by Linda Seed
He played his music loud, because Mrs. Foster was out at her book club meeting. Aerosmith this time.
Should he go over to Delilah’s place? Make some excuse, show up on some pretense, like bringing something for Gavin and Jesse?
That would be both pathetic and transparent, and you know it.
So he didn’t do that. He just worked and tried to get lost in the music, and when that didn’t get his mind off things, he took a walk.
Women. There was absolutely no making sense of them.
It was foolish to even try.
When Delilah got Quinn’s text that afternoon, she was at the Cookie Crock, pushing a cart down the cereal aisle with Jesse and Gavin beside her. She looked at her phone, saw that the message was from him, and felt a jolt of what could only be described as pure electricity.
She stared at the screen, unsure what to do.
“Mom! Can we get this?” Jesse held up a box of sugary cereal, something with a cartoon character on the front.
“Honey, no. It’s nothing but sugar.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I want it,” Gavin added.
She shoved the phone into her pocket and negotiated a cereal purchase until they’d found something kid-friendly that also resembled actual food. The boys weren’t entirely happy, but they weren’t complaining too loudly, either. To Delilah, that represented a win.
They proceeded down the aisle toward the granola bars, and Delilah took her phone out and looked at the message again.
I had a good time. When can we do it again?
He wasn’t talking about the date itself—she was sure of it. He was talking about one specific part of it: the kiss.
Part of her really wanted to do it again—and soon—but another, wiser part of her knew that would be foolish.
She couldn’t have flings with hot men who just wanted to toy with her. She was too mature for that. She had too many responsibilities.
“Mommy?” Gavin held up a box of granola bars in question.
“Okay, honey.” She gave her consent, and Gavin put the box into the basket.
“Why are you on your phone?” Jesse demanded. “You always say it’s not polite for people to be on their phone while they’re supposed to be doing something else. You say that. And you’re just on your phone when we’re supposed to be buying groceries.” His face held the indignation of the righteous.
Delilah let out a sigh. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll put it away.” She slid the phone back into her pocket, but that didn’t mean she’d stopped thinking about the text.
When can we do it again?
The problem was, if they did it again, she wouldn’t want to stop at a kiss. She wouldn’t want to stop at having sex—even great sex. She’d want to bury herself in him and forget everything in her life that was worrying her, everything that was weighing on her.
And she simply couldn’t afford to do that.
The adult thing would be to tell him so, in clear, unambiguous terms. But he was so persuasive, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to resist him.
Instead, she didn’t respond, and she didn’t respond later, at Otter Bluff, when he called and left a voice mail.
I’m being smart, she told herself. I’m doing what’s necessary.
What was necessary really sucked sometimes.
Chapter 14
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, Delilah’s family was still nagging her to come home for the holiday, and the boys were still nagging her to see Quinn again.
She’d have been hard-pressed to say who was more persistent—her mother and her sister, or Jesse and Gavin.
When she started preparing for the Thanksgiving meal, it turned out that the persistence award went to her sons.
“We should invite Quinn for Thanksgiving,” Jesse suggested as Delilah made her shopping list for the holiday meal.
“No, Jesse. We’re not going to do that.”
“Why not?” Gavin asked.
“Because he’s probably got his own family and his own plans.”
“You said probably!” Jesse pointed out in triumph. “That means you don’t know. And that means he might not have any plans. So you should invite him.”
It was early morning on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and Jesse’s tawny hair was still mussed from sleep. He was wearing a pair of pajama pants and a Star Wars T-shirt, his feet bare and his eyes alight.
Next to him, Gavin was like a smaller version of his brother, his personality so different but his physical appearance—his hair, his eyes, and the shape of his nose—all nearly identical to his brother.
“Thanksgiving is for family,” Delilah said. “Our family.”
“That’s not what you said before,” Gavin put in. “You said it’s for friends, too.”
Had she said that? She probably had. Damn it.
“Quinn’s our friend,” Jesse insisted.
“I know he is, but we’re not inviting him for Thanksgiving,” Delilah said. “And the discussion is over.”
Jesse’s eyes narrowed. “No it’s not, because I’m still talking about it. So that means the discussion is still happening.”
“Well, I’m not still talking about it, so I guess you’ll just have to talk to yourself.”
Delilah picked up her note pad and pen and went into her bedroom, because she’d learned that walking away was sometimes the only way to end an argument with Jesse.
He pressed the issue a few more times later that day, but when Delilah threatened to take away his screen time if he didn’t stop, he finally let it go.
In the relative peace that ensued, she was able to shop for ingredients for the meal, bake a pie, and enjoy the feel of the fall weather. She even bought a pumpkin spice coffee drink from Cambria Coffee Roasting Company on Main Street and sipped it as she sat at the beach while Jesse and Gavin romped on the sand.
Things were going to turn out okay.
And then the oven at Otter Bluff broke.
On the morning of Thanksgiving Day, Delilah set the oven to preheat, got the turkey out of the refrigerator, stuffed it, then opened the oven door to slide the pan onto the rack.
The only problem was, the oven wasn’t hot.
She checked the digital readout and confirmed that she’d set it to 375 degrees. Maybe it actually was hot—maybe she just didn’t feel it from where she was standing.
Carefully, she stuck a hand into the air inside the oven.
Nothing.
Tentatively, she touched a rack. Then, feeling no warmth whatsoever, she pressed her hand to the side wall of the interior.
Damn it.
She wrapped up the turkey, put it back in the refrigerator, then called Central Coast Escapes, the rental company that managed Otter Bluff. She got a recording that said the office was closed for the holiday. Just when she was about to lose hope, the recording offered a number to call in case of a house-related emergency.
Delilah called the number.
“Yes?” The voice on the other end was brusque.
“Is this the emergency number for Central Coast Escapes?”
“It is, yes. This is Elliot, the owner.”
“Oh! Great. That’s great. This is Delilah Ballard at Otter Bluff. My oven is broken.”
“Oh, my,” he said. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m afraid it doesn’t constitute an emergency.”
“What? How can it not be an emergency? It’s Thanksgiving, and I’ve got a stuffed, raw turkey in my kitchen.” Delilah’s voice rose with indignation.
“Well, I’ll admit that’s unfortunate. Be that as it may, when we say ‘emergency,’ we mean something dire. A gas leak, that sort of thing.”
“A raw turkey on Thanksgiving isn’t dire?”
“I’m afraid not, no. I can send someone out there to look at it on Monday, but with the holiday, I’m afraid I can’t get it seen to before then.”
Delilah forced herself to sound calm, even if what she really wanted was to yell at th
is asshole until he cried. “When I signed the contract to rent Otter Bluff, I was promised a working oven.”
“Yes, I realize that. But if you check the contract, you were also promised that broken appliances would be attended to in a reasonable time frame. Immediate service on a national holiday isn’t reasonable.”
She hung up feeling defeated.
All she’d wanted was a nice, simple holiday meal with her sons. They didn’t have their father, but at least she’d wanted to give them the things they were used to on Thanksgiving—and that included a damned turkey.
She put the phone on the counter and tried not to cry.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Gavin wrapped one arm around her leg. The other one was occupied with thumb-sucking.
“Oh … nothing, sweetie. I’m fine.” But then a fat tear slid down her cheek, and she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone. “It’s just … the oven broke, so I can’t make the turkey.”
Jesse had been listening in from where he’d just emerged from his room. “Remember that sign we saw yesterday that said Free Turkey Dinner? We could go there. It’s free.”
Delilah ruffled Gavin’s hair. “Oh, sweetie, that’s probably for people who can’t afford to eat.”
“No, it’s not. It said everybody. That’s what the sign said.”
Delilah hadn’t noticed the sign, and she figured Jesse had to be mistaken. But when she looked it up online, she saw that he was right. There was going to be a free community Thanksgiving dinner at the veterans’ hall—apparently, it was an annual tradition. The needy were welcome, but so was everyone else.
It seemed wrong to show up for something like that, given the fact that the Ballards were just visitors. She didn’t want to impose. So she started calling restaurants to find somewhere that was offering a traditional Thanksgiving meal.
It turned out that several restaurants were offering such a thing, but all of them were booked up.
Of course they were.
Desperate, she called the local supermarkets—not just the one in Cambria, but those in Morro Bay as well—to see if it was too late to get a cooked turkey.
It was.
“Why can’t we go to the free one?” Jesse asked after Delilah had experienced one failure after another. She was sitting at the dining room table with her cell phone and her laptop, having failed to find any reasonable avenue for her family to eat a turkey.
“Well … I guess that’s what we’re going to do,” she said.
Delilah had imagined a soup-kitchen type of situation, with dry turkey, gummy gravy, and mashed potatoes out of a box with a slice of white bread on the side.
But when she and the boys arrived at the veterans’ hall, she was impressed with the operation they had going. The food smelled wonderful, and the greeters at the door were warm and friendly. An older woman offered them name tags shaped like fall leaves and chatted with Jesse and Gavin about where they were from and how they were enjoying Cambria.
They proceeded into a buffet line that took them past hot trays of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, salad, and cranberry sauce that looked as good as anything Delilah could have made herself. Smiling volunteers filled their plates. Against one wall was a table groaning with the weight of dozens of pies.
“This looks really good,” Delilah said, looking down at her plate.
“See? I told you,” Jesse said.
“You did,” she agreed. “Gavin, did you get a roll? Come on, let’s find a seat.”
They got settled in at a long table—one of dozens—in the big hall. Across from them was a local family with two teenagers, and next to Delilah on her left was an older man who struck up a conversation about how he’d come to live in Cambria more than thirty years before.
To her right, the boys were already wolfing down their food in the hopes of getting to their pie that much sooner.
The hall was decorated in turkeys, gourds, and fall leaves made of colorful paper, and the place was abuzz with the sounds of clinking silverware and conversation.
Delilah was starting to feel better about things when she saw Quinn Monroe come into the hall holding a plate of turkey and stuffing.
Her heart sped up and her palms started to sweat. She put down her fork and wiped her hands on her napkin.
Maybe he won’t see me. There are a lot of people here. I can just get lost in the crowd.
It would be so much easier if they didn’t talk, if she didn’t feel that soft, gooey feeling she got when she was with him. If they didn’t decide to go out again, and, please God, if they didn’t kiss.
He sat down a couple of tables away with his back to her and started chatting with the gray-haired woman sitting beside him.
Okay. He wasn’t facing her, so that was good. Maybe he would just eat his turkey, have his pie, and get the hell out of there without ever noticing her.
It might have worked that way if Jesse hadn’t looked up just as Quinn turned his profile toward them.
“That’s Quinn!” he said, loudly enough for half of the room to hear him.
Quinn certainly heard him. He stopped in the middle of whatever he’d been saying and looked back at them.
“Quinn!” Jesse waved excitedly.
Gavin joined in. “Hi! It’s us! We’re here having Thanksgiving dinner!”
A few people within range chuckled, remarking on how cute Gavin was, saying it that way as though all of them weren’t there for the same reason.
Quinn waved at the boys, said something to the woman he’d been talking to, then got up and came toward them.
Oh, God.
“Jesse. Gavin.” He nodded at the boys, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets. Then, almost reluctantly: “Delilah.”
“Hi, Quinn. Happy Thanksgiving.” Delilah tried to put some enthusiasm into it, but it didn’t come out the way she’d intended. It sounded more like she was a checker at Walmart who was repeating the greeting to conform with company policy.
“You too.” He met her eyes in a way she found distinctly uncomfortable—as though those two words, you too, were actually an indictment of how she’d treated him.
She hadn’t done anything wrong though, surely. Sometimes people only had a first date. Sometimes they tried it out and it didn’t work. It happened all the time. She had a right to step away, damn it.
Even if she really, really hadn’t wanted to step away.
Instead of getting into any of that, Quinn turned his attention to the boys. He squatted so he’d be at eye level with them as they sat at the table.
“So, how have you guys been?” he asked.
They told him what seemed like every single thing that had happened to them since he’d last seen them. Jesse told him about their beach outing and how he’d gotten a new video game at Target and how the oven had broken that morning. Gavin told him about his day-to-day activities in Cambria and then branched out into a story about his best friend at home—a friend Gavin was likely to never see again, Delilah thought with despair.
“Well, that’s a lot of stuff going on,” Quinn said, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “Sounds like you’ve been busy.”
Delilah thought maybe that would be it—maybe he’d say goodbye and excuse himself and go back to his seat.
But at that moment, the couple sitting across the table from Delilah gathered their empty plates and their silverware and napkins and got up, vacating the spot.
“Sit here!” Jesse said. “Sit here with us! There’s a space now! You can eat with us!”
“Please?” Gavin said.
Nobody except the most hard-hearted monster could resist Gavin when he said please.
Quinn hesitated, glanced at Delilah, then said, “Sure. Just let me get my plate.”
Delilah had suddenly lost her appetite.
It was hard to think about food when every molecule of your body was occupied with lusting after someone who was sitting less than three feet away from you. Even harder still when part of your conscious mind was busy f
ighting those urges.
Quinn got settled in, chatted a bit more with the boys, ate some turkey and mashed potatoes, then looked at Delilah in a way that, she was sure, was supposed to be casual.
“So. How are you?”
“Good.” She nodded. “I’m good.”
“Except for the oven at your place,” he said.
“Right. Except that. I’ve got a raw, stuffed turkey in the refrigerator at Otter Bluff that’s going to waste. Well, I suppose it won’t go to waste. I can cook it when they fix the oven. Or, if that takes too long, I can probably ask Dolly—that’s our neighbor—if I can borrow her oven. Still, it’ll be too late for Thanksgiving, so.”
She was rambling hopelessly, and she urged herself to shut the hell up.
“You can never have too much turkey,” Quinn put in helpfully.
Privately, Delilah disagreed, but it seemed foolish to dig her feet in on the issue.
They made small talk about what they’d both been doing until Jesse and Gavin showed Delilah their empty plates and asked if they could go to the dessert table to get pie.
“Oh. Sure.” Delilah put her fork aside and started to get up to take them.
Then one of the volunteers, a woman in her sixties who was wearing a fall-themed apron and who had been patrolling the hall, clearing plates, and refilling beverages, offered to do it. “I can take them,” she said. “You enjoy your meal. I’ll have them back in a jiffy.” She took Jesse and Gavin by the hands and walked them across the hall to where an array of pies—pumpkin, pecan, chocolate, apple, and more—awaited.
Quinn hadn’t mentioned anything about their date in front of the boys, and Delilah was thankful for that. But now the boys were out of earshot, and she had no more cover.
He put his elbows on the table, interlaced his fingers beneath his chin, and regarded her.
Here it comes, she thought.
Quinn had gone through an entire turkey dinner without asking Delilah the one question that was on his mind. But now that the boys were occupied, there was nothing to keep him from asking it.