“Yeah, my dad’s dad. He and I are really close. He’s kind of my life coach.” Easton laughed because the statement was frighteningly accurate.
“Your grandpa is? That’s so cool.”
“He’s really smart and really open-minded. Way ahead of his time.”
“My grandparents are all gone, so I’m envious. You talk to him about a lot?”
Easton scooped mashed potatoes into her mouth, chewed, then pointed a fork at Bella. “Oh, my God, I talk to my grandpa about everything. He even knew all the details of why I left my marriage.”
Bella’s eyebrows rose slightly, as if she was surprised, but was trying not to show it.
Easton made a face that was half-grin, half-grimace. “Well. I guess I’ve opened that door now, huh?”
“I’d say so.” Bella kept her tone light and her face open. “You certainly don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to, Easton. I understand how personal that is and we don’t know each other well…”
Was it Easton’s expression that made Bella’s voice trail off? Because she wanted nothing more than to spill. To tell Bella every single thing, every little secret she had. “I trust you, Bella.” Easton said it very quietly, then had to swallow down the weird lump in her throat. “I don’t know why or how, but I do. I feel like I can tell you anything.”
“Well, I’m glad. And you can.”
“No wonder you’re a therapist. You have this quality about you…” Easton studied Bella, held her gaze. Bella didn’t waver, and they stayed that way for what felt like a long time, and it was so many things. Comfortable. Exciting. Exhilarating. Delicious. Easton hadn’t experienced this in so long. Not since… She cleared her throat quietly and said, her voice low, “I met a girl.”
Bella twirled pasta onto her fork, took a bite, and returned her gaze to Easton with a nod.
Another lump. Another swallow. “It was four years ago. At a neighborhood block party. Her name was—is—Olivia and she and her husband and kids lived three houses down the street from us. Our street has a party every summer where we close down the cul-de-sac and everybody brings chairs and grills and food and we cook and the kids play and it’s just a lot of fun. I’d never really paid attention to her before, but for some reason, she caught my eye that year.” Easton could still remember the very first time she’d seen Olivia. It was the middle of August and it was humid. Olivia was in denim cutoff shorts and a sleeveless white button-down shirt, her dark hair in a ponytail, locks of it framing her face. Flip-flops were on her feet and her toenails were polished a bright purple. Easton could still see them in her mind, that grape color, so eye-catching and fun. She’d been taken in. Instantly. “I couldn’t keep my focus off her and the funny thing was, as many times as she caught me looking, I caught her doing the same thing.”
“Ah, so it was mutual,” Bella said.
“Absolutely. Right away. It’s so weird how that happens. We’d never really been on each other’s radar before then, but suddenly, she was all I could see.”
“Was she the first girl you’d ever found yourself attracted to?” There was something underlying in the question, but Easton wasn’t sure what.
“Now that I look back? No. But Olivia was the first one—the only one—I acted on. We had an affair for nearly two years.” There. She’d said it. She let a beat go by, then looked up at Bella. “I’ve only told two people that.” A nervous laugh bubbled up out of her, and Easton wondered if it sounded as oddly insane to Bella as it did to her ears. Bella’s expression only softened, though, so maybe she was okay. “My friend Shondra knows. And my grandpa. That’s it. I haven’t even told my ex-husband.”
“Really?” Bella was obviously surprised. “Isn’t that why you ended your marriage? I mean, I just assumed.”
“No, it is. You’re right. I didn’t specifically tell him about Olivia. She still lives there. She’s still married. They’ll see each other on occasion.”
“You protected her.”
“Yes.” Easton took a bite of her filet, chewed slowly as she allowed herself to remember Olivia. She glanced at Bella, gave a self-deprecating smile. “I try not to think about her anymore, but once in a while…”
“Yeah, that’s a tough one. The second we tell ourselves not to think about something—or someone—that’s all we can think about.” Bella studied her for a moment and Easton could almost hear her mind working. “You left your marriage, hoping she’d do the same. But she didn’t.”
Easton met Bella’s gaze, surprised she’d figured it out so easily. She stayed quiet as the familiar pain and emotion rolled through her before giving one nod. “Exactly.” The day Olivia told her she’d misunderstood, that she’d never intended to leave her husband to be with Easton was one of the worst days of her life. Easton picked up her wine, sipped, swallowed, sipped again. “We’d sort of touched on the idea, but I ran with it. I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t help myself. I could see it. I could see us with a house and our kids and a life together. I was so in love with her.” She inhaled slowly, let it out, raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes as she told Bella, “She thought I was fun.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
Tyler stopped by to check on them and refill their wineglasses. Once he’d moved along, Bella asked, “So, what did you tell your ex about why you were leaving?”
It was strange to Easton that she didn’t find Bella’s questions even the slightest bit intrusive. She felt inexplicably safe with her. So much so that part of her feared she’d spill every last secret she had right there on the table in the midst of their first date. She’d already told her the biggest one. “Connor knew that I wasn’t happy. That I hadn’t been for a long time. I told him I’ve liked girls since high school and was just too afraid to do anything about it, that it was time for me to—at the risk of sounding like a cliché—explore that part of me.”
Bella smiled, and it seemed genuine to Easton. It felt genuine. She felt utterly unjudged by Bella, and that was a surprise. Even Shondra had given her hell when she’d told the entire story. “Following your true self, being who you are? It’s not always easy. I think what you did was brave.”
“You do?”
“God, yes.” Bella took her white linen napkin from her lap and dabbed her lips with it. She picked up her glass and propped her elbow on the table. “You’d be surprised by the number of clients I’ve seen over the years who know they’re not being true to themselves. Who know there’s another part of them that they’ve trapped inside. Yet they stay stuck. They stay in the lives that stifle them because the idea of a drastic change—and it is drastic, don’t think I don’t understand that—is just too much for them. They’d rather stay where they are, where it’s safe and familiar.”
“And suffocating,” Easton added. She was quiet for a moment, watched Bella as she sipped her wine. She wet her lips and looked down at her plate before she raised her head and said, “You’re the first person who’s ever told me I was brave.”
“You are. I truly believe that, and you should, too.”
“Thank you, Bella.” Easton had trouble pinpointing the emotions she felt right then. Pride? Relief? Comfort? Attraction? A combination of all of that and more? “Thank you for that.”
Bella smiled, and her cheeks tinted just the tiniest bit of pink. “You’re very welcome.”
A beat went by before Easton gave herself a mental shake and asked, “What about you? When did you realize you liked girls?” She set down her fork, finished with her meal. Wineglass in hand, she sat back in her seat, crossed her legs, and focused on her date. Her gorgeous, unbelievably sexy date. The date she really, really wanted to kiss, she realized in that exact moment. Which made Easton’s heart rate double and her mouth go dry. She sipped.
Bella followed suit, sitting slightly back in her chair, wineglass in her hand. “Like you, I knew in high school, but it scared the hell out of me and I denied it for a long time.”
“Did you crush on
any girls in school?” At Bella’s slightly surprised look, Easton added, “I sure did.”
Bella cleared her throat. “I wasn’t really sure what it was at that point.”
“So, college then.”
Bella tipped her head from one side to the other. “A little bit, yeah. I was kind of a late bloomer.”
“Around sex?”
“Around life.”
Easton grinned. God, this woman. “So…late in college?”
“Yes. It took me a long time to figure out who I am. More accurately, to be comfortable with who I am. Long time. So, I dated both boys and girls in college, because as I said: denial. The first girl I slept with is still one of my best friends today. We didn’t really have a relationship. Like, we didn’t date. We slept together because we were trying to figure ourselves out. I didn’t really find somebody I cared deeply about until I was twenty-five.”
“A woman.”
“Yes.”
“How long were you together?” Easton watched the very subtle emotions as they played across Bella’s face. The memories. Happiness. Sadness. Wistfulness.
“Six years. She works for a national advertising firm. She’s very successful. They offered her the promotion she’d been working toward for years, but with the caveat that she had to move to Atlanta.”
“She didn’t ask you to go with her?” Easton wanted to reach across the table and smooth out the little divot that had appeared when Bella furrowed her brow.
“Oh, no. She did. But my practice was finally up and running. I had a solid schedule of clients. The wellness center was giving me more responsibility. I didn’t want to move farther from my parents than I already was. And frankly, she and I had started to drift quite a bit.”
Easton nodded. “Yeah, that’s a huge move to make if you’re not feeling it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“So, you split up.”
With a nod, Bella said, “We did. And you know what? While it was hard and sad, it also didn’t crush either of us. Which was a pretty good sign we’d made the right decision. She’s doing really well out there. We’re still friends. We talk on Facebook here and there. It’s good.”
Easton let go of a tiny snort. “Olivia and I do not talk on Facebook. Or anywhere.”
Bella’s grimace was laced with sympathy. “Nothing?”
Easton shook her head. “It’s better that we don’t.” She emptied her glass. “At least, that’s what she decided.” Trying to lighten the mood, she added, “But I’m not bitter.”
Bella laughed, and it was as if the sound reached right into Easton and hugged her heart, it was so beautiful. “You can be bitter. Nothing wrong with that. Have you dated since?”
“Not really. I mean, I’ve got Emma. She takes up a lot of time. And nobody’s really caught my interest…” Easton let her voice trail off as red flags flew up all over the place in her head, warning her not to say too much. She ignored them. “Not until you.”
***
What the hell is happening?
How in the world had she ended up sitting in a fancy-schmancy restaurant across from this woman? This woman who was stunningly gorgeous. This woman who was treating her to the best night she’d had in months. In a lot of months. In over a year’s worth of months. This woman she’d had such a crush on in high school…the same woman who hadn’t even known she’d existed then. How? How was this possible? What was the universe trying to do to her? Was this a test? If so, she was failing miserably because she should’ve told Easton who she was, and now she couldn’t. She’d let the opportunity pass her by and now the window had closed. It would just be weird at this point. No, she was having way too good a time and refused to ruin it. She’d tell her next time. For sure.
Next time.
Would there be a next time? God, she sure hoped so.
Easton could not have been more beautiful. Her dress was also black, but the style was completely different than Bella’s, slim-fitting and with an open back that begged for Bella to put her palm there. She hadn’t been able to see her legs, as she’d been behind the table when Bella had arrived, but she was looking forward to the view. Easton’s blond hair was curlier than usual, bouncy, shiny. Bella wanted to play with it, sift the locks through her fingers, bury her nose in it and inhale deeply.
“Do I have something on my face? Food in my teeth?” Easton’s voice yanked Bella back to the present reality.
“Pardon?”
“You’re staring at me.”
“Yeah.” Bella blinked several times and picked up her glass, needing something to occupy her focus. Somehow, while gazing into the deep crimson of the wine, she found a spark of courage. “I’d say I’m sorry, but…I’m not.” Oh, my God, who am I?
Easton’s answering smile was a number of things: a little bit bashful, a little bit glowing, a lot happy, and ridiculously beautiful. After a moment, she raised those beautiful blue eyes and posed a question. “Can I be frank?”
No, but you can be Easton. That’s what Amy would’ve said, and Bella had to force herself not to chuckle at her own thoughts. “Absolutely.”
Easton folded her hands in front of her and leaned forward slightly. There was something almost intimate about having such intense focus on her, and Bella felt a flutter low in her body—a feeling she hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
“I have never really actually dated,” Easton began, her voice quiet, forcing Bella to lean toward her. “I married Connor right out of college. And it’s not like Olivia and I had a traditional dating life.” She looked at Bella as if wondering if she understood. Bella nodded. “So, this is all very new to me.”
She paused, wet her lips, and Bella felt her own thighs clench involuntarily. “That being said, I am…alarmingly attracted to you.” She gave what Bella could only classify as an uncertain smile and half shrug. “And I want to be careful to stay at a good pace. Not to rush. I just…” She inhaled, let it out, seeming mildly frustrated. “Am I making any sense at all?”
Charmingly self-deprecating. That was the best way to describe Easton in that moment, and the words filled Bella with a warmth she couldn’t—didn’t want to—try to explain. “You are.”
“You’re sure? ’Cause all I’m trying to say is that I’m having a really, really good time with you and I’d like to do it again. Soon.”
How in the world could Bella say no to that face? To those eyes? Even if she wanted to. Which she most certainly did not.
Tyler the waiter arrived before Bella could respond, asking if they wanted dessert.
“I would love some, but I honestly cannot eat another bite,” Easton said, and seemed genuinely sad to admit it. Which was awesome because Bella felt the same way.
“Me neither, and I’m not happy about it.”
“Next time, we get dessert,” Easton promised as Tyler left the little black portfolio containing the check and Easton grabbed it before Bella even realized what it was.
“Next time, I get the check.”
Easton tucked her credit card into the pocket. “So, there will be a next time?” And that answered Bella’s internal question.
“There will.” Bella had no qualms about that one. She wanted to see Easton again. Definitely.
Tyler scooped the check away as Easton said, “I was thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Ha ha. I don’t have to pick Emma up at the park tomorrow like I usually do. Will you be going there with your dog again?”
Bella was relieved by the idea that she wouldn’t have to meet up with Easton and her ex again. “We usually go earlier than last week. I had an emergency appointment that morning.”
“I’m not scheduled to pick up Emma until four tomorrow. She has a birthday party for a classmate. Connor will bring her by after that. Do you want to, maybe, walk your dogs and then get some brunch or something?” Bella only took a second, but Easton jumped right back in, her sentences running into each other until they were just one long one. “Unless it�
�s too soon, I’d totally understand if it’s too soon, I could be moving too fast here, like I said. Am I moving too fast? Because just tell me to slow down and I will. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and I—”
“Stop.” Bella said it softly and with a smile as she closed a hand over Easton’s forearm.
“Okay.” Easton swallowed audibly.
“Now. Take a breath.”
Easton did. “Okay.”
“You’re so incredibly cute right now.” Nothing was truer in that moment. Nervous Easton Evans was something Bella had never seen, never expected to see, didn’t even think existed. And it warmed her heart, even as Easton scoffed and lowered her eyes toward the table. Bella squeezed gently, and when Easton looked back up, she said, “I would love to meet you in the park tomorrow.”
If they weren’t the perfect words, they were damn close, judging from the gleeful expression on Easton’s face. Tyler brought back the check, Easton signed, and then she and Bella stood wordlessly, gathered their things, and headed for the door.
Bella hadn’t had the chance to absorb much about the restaurant upon her arrival because she’d caught sight of Easton and hadn’t been able to look away. The situation was much the same on the way out, Easton walking in front of her. Those legs and that tight-fitting black dress snagged Bella’s gaze and didn’t let go until they’d reached the door and Easton held it open.
The night had cooled, but not unbearably so, and they sauntered together toward the parking lot. They reached Bella’s SUV first.
“This is me,” she said, indicating the vehicle.
“I’m down there,” Easton said, pointing away.
They stood. Lingered. Shifted weight from foot to foot.
“I know I said it already, but I had a great time tonight, Bella.” Easton’s eyes were less visible in the yellowish glow from the parking lot lights, but Bella could see the sparkle in them.
“Me, too. Thank you for dinner and for a lovely evening.” Bella grimaced. “A lovely evening? God, did that sound like I’m seventy-five years old?”
The Do-Over Page 11