Beautiful Mistake

by Vi Keeland

  I had no idea why I was even comparing the two men. It didn’t feel fair to Davis, even though he’d win in pretty much any category I could scribble down on paper and analyze. The problem was, Caine made me feel something that couldn’t be categorized—something I couldn’t even really describe. And for a reason I didn’t quite understand, that stupid feeling trumped all of the awesomeness of Davis.

  But this afternoon had been a real eye-opener. I’d practically thrown myself at a man who was attracted to me physically, but hated that he was. No good could come of tempting a man to act who had no interest in anything more than sex and would also immediately regret giving in to his temptation.

  I sighed and vowed to enjoy my evening and focus on the man sitting across from me.

  As I approached the table, Davis’ smile brought back all the good times we’d had over the years. He stood as I approached and pulled me into a giant hug. It felt so good. His arms wrapped tight around my waist as he buried his face in my hair and inhaled deeply.

  “I missed you,” he said. “You always smell so good.”

  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed being held. Yes, I missed the sexual gratification of being with a man…but being held and feeling wanted felt pretty damn amazing. Down deep, I knew I was needy after Caine’s rejection, but I buried that and allowed myself to enjoy Davis holding me anyway. He took a long time before he released me, and when he did, he stepped back, holding my hands so he could look at me.

  “Wow. You look incredible, Rach.”

  “Thank you.”

  We sat, and Davis just kept staring.

  A nervous giggle snuck out. “You’re staring at me like I have two heads.”

  His eyes had such a tenderness as he smiled. “I was just thinking…remember that picture we took at my graduation? The one where I had on the gown and you were wearing my cap crooked with a goofy smile?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, I printed it out, and I have it on my dresser, and…” He trailed off.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I don’t want to scare you off before the appetizers even come.”

  I laughed. “Don’t be silly. What were you going to say?”

  Davis looked me in the eyes. “I was going to say sometimes I wake up and look at it, but it doesn’t hold a candle to seeing you in person.” His eyes flickered to my lips. “I miss your goofy grin. That’s all.”

  There was so much warmth in his gaze. It seemed to be contagious because I felt my insides turn a little mushy. Why had I thought tonight was a bad idea? In that moment, I couldn’t think of a single reason.

  The waitress interrupted to take our drink order. Davis ordered his usual Tanqueray and tonic, and he looked to me. “Diet Coke?”

  I was feeling rebellious tonight. “I’ll have a Tanqueray and tonic, too.”

  Once the waitress disappeared, Davis lifted a brow. He knew my stance on drinking. He also had to remember that the one night we drank too much together, we wound up in bed.

  “Is tonight a special occasion?”

  “I think it is. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”

  “It’s been way too long.”

  By the time I finished half of my drink, my shoulders had dropped, and the muscles in my neck were a lot looser. We’d started to settle into the old Davis-and-Rachel comfortableness. I gave him an update about my classes, and he asked how my sister was. Never liking to talk about myself too much, I steered the conversation back to him.

  “So what’s new with you? How’s your job?”

  “Good. Got a little promotion—a bigger territory.”

  “Wow. Congratulations. I knew you’d do great. Do you get a big fancy corner office now?”

  “Nah, I spend three-quarters of my time on the road. But they did give me a better car allowance, so I got myself a fun new car to enjoy while I’m doing all that driving.”

  “What did you get?”

  “The Audi A4. It’s a manual transmission. Makes for a fun drive on long hauls with hills.”

  My brain was being unfair. It immediately conjured up the memory of Caine driving his little car—the way his hand gripped that gear shifter. Such an odd thing to have gotten me all hot and bothered, even odder that I shifted in my seat remembering it.

  I sipped my drink. “You’ll have to take me for a ride sometime.”

  “I’d like that. You can even take it for a spin, if you want.”

  “Thank you,” I scoffed. “Caine wouldn’t let me drive his car. Thought I’d ruin his precious clutch.”

  “Caine?”

  “Professor West. My thesis advisor.”

  Davis seemed contemplative for a few seconds and then nodded. “That’s right. You mentioned him the other night at O’Leary’s. You still working six days a week over there?”

  “Actually, not the last few weeks. Between teaching and student extra-help sessions, faculty meetings, and writing lesson plans, I’ve had to cut down a bit.”

  Over dinner, we chatted away like long-lost friends. Davis was good company, and our familiarity gave me a sense of comfort—Davis had always given me a sense of comfort. When our conversation came to a lull, I could see he was thinking. It looked like he was debating saying something.

  “Spit it out,” I said.

  He chuckled. “You could always tell when something was on my mind.”

  “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  He stopped eating and put down his fork. “You said you weren’t seeing anyone?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Is there a reason for that?”

  “Other than that I barely have time to breathe and most of the men at O’Leary’s are sixty-year-old retired cops, no. Not really.”

  “Have you dated anyone since…you know…we were together?”

  “Does one guy who was a total jerk and Charlie almost hit with a baseball bat count?”

  We laughed, but Davis remained serious. “I went out with a woman for a while—Stacey. We had a lot in common and got along great.”

  I felt a pang of jealousy. “Are you still together?”

  “No. We broke up.”

  “What happened?”

  Davis looked away for a few seconds, then returned to meet my gaze. “She wasn’t you.”

  I opened my mouth to respond three times, but each time I shut it, realizing I wasn’t sure what to say. Davis caught my bewildered expression and seemed amused.

  “You don’t have to say anything. In fact, don’t. Let me just finish, if that’s okay?”

  “Okay…” I managed to get a word out—a single one, but it counted.

  “First of all, this wasn’t how I planned to talk to you about this. My plan was to have dinner tonight, charm you into remembering how great things were between us, and then take you out a few more times before I laid it all out there.”

  “I’d say you went off script.”

  “Yeah…sorry about that. I got a little jealous and stepped on the gas.”

  “Jealous. About what?”

  “Nothing. It was stupid.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You mentioned that professor a few times at dinner the other night, and then when you mentioned being in his car a little while ago, I visualized you… My mind just started to race a bit. I thought maybe you were seeing him or something.”

  I scoffed in denial. “Definitely not.” Although the emphatic tone in my voice made even me not believe it. Obstinate denial is often the loudest confession. But Davis didn’t seem to notice.

  “Anyway, my plan was, after I got you to remember how good we were together, I would tell you I’ve never stopped thinking about you.” He paused, looking up at me with a shy and vulnerable expression. “I’ve tried to move on, but every person I start to date—no matter how great they are—has one flaw I can’t seem to move past. They’re not you.”

  Wow. Just. Wow. I was caught so off guard by his seriousness. I was also a bit confused.r />
  “I don’t understand, though. When we stopped seeing each other, you said you weren’t ready for a relationship. I completely understood that because of everything you’d just come out of. You needed time and space. Yet you started dating someone not long after that. So you didn’t really need time? You just needed time not with me?”

  Davis ran his fingers over his short hair. It was slightly longer than a military cut, but still neat and cropped close to his head. Again I thought of Caine. He’d frequently dragged his fingers through his thick, unruly hair when I’d done my best to frustrate him.

  “You’re sort of right. I needed time not with you—because I didn’t know how to do slow. I could see a future with you, and that scared the shit out of me because I was just climbing out of a relationship I’d seen as my future at one time. When I dated Stacey for those few months, I couldn’t see things long-term—didn’t see a future—so I felt comfortable with her.”

  “So you stayed with a woman for a few months because you couldn’t see a future with her. But walked away from one after only a few weeks because you could see a future?”

  Davis’s laugh was mocking. “Pretty stupid. I know.”

  It actually wasn’t. It sounded like a protective mechanism. If you know you can’t stop yourself from eating the whole cake, you don’t buy it at the store.

  “It’s not stupid. I get it. Our timing was just off.”

  When Davis and I stopped seeing each other, I was upset—even though the logical part of me understood he was right. But I’d always believed he was honest with me, that he needed his freedom. I figured if it was meant to be, it was meant to be, and someday we’d find our way back to each other. And here we were.

  That someday had come.

  I hadn’t had any relationship to speak of, so it should be easy to pick up where we left off.

  Only…

  It didn’t feel easy.

  But did love always come easy? Look at Umberto and Lydia…

  “Say something.”

  My thoughts were so jumbled inside my head, I hadn’t realized I’d been quiet for a few minutes.

  “I have no idea what to say.”

  “Well, then I might as well finish and lay all my cards out on the table.”

  “Finish?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry. There’s not much more.” Davis reached for my hand. “I’ve made some big mistakes in my life, but the biggest mistake I’ve ever made was walking away from you. I know this might seem like it’s coming out of nowhere, but I promise you it’s not. Not one single day has gone by that you weren’t in my thoughts. I just finally owned up to the truth.”

  Everything he said was exactly what I wanted to hear…almost nine months ago. Only now I wasn’t sure Davis had ever been the right person for me. If he was, why hadn’t I been more devastated when it ended? Why was I able to let go? My mind kept returning to Lydia and Umberto. She wouldn’t even let go now—when he doesn’t remember who she is and thinks he’s in love with another woman.

  But maybe not pining my days away with thoughts of Davis was my defense mechanism. Maybe I’d buried my feelings so as not to get hurt—who knows. I just felt overwhelmed and confused.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You’ve mentioned that,” he teased with a boyish smile. “How about saying you’ll at least give it some thought? Don’t say no. Not yet, at least. Take some time.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?” His eyes widened. “You mean you’ll think about it.”

  “Yes. But I can’t really think straight right now. Between the drink and everything you just said, I’m not in the right frame of mind to respond anyway.”

  “That’s better than a no. I’ll take it.”

  Somehow we managed to get back to regular conversation and enjoy the rest of our…date? Were we even on a date? I’d called it that to Professor Pink, but just in an attempt to rile up Caine. What were Davis and I doing, actually? I hadn’t really thought of this as a date date—I was simply meeting him for dinner.

  Although it definitely felt like a date toward the end of the evening.

  When dinner was over, I was glad I’d driven to meet him at the restaurant instead of letting him pick me up like he’d suggested. It saved us from the awkward moment where I’d have felt rude for not inviting him up, but wary about what it might look like if I did invite him up. However, even though it prevented that awkward moment, it didn’t make the one that came when he walked me to my car any easier.

  Davis took both my hands. “Can I give you a call in a few days? Maybe we can make a plan to meet up for coffee or something?”

  I smiled. “Sure. I’d like that.”

  He leaned in slowly, almost as if he wanted to give me a chance to move before he entered my space, and brushed his lips softly across mine. “’Night, Rach.”

  In a fog from the last two hours, I got into my car, and Davis closed the door. He waited for me to start it before walking to his. I needed a few minutes before I drove, so I fished my phone from my purse and checked for missed calls and text messages as my engine idled. The first thing that popped up was a text from Caine. It must’ve come in during dinner.

  Caine: Don’t do something stupid to get even with me.

  What nerve! The man seriously thought the world revolved around him. The fog I’d been in suddenly lifted, and my anger from earlier was back, clear as day. I typed in a frenzy.

  Rachel: Screw you. Not everything is about you.

  The dots immediately started jumping around.

  Caine: This is.

  A hundred scathing responses ran through my head. But then I noticed Davis waiting for me to go before leaving the restaurant parking lot himself. God, I’m such an ass. Tossing my phone into my purse, I forced a smile and gave Davis another wave before putting my car in drive.

  The restaurant was about twenty minutes from my apartment. I was on schedule to make it in about five when I had to jam on my brakes and narrowly averted smashing into the back of a Honda stopped at a stop sign. I was so angry, so unfocused, I hadn’t seen the big, red reflective sign or the two tons of steel yielding to the law.

  Between my emotions getting the best of me and the adrenaline that kicked in after a near-accident, my heart was palpitating like mad in my chest. I had to pull over for fear my next close call wouldn’t just be close.

  Of course, since I was stopped on the side of the road, I pulled my phone out of my purse.

  Dumb move.

  I should have just caught my breath, calmed down, and driven myself home at a normal speed. Instead, when I swiped, I found both a missed call and a text from Caine. There was no voicemail, but the text read ‘We need to talk’.

  I was furious. Not only did he think everything was about him, he thought he could issue commands. We need to talk.

  You know what? He was right. We did need to talk. But I was going to be the one doing all the talking, and it was going to happen on my terms.

  My tires screeched as I pulled away from the curb and hung a U-turn to head toward Manhattan. That talk he wanted was going to happen now.

  Rachel

  If you looked up unstable in the dictionary, I’m pretty sure my picture would be there.

  In the span of five or six hours, I’d been aroused during a heated argument where I goaded Caine into touching me, angry and deflated when he dismissed me as if he hadn’t been right there with me, and then confused yet flattered when Davis told me he wanted to get back together. Then, the minute dinner was over and Caine started barking at me over texts again, I rounded the circle back to angry.

  Now it was almost eleven o’clock at night, and I was parked two buildings away from Caine’s apartment. Suddenly all the angry nerve I’d harnessed on the drive over had disappeared, and I debated why I’d even come. Talk about emotionally unstable.

  Why was I here? To tell off Caine, give him a piece of my mind for his hot-and-cold dismissive behavior. Sure, I wan
ted to tell him off. But I knew that’s not what I really wanted. Sitting in the still-warm car, I took out my phone and swiped to re-read Caine’s texts.

  Don’t do something stupid to get even with me.

  He wasn’t off base. My choices today—getting dressed up hours before dinner to go to class, showing up in something sexy, even deciding to go to dinner with Davis alone in the first place—they all had to do with Caine…and most of them were stupid.

  I let out an exaggerated, heavy sigh. This visit was a bad idea. I tapped my forehead against the steering wheel a few times, mock knocking some sense into my brain. All of this emotional instability had taken its toll at once, and I was tired. Really tired. Taking one final look up at Caine’s building, I started my car and headed back home to Brooklyn.

  Finding a parking spot in my neighborhood after eight o’clock was next to impossible. I was too tired to search and decided to head directly over to the overpriced parking garage five blocks away rather than get aggravated circling for an hour. I’d had my fill of aggravation for today.

  By the time I reached my block, I was cursing my high heels, along with the city’s maintenance department for the crappy, broken sidewalks I had to walk on. I almost tripped three times. Finally arriving at my building, I winced up every step of the tall stairs. I grumbled to myself as I opened the outer door to the vestibule, finding it unlocked once again. Anyone could wander inside.

  I jumped when I stepped in and found a man standing there. Instinctively, I started to scream.

  Caine looked just as freaked out as I was. He held up his hands. “Rachel, it’s just me.”

  I clutched at my chest. “What the hell are you doing? Trying to scare the living shit out of me?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But the door was open, so I let myself in. I was just about to leave since you didn’t answer the buzzer.”

  My heart hammered in my chest. This was the absolute day from hell. “What are you doing here?”