First Man Read Online Free

dozen other cities, and I’ve visited quite a few more. I was in Spain before I came here.”
    “You don’t miss having roots?”
    “Not particularly. The last time I really had roots was when before my father died. Everything else is just materialistic trappings. There’s far too much world out there for me to want to tether myself to one spot.”
    I wondered idly if she would be one of the ones who would try to change me, to give me a reason to set roots. I almost wanted her to try, and a small part of me wanted her to succeed.

    It might have ended there, with a friendly dinner and casual flirtation. I could have driven her home, walked her to the door of her tidy, suburban apartment and left. I could have turned up the charm and gained in invite upstairs for a nightcap or more. I could have left before the sun came up.
    I didn’t though. Yes, I walked her to the door of that perfect apartment building with its manicured lawns and well-lit driveways. I paused at her doorway, and I could see her mentally warring with her desires and her self-proclaimed status as a good girl. Taking the choice out of her hands, I curled my arm around her slim hips and pulled her against my body.
    Fireworks did not explode when her lips met mine. Bells did not ring and the choirs of heavenly angels didn’t start up a song. The world did not notice.
    But I did. I’d built a wall around myself, hidden by an easy smile and a sardonic comment. I was the first to admit that I’d always been guarded, but somehow this tiny slip of a girl had found a chink in my armor and wedged her fingers into it. I knew that she’d tear that wall down, bit by bit, if I let her.
    I kissed her breathless, and my brain never stopped asking ‘Why?’ She was beautiful, but the world was filled with beautiful women. She shared my interests, but she was far from the first budding classicist I’d bedded.
    She pulled back, dizzy from the kiss, and smiled that open, unguarded smile. And I realized.
    It was happiness. Lily exuded happiness from every pore, like the delicate floral perfume that wafted around her. Untainted by loss and lacking the bitter cynicism that came from being let down, she made me feel lighter than I had since I was a laughing child listening to my father’s stories.
    “Can I see you again?” I asked, my brain still racing.
    She nodded, staring at me with those wide, grey eyes.
    I walked back to my car, aware and aching with something I couldn’t describe. A poet might say that I was lost, but I’d spent more years than I could count feeling that way. I wasn’t lost.

    I was found.

THE GARDEN

    “S o what’s this one, Adam? Artist, scholar, groupee?”
    “There’s no need to be vulgar, Edwin,” I snapped. We had been friends since we were teenagers, and nearly a dozen years had killed any trace of formality between us. “Scholar,” I replied grudgingly.
    “Touchy. This one must be special.” Edwin’s tone was light, but I could hear the hope in his voice. When his wife Elene had the twins a year ago, it had become Edwin’s less than private obsession to see me settled down.
    “She is.”
    Edwin whistled. “I’ve never heard you like this before. Could it be that the world traveler is finally finding a place for himself?”
    “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said, quickly realizing that if I let Edwin’s imagination run away with itself, he’d have me married with a litter of children on the way within a month.
    We said our goodbyes and ended the call. I knew before he put the phone down, Edwin would be yelling to his wife, “Adam’s in love!”
    I was too much of a pragmatist to think myself in love after just a few dates, but I was. . . comfortable. I could easily see how comfort could slip into something more.

    She spent at least an hour every Sunday walking in the Atlanta Botanical Garden breathing in the heady perfume of the acres of flowers. On our third date, she invited me to come.
    “It’s just