exiting the trolley first, i grin as river steps off and moves behind me. pressing his front to my back, he wraps his arms around my waist and guides me into an open red brick, double arched building. when my eyes adjust from the sunlight to the much darker room, i see lights and hear sounds everywhere. we've just walked into an arcade. it's very much like the one i frequented with my dad so many years ago. shaken with emotion, overcome by happiness, and full of joy, i turn around, throwing my arms around him and kiss him. he runs his tongue across the roof of my mouth before closing his lips around mine.

with labored breaths, i pull away. i clutch his shoulders while he wraps one arm around my waist, the other still holding my bags. "an arcade? here at the grove?"

"yeah, i thought you'd like it."

"like it? i love it."

looking around, i see so many black stalls, all of which house video games from the eighties. there's mousetrap, asteroids, centipede, frogger, pac-man, space invaders, and venture. along with skee ball, driving games, and even a chicken clucker.

the sounds, smells, and excitement of years gone by are right here, right now, and i can't believe it. they remind me of a non-looping ambient audio track-beep, blip, ding, buzz, and a click. closing my eyes and just listening, i can clearly recall myself hanging out at the local arcade with my dad while feeding quarter after quarter into ms. pac-man, donkey kong, and of course, the pinball machines. my dad was a pinball wizard, and he taught me well.

his favorite pinball machine was flash gordon. it was the first multi-ball table i ever played. it was equivalent to black knight, but better and faster. the table was amazing, and just the thought of getting that 'fifteen seconds' still gives me an adrenalin rush. i remember the first extra ball was easy to land, but getting the second was always a big challenge.

my favorite, of course, was baby pac-man. it wasn't the game for everyone, and my dad didn't really like it because the flippers aimed at the center of the game instead of the sides. i thought this offered greater challenges; he thought it was a flawed table design. it really did make getting to the mazes difficult, which i thrived on.

"look over there," river says, pointing to pac-man. "how about it?" he asks with a twinkle in his green eyes.

"game on, hot stuff," i answer as i head toward the machine.

we stay here, playing different games for hours. challenging each other, i sometimes win, but he mostly wins. i have no idea how. i decide to try my luck, solo, at the drive my course game while river goes to get more quarters. when i finish, i look around the room and spot him walking his sway of a walk my way. i melt.

"close your eyes," he says as he comes to stand in front of me.

"why?"

"just close them."

closing my eyes, i feel him take my hand and attach something around my wrist. it's the same wrist where my cartier love bangle sits.

"okay, you can open now."

staring down at my wrist, i can't believe what i'm looking at. this adorably sweet and sexy man has just placed a very colorful linked bracelet of the cutest pac-man on my wrist. it has a yellow pac-man with the blue, red, pink, and orange monsters on it.

"i love it!" i manage as i swallow back my tears of joy. i throw myself around him and say, "thank you."

he lifts me up and twirls me just once before setting me down. "happy?"

smiling up at him, i respond, "more than happy."

chapter nineteen

the secret is in the telling

there is something you don't know

i don't want to tell you

but tonight somebody else will

so please understand why

just remember the secret is in the telling.

every town and every city has something that makes it a little unique. for brentwood, it must be the beautiful white dogwood trees that line its streets and the serendipity of the quaint shops, all very different but co-mingling so well. downtown brentwood is a small but trendy area. its old fashioned streetlights display banners, its stores are covered with different colored awnings, and its main street sidewalks are even paved in bricks.

having left the car in a small parking garage on a side street, we're walking through the town where river grew up. we walk, with his one arm slung around my shoulder and my hand in his back pocket; he's carrying 'stella' on his other shoulder. we are on our way to what river described as his local neighborhood bar. it's dusk, but light enough that i can see the town. it doesn't look like an area where the word local seems to be the best description, but i'll go with it. it's actually very upscale. there's a movie theater, a florist, retail shops, galleries, and many restaurants and bars. people are walking like they don't have a care in the world, just browsing, talking, and laughing; just like us.

one place in particular catches my eye; it's a bookstore named fiction vixen. my love for literature draws my attention toward the two piles of books in the large windows located on both sides of its front door. the books are displayed in a christmas tree-like fashion with lights wrapping them. pointing the store out to river, he laughs softly and tells me his mother's friend, vicki mixen, owns it. he goes on to say that she has always been crazy about books and that when he was fourteen she decided to open a bookstore. he spent that whole summer helping her get it ready to open for business. it was his first job. he tells me that he hauled and stacked so many books that he never wanted to look at another book again. then he jokes that it's why he opted not to go to college. again we both laugh and continue toward the bar.

i take in all the splendors that surround us. the visual makes me think of the entertainment complex at the grove. i can't help but smile at the memory of the wonderful day we had there, along with everything else we did. after the arcade we stopped at whole foods to purchase a few items, my priority being coffee and creamer. picking up a late lunch from the deli, we made it back to the house in time for the prearranged delivery of all the items river purchased earlier today.

throughout our day, we talked about our lives and i discovered so much more about him that i didn't know. when he asked me questions about usc and i asked him how he knew the campus so well, he told me he visited his brother and sister there many times. he also told me his brother was in the kappa sigma fraternity, but lived off campus. i mentioned that ben was in the same fraternity, but skirted the topic. he told me he went to a few parties at the frat house and then crashed at either his brother or sister's place. i got the impression that who he stayed with depended on which sibling took someone else home with them. funny, we only saw each other that one night, but good i guess.

i found out river's mother moved out of brentwood a couple of years ago when she got remarried; she and her husband actually live in river's neighborhood. his sister lives with them, and his brother lives in what used to be their grandparents' condo in downtown beverly hills. his grandparents both died within six months of each other last year and left a sizable inheritance to river and his brother and sister. xander inherited their condo. i learned his grandfather was a silent partner in one of the first and most successful retail stores on rodeo drive and was extremely wealthy. i also found out there is another wing to river's house. it's located behind the garage and that is where the laundry room is. i laughed that he had no idea if there actually was a washer and dryer at the house, but we discovered, once we returned, that there is. i also laughed, because just like him, laundry is not something i actually think about or even do for myself. since we hadn't bought laundry detergent we couldn't wash the new sheets. instead we put the sheet from the air mattress on the new bed and proceeded to christen it.

right now, thinking of laundry makes me think about ben, something i haven't been doing much of lately. but since he always took care of the laundry, i can't help but remember him. when i say ben took care of the laundry, i mean he dropped it off at fluff and fold. he was so funny about dirty clothes, he hated when they'd pile up. there were only a few things he was ocd about and the care of our clothing was one of those things. although, i remember one time when the large pile of dirty clothes didn't seem to bother him.

we had piled our laundry on the floor in the laundry room. neither one of us had gotten around to bagging it in the special bright yellow bags provided by fold and fluff. ben had been busy on a story, and i was trying to write my thesis. it was a sunday morning in the early spring, and ben was headed out to a flag football game, but he couldn't find all of his gear.

"dahl, have you seen my jersey?" he yelled from the laundry room.

"nope," i said without even giving him a sideways glance from my desk in the kitchen.

"could you help me look? i'm late!"

"sure," i said as i pranced his way.

when i walked into the laundry room, there he was, bending down over the pile in only his track pants. freshly showered, his back glistened with droplets of water. i had been cooped up at my computer for far too long over the past week, and the sight of him brought a yearning i didn't expect.

walking over to the pile, i stood there in my ugg boots looking at him as he rummaged through the huge pile. "find it yet?"

when he looked up at me, he noticed i was wearing nothing but one of his long sports t-shirts and my boots. i hadn't showered yet because i wanted to finish another section of my thesis first, so while he was in the shower i threw on something comfortable and warm and made my way to the kitchen for coffee and writing.

he shot me a wicked grin, and i rolled my eyes. "what?"

"i found my jersey," he said as he stood up and sauntered one step closer to me.

"you did? where?" i whispered, barely able to pull my eyes away from his smoldering blue ones.

he cocked a brow at me and pointed. "you're wearing it."

then lifting the jersey over my head he said, "fuck flag football today."

as i'm reminiscing about ben, river bumps my shoulder. "nervous?"

suddenly transported back to the here and now, i shake my head and say, "no. should i be?"

"no of course not," he says grinning at me. "you just seem . . . somewhere else."

"i'm right here silly," i say while tugging on his back pocket, my pac-man bracelet dancing with my slight wrist movement.

turning to walk backwards, swinging his guitar to his back, he grabs both my hands and pulls me towards a building with the sign smitten's. "did i tell you how beautiful you look?" he asks with an adorable grin and a twinkle in his green eyes.

tonight i'm wearing one of my new outfits. i'm also a little more made up than i usually am because i'm meeting river's friends and family. changing my clothes after our shopping spree, i chose a black lace swing camisole, cream-colored jeans, black high-heeled boots, and my leather jacket. changing my underwear into something a little sexier, i had to go without a bra because of the thin spaghetti straps, but it really isn't even noticeable. my hair is down, but a little fuller than i usually wear it, and i'm wearing makeup complete with blush, shadow, liner, mascara, and lip-gloss. the electric force i feel when i'm with him is back from the sight of his slight smile, and goosebumps run up and down my body.

"actually, you didn't," i say, moving my head so my hair sways side to side.

he stops and i almost walk right into him. "even with all that makeup you still look perfect," he says, still clasping both of my hands together, dunking his head, and touching his nose to mine.

"what? you don't like makeup?" i ask, but i'm not in least bit offended because neither do i.

standing together on the sidewalk, he slides his nose to my ear. "i didn't say that. i just think you look amazing with or without it."