It was a moonless evening and where there were usually sweeping views of Lake Huron along the route, there was only flat darkness stretching toward an invisible horizon. I had the music turned up loud and the windows halfway down. The invigorating cold air rushed in and kept me alert as I drove on the dark road. When I reached the one stop light in the village of Lexington, I popped a piece of peppermint gum in my mouth and reapplied lip balm, adding an extra layer over the split in my lower lip that seemed to never completely heal in the winter. Five minutes to go.

I slowed once the headlights illuminated a huge pair of pink and yellow flip flops, which seemed out of place sticking out of the snow. The driveways were long and the homes at the end of them hidden from the road, so the owners marked their driveways with creative landmarks for easy identification. After the flip flops, there was a propane tank tipped on its side and painted to look like a pink pig, and a then life-sized bear carved from a tree trunk. Then finally the sign for Whispering Pines, modeled after a summer camp sign with a playful retro font. If I reached the aluminum canoe with a "Huron Lake Time" sticker on the side, I'd gone too far.

My heart still raced when I skipped up the porch steps to the cottage. Pete said I could always let myself in, but it was worth standing out in the cold for an extra minute or two to see the look on his face when he swung open the door. I'd never get enough of the way he smiled and how his deep brown eyes lit up when he saw me, and seeing him in the doorway was like capturing the moment in a picture frame.

I knocked and shivered and then Pete appeared, took me by the hand and pulled me into the warm glow surrounding him.

"Sorry-I'm-late," I said in between kisses. "Wardrobe issues."

"It's alright," he muttered against my mouth.

I held his face in my cold hands and he inhaled sharply through his teeth, overlapped my freezing fingers with his rough, warm palms and kissed me deeply. Once my hands thawed, he moved his to my wrists and turned them down so he could push my coat off and drape it over a chair.

With my hands buried in his hair and his grasping my hips, we shuffled backward into the kitchen table as we kissed. I shimmied onto the table and kicked my boots to the floor. One of them hit the floor with a thunk and the other landed with a more muffled sound. Pete's eyebrows drew together in a wince and I murmured an apology.

"I don't understand what you need steel toe boots for," he grumbled, feigning annoyance while he gazed admiringly at me.

Our eyes locked and it was still electric, like a shock that I almost feared would alter the rhythm of my heart.

"They're not steel toe," I said as I swung my socked feet, "They're just regular ol' Docs."

He looked at the clunky black boots with scorn before he crouched down to set them upright on the floor and his expression brightened when he noticed the long skirt I was wearing. As he slowly stood up, he skimmed his hands over my bare legs until we were face to face again and the skirt was bunched up over my lap. There was no way I'd give up functional footwear, but I'd happily trade pants for a skirt for moments like these. Without breaking eye contact, Pete pushed my trembling knees apart and I bit my lower lip until it split open in the usual spot and I tasted blood.

"Dang it," I said, blotting my lip with my fingertips.

Pete leaned in to kiss me again, the metallic taste of blood vanished, and my hips twisted in response to his hands brushing over my thighs. The table creaked and I tensed.

"We're gonna break it," I whispered.

"Nah, it's Amish made," he said in my ear. "Solid wood."

I snickered. "That's really hot. Tell me more."

"You laugh, but I can probably get you going if I tell you about how the joints fit together." I started to unbutton his flannel shirt, but gave up and gripped the edge of the table when Pete brushed his lips down my jawline. He hooked his thumb beneath the lace band on my underwear and worked it down over my hips. "The one underneath you is called a tongue and groove."

Pete grinned wickedly and his eyes sparkled with laughter when my thighs reflexively tightened around him. The table shifted and squeaked and I yelped in surprise and threw my arms around his neck. He laughed as he lifted me and then carried me to the bedroom.

******

Pete's fingertips feathered over my abdomen and my body twitched in response to his touch. I was still a sparking live wire, while he had melted into a puddle at my side, drowsy and content.

I wanted all of him, but Pete was still holding out on me, physically and emotionally. But I'd rather have some of him than none at all, so I tried to be satisfied with what he was willing to give at the time.

Because I'd been stuck in Palmer my whole life, I was dying to know more about Pete's cross-country adventures. Occasionally he'd share funny stories, mostly about people he'd met along the way. He'd speak openly about his life up until 1953 and the summer we met, but when I pried for more information about the time after that, he'd shut down.

Sometimes I wondered what it would have been like if I'd brought the 1953 version of Pete back with me instead of the 1955 model. When I first met Pete, he was more innocent and hopeful for the future and a part of me wondered if I'd ruined that part of him. But that version of him may not have wanted to leave his life behind for this one, while this Pete seemed to have no problem with letting his past literally go up in flames and starting anew.

Either version of him would probably have trouble adjusting to life in the 21st century. Pete rejected the idea of getting a cellphone and still wouldn't go anywhere near a big box store. When I suggested he get a credit card so he wouldn't have to pay cash for everything he asked me if I thought he was a Rockefeller. I hoped his reluctance was only due to his old school tendencies and not a way of eschewing anything that might tie him to that particular time and place.

He turned toward me, laced his fingers with mine and lightly kissed my wrist. "You smell like a sandwich."

"I've been up to my elbows in mustard and mayonnaise."

"You worked today? I thought it was a dress rehearsal day."

"No, you're right, it was a dress rehearsal. Pranks escalated, condiments were applied to costumes and I was left with the mess."

My stomach groaned in hunger and Pete took it as a cue to sit up and search for his clothes. He pulled his white undershirt on and he looked so good in it I wanted to drag him back to me again, but I was starving.

"Sorry, I didn't start dinner yet," he said as he stepped into his jeans. "I was trying to fix the faucet upstairs and I lost track of time."

He opened a drawer and tossed a pair of thick wool socks to me. He knew I couldn't stand how the polished stone floor in the living room was always freezing cold. Once I was dressed I found him in the living room putting a record on the turntable. His go-to choice was Johnny Cash's first album, the jacket for which shed thin flakes like a five day old sunburn every time it was touched.

"Not Johnny freaking Cash again," I sighed dramatically.

The album selection at the cottage seemed heavily influenced by his sister June's hippy days, with a few older ones in the mix. I'd snuck some other options into the collection that I'd picked up for fifty cents or so at thrift stores, but Pete always reached for one of his four or five favorites.

"You pick the next one." He wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my neck on the way to the kitchen and I drifted along behind him in an enamored daze, skating along the smooth flagstone floor in his socks.

The living room was mostly the same as I remembered it from our visit to the cottage in the summer, with a fieldstone fireplace, a turntable console at the back of the room, mismatched lamps, couches draped with plaid wool blankets and a telescope by the window for lake freighter viewing. The kitchen had been updated, probably sometime in the seventies, with gold-flecked ivory Formica countertops, dark wood cabinets and linoleum floors in a faux-brick pattern in various shades of mustard: dijon, honey, spicy brown.

As Pete tended the stove, the scent of sautéed onions and garlic filled the kitchen. I chopped carrots into little coin shapes on a wood cutting board and found myself chopping along with the train chugging rhythm of Johnny Cash's song, faster and faster until I reached the end of a carrot and nicked my knuckle with the knife.

I gasped and lunged toward the sink to rinse my bleeding finger. By the time the last of the blood tinged water trickled down the drain, Pete was already at my side with my hand in his and the stinging pain had faded. I blinked slowly as I glanced from the carrots on the cutting board to the sink and was hit with the dizzying sense of overwhelming familiarity.

"You okay?" he asked, his eyes searching my face.

"Yeah, just deja vu."

"From that time you sliced your finger with the potato peeler?"

"No, I think from a dream I had once." I wiggled my perfectly intact fingers and stared at them in awe. "Thank you." I gave him a reassuring smile and picked the knife up again to finish the carrots.

Pete gently rested his hand on my wrist and said, "I don't think so. Why don't you sit down?"

"But it doesn't even hurt," I protested.

"It hurts me to watch you chop your fingers up. I'll take it from here, you can't be trusted with kitchen utensils."

"Alright, alright," I conceded.

I fetched my phone from my bag which I'd dropped by the door on my way in, took a seat at the table and started scrolling.

Pete pushed the last of the carrots into the cast iron pot and sighed. "Sometimes I think I'm in a love triangle with you and your phone."

"Oh, come on. Obviously I love you more than my phone."

"You spend more time with your phone than with me."

"That's like saying, 'you spend more time with your leg than with me.' It's like an appendage, a package deal."

"And that's a bit strange, don't you think?"

I shrugged in response. I couldn't argue with that. It was strange, but it was a part of life in the twenty-first century, and he'd have to get used to it.

"If it's that important to you and you spend so much time with it, you should probably give it a name."

"Like how you named your truck after Rita Hayworth?" I remembered with an eye roll.

"Exactly." He sang along to the music in an exaggerated deep, gravelly voice for a minute, then suggested, "David. For your phone.'"

"Why would I name my phone after my dad?"

"I was thinking about the movie Sabrina. Classic love triangle. Sabrina's the daughter of a chauffeur who works for a rich family with two sons. She's always loved the younger one, David, but he's sort of a flashy, lazy, womanizing type- no good. But when she comes home after some time in Paris, she falls for the older brother who actually has a good head on his shoulders. We should watch it sometime."

While Pete added ingredients to the stew, I investigated Sabrina to see what level of boredom awaited me. Pete's old timey movie recommendations were at least an automatic eight out of ten on the boredom scale. Not that it really mattered. We usually didn't pay attention after the first twenty minutes anyway.

"Oh, there's a 1995 version of Sabrina," I said, "how about we watch that one?"

"Is Audrey Hepburn in it?"

For the second time in five minutes, I felt jealous of a long-dead actress.

"What do you think?" I asked dryly. "Audrey Hepburn died in 1993. Ew, Humphrey Bogart, who played the older brother, Linus, was thirty years older than Audrey Hepburn when they filmed this!"

"Alright, enough with the trivia." Pete was a little sensitive on the topic of age differences. He swiped the phone from my hand and pocketed it.

"So, in this weird love triangle, if my phone is David that would make you Linus?" I snickered.

"Yeah, so?"

"The name 'Linus' doesn't exactly say 'smokin' hot love interest.' It says-" I paused to stand up so I could properly create a visual. I started to shuffle my feet with my arms straight down at my sides. I bobbed my head side to side in my best attempt at the Peanuts dance while I sang the tune Linus played on his tiny piano. "Doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doooo do. You know, from Charlie Brown?"

He watched me with a wry smile. "I know of the comic strip, but not the song and definitely not whatever that is."

I shuffled over to Pete and kissed him while I reached into the front pocket of his jeans. He leaned back and asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to get David out of your pants."

He laughed and handed over the phone. I quickly found out that the first Charlie Brown special wasn't televised until 1965.

"Shoot. I really thought that reference would land because Charlie Brown is so old, but I'm still off by a decade."

The record player clicked as side A of the Johnny Cash album finished playing and I went into the living room to switch the album. I must have been influenced by the seventies vibe in the kitchen, because I went for Fleetwood Mac.

"It was a nice try," Pete said from the kitchen, "but I don't think any of your popular culture references will land with me."

"And yours don't make sense to me. Maybe we should start quoting Shakespeare to each other," I snarked. "Perhaps his work is our common ground."

I danced my way back to the kitchen, watching the pleats on my long skirt fan out around me as I twirled. Dizzy and euphoric, I leaned against the doorframe and watched Pete; white t-shirt, tousled hair, dark brown freckles scattered across the back of his neck, cooking dinner, and simply existing there in front of me. His presence in my life somehow made no sense and perfect sense. I wondered if I'd ever stop gazing at him in bewilderment, stunned by the love I felt for him that lifted and crushed me at the same time.

Pete quickly glanced over his shoulder at me and back at the stew as he stirred and said dreamily, "My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."

"Stop it," I demanded.

Even though he sounded cheesy, I was still having a physical reaction to his recitation. My face flamed and my heart started to race. He couldn't quote Shakespeare, too. It was too much.

He turned and slid my phone across the table toward me with a gloating smirk. It was open to a page of romantic Shakespearean quotes. "Annoying, isn't it?"

I playfully shoved his shoulder and scowled. "How'd you know my passcode?"

"Lucky guess. It's my birthday. The real one." He put the lid on the pot and said apologetically, "Now it has to simmer for an hour."

I lifted the lid and inhaled as the steam condensed on my face.

"But it smells so good! I want it now," I whined.

"Patience, Vanessa," he said, guiding my hand down to replace the lid. "I promise it'll be worth the wait."