Physician's Assistant

"I just know it's soft," Paul told her.

"It's...it's beautiful," she told him as she ran her hand over the soft material.

"Mom! Put it on!" Aiden insisted.

"But this had to be expensive," Tori said as nicely as she could.

"Nah. Not at all," Paul insisted.

"I...I don't know what to say," Tori told him as she looked up at him.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

"I love it. It's perfect."

"Then that's all you need to say," Paul told her with a warm smile.

Tori placed it around her neck then wrapped the long end around it and smiled before kind of posing in the chair.

"It really is beautiful," she said again.

Paul smiled at her then said, "Yes you are," before turning to Aiden and asking him if he was ready to rock and roll.

"Oh, yeah!" the boy told him as he pulled on the new glove.

"You might wanna bring your old one until we can break the new one in," Paul advised.

"Can I bring this one with me, though?" Aiden nearly begged.

"Sure. Of course. And we'll put a ball in it to help start the process."

Tori had no idea how to break in a glove, but she wasn't really listening again. She was still sitting in the chair and looking at Paul who'd just given her a beautiful gift that wasn't exactly cheap. Had it been anyone else, she not only wouldn't have accepted it, she would have felt like the man who bought it for her was out of touch with social norms. But as she ran her fingers along the soft material again, she had no such feelings at all.

"You coming?" Paul asked when he and Aiden got to the door.

She hadn't even moved yet, and when she realized she was in la-la land, another feeling of embarrassment hit her.

"Oh. Sure. Yes. I was just..."

She never finished the sentence. She just got up and grabbed her purse.

"You're welcome to ride with us," Paul told her, the smile on his handsome face causing a kind of flutter in her tummy.

"You can ride upfront, Mom!" her son told her before she could answer.

"Okay. I suppose that would be smart, right?"

"No need to drive two cars," Paul said as he and Aiden stepped onto the porch.

Tori locked the door and told Paul she agreed. Within a minute, she was in the front seat of his new-model Honda Accord as Aiden began talking and never stopped until they got to the park. When they did, he sprang out and slammed his door, but Tori gently touched Paul's arm just as he was reaching for the door handle.

He turned to look at her, and when he did, Tori smiled then asked as politely as she could, "Paul? Why are you doing this?"

"This?"

"Well, yes. Why are you being so kind to my son? And...why did you buy me...this?" she asked as she again ran her fingers over the cashmere scarf.

"The first part is easy. I still love baseball, and Aiden is almost as obsessed with it as I was at that age."

He smiled back at her then said, "And if you need me to explain the other part to you, then I'm either...way off base...or you're not paying attention."

Before she could ask him to clarify that, Paul opened the door and got out. She heard him ask her son if he was ready to 'boogie', and even though she was pretty sure Aiden had never heard that word before, she heard him say, "Oh, yeah!" as he and Paul headed to the diamond.

Tori sat there for a few more seconds as she tried coming to grips with the meaning of Paul's words, but accepting it as fact was proving to be a problem. A very big problem. The implication was clear. His kindness and his very thoughtful gift meant that he liked her. And by 'liked' he meant...

Tori could only shake her head as the full weight of this new understanding hit her. It meant that this much-younger man had romantic feelings for her, and it further meant that she would now have to address the numerous thoughts and feelings she'd had about him since they first met.

As she got out of the car, the chill hit her. It wasn't quite cold enough for a coat, but she again ran her hand along the soft scarf, grateful to have it as a way of keeping the wind off of her bare neck.

As she approached the field, Tori heard the sound of an aluminum bat hitting a ball, and when she did, she also heard, "Yeah! Nice job, buddy!" from Paul. Paul, the physician's assistant who...liked her.

As she sat down behind home plate, Tori threw her hands up the first time Aiden hit a ball right at her. The wire-mesh screen easily stopped it, but it still scared her.

"I think I'm going to sit somewhere else!" she said as she got back up and moved toward third base.

As she stood up, she saw Paul smiling at her, and as she'd done so many times before, she looked away the moment they made eye contact. It had been bad enough before, but now that she knew he was interested in her—romantically—it was even harder to look at him.

After a few minutes of that, Paul took Aiden back out to the infield and went over the fundamentals with him again. Once he was done, he picked up a bat, and this time, he tapped ground balls to the boy who would field them, pivot, then toss the ball back to Paul.

"Okay. Let's try some actual hitting," Paul said once he felt satisfied with the young boy's progress.

He'd brought a small bag of baseballs with him, and as Aiden got in the batter's box he asked why Paul was pitching to him when he only played T-ball where no pitching was involved.

"Because you won't always be hitting off a tee," Paul told him. "And if you can hit real, overhand pitching, you can hit a stationary ball off a tee."

Satisfied, Aiden stepped up to the plate and got ready.

"Now remember everything I showed you before. All you have to do now is get your timing down."

Aiden missed four in a row before connecting. The ball shot out over second base, and Paul called out, "Nice job! That was base hit!"

Tori saw her son smiling from wall to wall, and his happiness made her happy; happy enough to look at Paul again even though he was no longer looking at her.

As she watched, she thought about how she'd had no interest whatsoever in dating for two years, and that was around the time that Amanda had begun suggesting her sister should maybe start looking again.

Initially, Tori told her in no uncertain terms she wasn't interested. But Amanda only backed off for a couple of weeks before trying again. Two weeks after that, Tori agreed to a double date with Amanda and her husband, Jeremy, and one of his friends from high school who still lived in Orange Park. She'd had a nice enough time, but it still felt wrong to be with another man. Tori shared her feelings with her sister after the date, and when Amanda told her she understood, it seemed to make saying 'yes' to a second date—with a different man—a little easier.

A month later she agreed to see yet a third man and then a fourth. But after that, Tori began to wonder if she'd ever meet anyone else who could even come close to making her feel the way Mike had. She had no idea whether or not that was even possible, but she told herself it didn't have to be 'magical'. It just had to feel 'real'. But defining 'real' wasn't an easy task, and after a fifth date with a fifth man, Tori told her sister she wanted some time.

The truth was, she needed more than just time. She needed Mike. But Mike wasn't coming back, and Tori told consoled herself by resolving to make the best of her new life with just her and her son, and until recently, it had seemed to be enough. Yes, she was often lonely, but she kept busy at home, she had her job, and she spent as much time with her family as she could.

And then, in the most unlikely of places, she'd met someone she never so much as considered a potential...boyfriend. Granted, he was attractive, had a very good job, and she enjoyed talking with him, but he was just a friend. Or at least that's what she'd thought until an hour or so ago.

"Mom! Did you see that?" she heard her son call out.

Paul saw her staring at him when he looked over, and when he saw her 'snap out of it' when her son called her name, he smiled but didn't laugh.

"I did! Nice hit, buddy!" she called back.

As she watched the guys finish the rest of their practice to include running wind sprints, Tori couldn't remember ever feeling so confused before in all of her life. By the time they called it quits, she found herself wishing she'd driven her car so she could take Aiden and drive straight home.

"Mom! Paul said we can go to Sonic again!" Aiden announced when she joined them.

"No. What did I actually say?" Paul gently corrected with a smile.

"Sorry. Paul said we could go to Sonic again, IF it's okay with you. So...can we?"

"My treat," Paul told her when he saw her thinking.

"You paid last time, Paul," she told him just before getting ready to say they'd pass this time.

"I'm not too proud to let you pay," he told her, that amazing smile on his face.

"Yes!" Aiden called out as he picked up the bag of balls.

His mom started to tell him she hadn't agreed to go, but now that her son believed they were, she decided to go along to get along.

"Well, okay," she finally said.

As they walked back to Paul's car, he looked over, smiled, then asked, "How did the scarf work?"

"Oh. It...it was exactly what I needed not to be too cold."

"It looks really nice on you."

As she kind of glanced over at him, she could see Paul was still smiling, so she smiled back albeit rather weakly.

"Thank you. It really is very nice, but it...it was really too..."

"Come on, Mom! You can be up front again, okay?" Aiden hollered out, interrupting her thought.

Paul hit the unlock button then opened her door. As she slid in, Tori could tell he was still smiling, and she realized she was going to have to do something to nip this in the bud. It just wouldn't be until after they had a slurpy.

Just as they pulled in, a girl on skates was delivering an order to the car parked to their right. When she finished, she turned around, bent down, they said, "I'll be right back to take your order!"

By the time she skated around the back, Paul called out to her.

"We're ready now!"

She stopped, spun around then skated up to his window and smiled again. As she bent down and looked in, the girl saw Paul and did a double take and smiled at him in a very flirty kind of way. Just as she did she looked over at Tori then started apologizing.

"I am SO sorry! I wasn't flirting with your husband. I promise I...I was just so surprised that when I saw him, I..."

"We're not married," Paul managed to say before the 18-year old girl could make a bigger mess.

Tori saw her look at her then at Aiden then smile and say, "Um...welcome to Sonic!"

As she skated away with their order, Aiden said, "Mom? Why did she think you guys were married?"

Paul turned over just in time to see Tori's eyes get very big.

"Yes. Why do you suppose that is?" Paul teased.

"Because...well...I'm sure she...she must not have been able to see me. From over there."

"Oh, okay," Paul said, clearly still teasing. "Yeah, you really are a long way away. That's gotta be what? Two, maybe...three feet?"

"Ha-ha!" Tori replied, feeling a little silly.

She recovered quickly then said, "If she had been able to see me, she'd have noticed I'm...like a hundred years older than you."

"Wow. So...you're 126, huh?" Paul mused as he pretended to look her up and down. "You're one very well-preserved specimen."

"A hundred and twenty-six? That's FUNNY!" Aiden said as he laughed.

His mother turned around and again said, "Ha-ha. Very funny."

"It is kind of funny," Paul said as he piled on.

"No, what's funny...or maybe scary...is that you're only 26 years old. THAT'S what funny," Tori said with no small amount of pride.

Paul tilted his head her way then said very matter of factly, "I'll have you know I have a very old soul."

"Ha-ha!" Tori said again even as she wondered if perhaps she was the 18-year old.

"My mom is thirty..."

"Okay! Enough of that!" Tori called out, cutting her son off in mid-sentence.

Paul turned around and whispered, loudly enough for Tori to hear, "You can tell me the rest later, okay?"

She saw her saw beaming with happiness as he said, "Okay!"

"I may be old, but I'm not deaf!" Tori said as though she were offended.

And it was then that she realized this was the best time she'd had since Mike was alive, and for the briefest of moments, she looked right at Paul while he was looking at her. And smiling, of course.

The carhop came skating back up the car with three large cups on her tray, so the friendly banter stopped long enough for her to place the tray over the partially-opened window. She also wrote out their check and laid it on the tray under the edge of one of the cups.

"How much do I owe?" Tori asked.

Paul pulled out his wallet, handed the girl a $10 bill then said, "Nothing."

"Hold on there! I said I'd pay this time," Tori told him.

Paul looked at her again, smiled again, then told her, "Sorry, but I never let a lady pay for anything, so you're just gonna have to get used to that."

The way he said it, and the way he looked at her, made her entire body tingle starting just below her belly button and spreading out from there.

She nearly said, "Fat chance of that happening," but she couldn't because, for the first time, the thought of getting used to being with him didn't seem quite as ridiculous as it had before."

Instead, she kind of flipped her head back and said, "Well, we'll see about that."

Paul kept looking at her, and only when she looked back and said "What?" did he stop.

"I was waiting for you to smile at me," he told her.

"Oh," she quietly replied.

"I love to see you smile."

"I...I see," Tori said, barely above a whisper.

She knew he was still looking at her, and at some point she couldn't hold out any longer, and a smile appeared on her face.

"Yeah. Just like that," Paul told her in a very quiet, very pleasant tone of voice.

As bad as that had been, it got much worse for Tori when Aiden, who was taking it all in, said, "Paul? Do you like my mom?"

This time, his mom's eyes were even bigger when she turned around, and she used his middle name.

"Aiden Michael Bell! What has gotten into you!"

Paul turned around and smiled letting the boy know it was okay, and that prompted a reply of 'sorry' to his mom. But it came with a little smirk, and Tori knew he knew she wasn't really upset.

"You are a terrible influence on my son!" Tori told Paul with another little flip of her head.

Aiden started laughing, and Paul turned back around and in his fake whisper voice said, "You know what, Aiden? I think your mom really likes me."

Aiden rarely giggled anymore, but his laugh got so bad that the sound his mother hadn't heard in several years came rolling out.

"I believe I'm being ganged up on here!" Tori said pretending to sound defensive.

"We're not ganging up on you, Mom," Aiden told her as he tried to stop laughing. "We love you!"

Tori looked over at Paul who raised an eyebrow, tilted his head, then said as he nodded toward Aiden, "Yeah, Mom. What he said."

"Ha! Yeah, right," she replied again, only this time she found herself thoroughly enjoying whatever it was that was going on. For a moment anyway, it almost felt like she was part of a whole family again.

The ride home was again filled with chatter from a very happy eight-year old boy, but like before, Paul patiently fielded every question and also asked a few of his own.

"So, Aiden. You got a girlfriend?"

"Maybe," a smiling boy replied.

"Yeah? Does she have a name?"

"Maybe."

"So her first name is May?" Paul teased.

Aiden didn't get it but his mother did and laughed.

"Why is that funny?" Aiden asked.

"It just is, honey," his mom told him as she looked at Paul and started laughing again.

"Grownups are...weird!" Aiden said before thinking to ask Paul if he had a girlfriend.

"Me? Nah. Not really," Paul answered.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I don't actually have one, but I do like someone."

Tori looked over at him and even though it was ridiculous, she felt a pang of jealousy.

"Me, too," Aiden admitted.

"Does she know you like her?"

"No. I'm too afraid to tell her because she's really pretty."

"Oh, okay. Well, the girl I like is really pretty, too," Paul replied before looking over at Tori who saw him and got that fluttery feeling again.

"Are you afraid she'll laugh at you if you tell her?" Aiden asked.

"Kind of."

"Because she's pretty?"

"Well, she is pretty, but that's not the main reason."

"Then what?"

"Well, she probably wouldn't take me seriously."

"Oh. Okay," the boy replied not knowing what that meant or what he could say in return.

Tori now knew who Paul's crush was confirming her earlier suspicions. And when she thought about the reason he wasn't telling this unnamed girl that he liked her, she understood the reason why. As she battled her inner self to avoid saying anything, something inside her made her speak.

"Maybe if you told her she wouldn't think it was all that farfetched."

"Even if, say, she was a senior and he was a freshman?" Paul asked with a smile.

"That's a pretty big difference when two people are in high school," Tori replied.

"What if they were both in college?"

"In that case it would still be big, but it wouldn't be as big," Tori let him know.

"I agree. And what if, say, they were both adults but maybe even separated by more just four years?" Paul asked as though it were purely hypothetical.

"Then I suppose it would depend on how many years and exactly who the two people were," Tori quietly said.

Paul smile and said he agreed just before turning into Tori's driveway when Aiden announced he had to pee really, really bad as he asked his mom for the key. She tried not to laugh when he grabbed it then sprinted to the door the second the car came to a stop. But by the time he got there, she couldn't help it.

"Hey. When ya gotta go, ya gotta go, right?" Paul said with a little laugh of his own.

"And with Aiden, he never gives any hint of needing to go until it's almost too late."

"Maybe he's too busy enjoying life to worry about the small stuff until he has to," Paul suggested as he looked over at her.

Tori only glanced his way and offered a nervous smile in return.

"Paul? May I ask you something?" she said without looking at him.

"Sure. Anything."

"I haven't, you know, dated...or anything close to it in many years, so I could be completely off base here, but when you talked about liking someone..."

"You're not off base, Tori. The woman I like is you," Paul quietly told her before she could finish asking.

She forced herself to look at him then said, "I don't understand."

"That's because you can't take me seriously," he replied just as quietly.

"I...I take you seriously."

"Not where that's concerned," he told her, his voice deep but quiet.

"Well, how can you blame me?" Tori asked, her eyes widening to indicate she was looking for agreement.

"I can't. At least not from the standpoint of you being the only person who can know how she feels and why."

"What other standpoint is there?" she asked.

"Mine, for one," Paul said, finally smiling at her. "And were you to try and see me for someone more than a guy who's a few years younger than you, it could be your standpoint, too."

"Paul, it isn't...a few years. It's...it's a whole lot of years," she replied, trying to let him down easily.

"And yet I don't see it that way, so again, perhaps you could try looking at me...differently."

"But even if I tried, our ages would always be there—in the back of my mind—reminding me that we're just too far apart for me to..."

"Take me seriously?"

She watched him say those words and when he finished he smiled at her again, and the smile made her body tingle.