Touch by Elmore Leonard

Author:Elmore Leonard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780140262483
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2010-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

“HOW’D YOU GET HERE?”

“They let me use a car.”

“You found it all right?”

“Sure. I was here before.”

“But I drove. You know, unless you were paying attention—”

“I remembered.”

“Well, you look good.”

“So do you.”

“I was surprised when you called—”

“I had to get out of there. All the people coming to see me, even Time magazine and Newsweek, I couldn’t believe it. It got so the news people were taking over the coffee shop.” Juvenal paused, waited, looking at her. “That’s not the reason I came though.”

“I know,” Lynn said.

“I came because I wanted to see you. In fact—do you want to know the truth?”

“Tell me.”

“I was dying to see you.”

She wasn’t sure who moved first. Her arms went around his body and his arms gathered her in close, around her shoulders; she could feel his hands on her back. They held each other very tightly, standing in

TOUCH 163

the hall, the sun coming in. They had reached this point almost immediately, after only brief moments of looking at each other, making opening remarks, barely able to wait, because they both knew and felt it and didn’t have to hint or fool around or be coy about it. They both knew. They wanted to hold each other as tightly as they could and that’s what they were doing. For the moment there was nothing else.

“I was dying too,” Lynn said.

“I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

“Let’s go inside, okay?”

He said, “Just a second.”

She raised her face. His face was there, eyes looking into eyes, to see the person in there. They began kissing each other’s mouths, moving their heads and sliding gently and getting the soft fit, trying to get inside and be lost in each other. Was it possible?

They held and kissed again, without moving, standing in the living room.

They held and kissed on the cranberry couch with Waylon above them and the newspaper accounts of Elvis on the coffee table . . . Lynn a young girl again kissing, necking—no, it wasn’t necking, it was kissing and feeling it as though for the first time, kissing for kissing, not to lead to something else, though it was going to, she knew. There were things she wanted to say to him but did-n’t want to speak now unless she could whisper very, very quietly and not interrupt the mood or the silence. For a moment, a split moment, she saw herself alone again, after, and was afraid.

He said to her, very close but looking at her, both of them low on the couch, half sitting, half lying, he

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said that he loved her. He said, “I love you,” in a way she had never heard before in her life. “I love you.”

Lynn said, “I love you.” And then tried it again, “I love you. Either way, it’s true. Any way you can say it. But I wasn’t prepared. I mean I knew I loved you, but I wasn’t prepared to say it. I don’t want to talk yet.”

He said, “Boy, it’s good.

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