I haven’t been kissed in years, and those were largely tongueless. I don’t remember how to, but Teddy does. We are suspended in this buoyant moment, knees touching. Then it’s like he remembers something, blinking out of the building haze. Now we’re floating a respectable distance apart.

To cover up the weird mix of disappointment and relief I’m feeling, I say, “I know you just want to defend your couch and cheddar territory.” I’m getting fatigued and am sinking down to my chin in the water.

“According to your own Week 1 worksheet, which I photocopied and is now in the back pocket of my jeans, your dream guy is nothing like me. You want someone who’ll stick around. Mature, generous, principled.”

His fist is solemnly offered to me; I don’t check which hand it is. I just rub the knuckles like a comfort. “You didn’t have to make an ass of yourself just now, but it made their day. You just made a difference to a lot of people.” I watch him turn over my words. “You’ve been interested in what goes on inside my head, and that means more than I can say.”

“What’s going on here?” Renata bawls from the sideline. “What did I talk to you about, at length, Theodore Prescott?” She gets to her feet and walks to the edge. I stare at the wet tiles beneath her feet with my heart even further up my throat.

Teddy looks back into my eyes. “Don’t seduce Ruthie if I don’t plan on sticking around, because she’s a tender treasure that must be protected at all costs.”

Renata barks: “Correct. And what are you doing right now?”

“I’m explaining to her that I’m not her type,” he says easily as he strokes through the water, away from me.

“Damn right. Get out of the pool. Now.” Renata says it in a voice that cannot be disobeyed, and just like that, Teddy’s up the ladder, leaving me to eventually climb up myself. Out of that cold water, on dry land, I sweat and shiver for the rest of the afternoon.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“You did good,” Melanie says with her head inside my closet. “Your first worksheet was excellent. You were really honest about your dream man.”

(Was I, though?)

“Thanks, Mel. And yours looks good too.” I am sitting on my bed, reading her version of the worksheet: the dream job edition. “I think what I’m seeing here is that you don’t like any job where the days are the same.”

“Yeah. It makes me start to feel like I’m decaying.” She tosses a handful of clothes on the bed, still on their hangers. “But don’t try to distract me. We’re talking about you. Bring on the Sasaki Method, Week 2.”

My swimsuit is on a hanger from the curtain rail. It’s been dry for three days now, but I haven’t put it away because it’s a reminder that what happened between Teddy and me was real.

I changed when I jumped in that pool. I got younger.

I’ve soaked myself in something that has made my skin sensitive. I’ve been breathless ever since we swam in the same water and he told me words like sublime, sizzle, magnetic. I need to walk around naked for a few minutes to recalibrate myself, but the moment I even touch a button or zip, he’s knocking on my front door, asking to borrow something.

A knife, fork, plate, and frying pan have all gone next door. After dinner, he appropriates a squirt of washing-up detergent. He leans in my doorway drying my things with my dishcloth, telling me about the ridiculous tasks he performed for Renata, and I can’t stop staring at the toes of his boots on the threshold to my apartment. He’s creating a boundary for us. The fact that he sees a need to? I get a delicious shiver in my stomach.

Without thought I tell Melanie, “Teddy’s made me doubt this whole project.”

“Did you just tell me to my face that Teddy Prescott is making you doubt me and my Method?” Melanie throws a tweed blazer onto the bed with violence. “You’re going to take advice from a man-child like him?”

I am compelled to defend him. “That’s harsh.”

“It’s accurate.” She holds up a blouse and makes a face. “Remember, he’s a test. You need to stay strong and resist the urge.”

“There’s no urge,” I begin to lie, but she holds up a hand.

“My mother says in any relationship, there’s an adorer and an adoree. One who loves, and the one who is loved. You’ll need to know which one you are.”

“Adorer. Adore-ee.” I sound out the unfamiliar made-up word. I think of my mom and dad. That’s pretty clear-cut. He doesn’t even buy her a birthday present; she bakes him a triple-layered cake. “Give and take.”

“Exactly. Theodore Prescott is permanently on the hunt for an adorer. And he will take all the adoration until you have no more. Then, like a big old honeybee, off he’ll go, buzz, buzz, buzz …”

Teddy’d probably agree, but I wish she’d stop. “Just warning you, if he’s home, he can hear you through the wall. He says bless-you when I sneeze.”

Melanie makes a dismissive sound like pfffft. “If he were home, he’d be here right now, lying on your bed with his head on your knee, trying to get you to notice how good-looking he is.” She considers what she just said. “He lives to make you laugh. That’s a direct quote.”

I’m desperate to talk through this situation with someone. Is this my segue? “I wonder if he means the things he says to me.”

Like a karate instructor, Mel barks: “Who cares. He’s not your type.”

So I’ve been told, by the man himself. “Is he … your type?”

(I mean, come on. He’s everyone’s type. Except mine, apparently.)

She considers it briefly, and I feel like something important is hanging in the balance. If Melanie decides she wants him, I will have to … I don’t know what, exactly. Step aside? But I’m not standing in her way. I’ll have to go dig a hole with my bare hands under Renata’s lemon tree and attempt to bury this dazzle, two feet deep.

And I would do it, despite how much it would hurt. But only for Mel.

She shakes her head. “I mean, he’s gorgeous, but the moment I met him I knew there’s only room in my world for one gorgeous high-maintenance princess. And that’s me. I’m looking for an adorer.” She runs her fingers through her ponytail. “We’d have too much resentment between us. Hey, what’s that ugly old bike parked out in the courtyard? I can’t imagine he’d be caught dead on that.”

“Don’t let him hear you talk like that. He calls it the Dream Girl.” Jealous of a motorbike: an unexpected personal low. “He got it out of storage. It’s a 1939 Indian he inherited from his grandpa. They restored it together before he died, but Teddy needs to fix a few things on it. I’m pretty sure if it starts raining he’ll bring it into his living room.” I check the weather app.

He’s working on it because he said he needs to keep busy at night. To keep himself out of my cottage. Said to my face so honestly, with a gleam in his eye.

“You sure do seem to know everything about him,” Melanie remarks as she continues to judge all my clothes. The evaluation can be summarized as: nope, yuck, granny, hmm, maybe, why.

“He tells me everything.” I am thinking over what she said. “You really think he’s high maintenance? In terms of his needs, they’re pretty basic. Just laugh at his jokes, make a lot of eye contact when he’s telling you stories, and let him eat that container of leftover pasta in your fridge.”

“Spoken like a true adorer.” Melanie smells the armpit of my winter coat, like that’s a normal thing to do. She checks the care label and the coat is put on the bed. “Don’t let him take too much from you. He’s shameless.”

“He borrowed a drop of olive oil last night. I have no idea how I’m getting that back.” I’m beginning to think life would be easier if I left my front door unlocked. “But he gives me things, too, all the time.”

Flat, she challenges: “Like what.”

Melanie will be hard to impress with any of the ephemera that Teddy presents me with. He picks me dahlias from the bank of the lake. Sure, I planted them so they’re sort of mine already, but he doesn’t know that. He drew red lipstick hearts on my rehab tortoises. He swept the leaves from the courtyard. Gingersnap cookies, still warm from the Parlonis’ oven.

My favorites have been the little artworks he’s created for me on the backs of receipts and menus. In the blank space in between Hawaiian Supreme and Mega Meatlovers, he drew a girl in a bathtub. I’m gonna design you the perfect tattoo, it’s just taking a while.

He’s a beautiful black cat, dropping feathers and ivy leaves on my doormat. He’s given me nothing but kindness, friendship, and the diamond sparkles in his tortoiseshell eyes. In my tiny universe, he’s showered me in riches.

“Still waiting to hear one single thing he’s given you. Something that cost money in a store.” When I hesitate, Melanie throws her hands in the air. “Ruthie, this is why I worry about you. You’re too charitable, and he’s going to be gone sooner than we think.”

My stomach dips unhappily. “Did he say something?”