and cranked up the sunbeam. It looked like it came from inside, way deep down inside.
And I could feel the pull again, tugging. No way, Dylan. Magnet Man’s a player. A rough-edged, hard-handed player. A noncandidate. I looked away from him, still shaking my head a little,
