“Wow. That’s kind of incredible,” Carly says.
“What do you mean?”
“Not many men are willing to give up everything for their… well, for anything,” she says as a shadow seems to cross over her face.
“I don’t know about that. Good men are willing to set aside their selfish ambitions if it means their loved ones are happy. At least, that’s how I was raised.”
She narrows her eyes at whatever she’s staring at in the distance and rolls her lips together. “I suppose that’s true,” she replies, her voice soft.
“It is,” Jack says to her. “It’s very true, Mom.”
The look that passes between the two of them tells me that whatever happened in her past had everything to do with her ex-husband. I just hope it isn’t something that is so damaging that she can never recover from it.
Our waiter appears to take our order, but we’ve been so busy chatting that we haven’t even discussed what kind of pizza to order. Since I am possibly the least picky eater on the planet, I ask Jack to do it for us, reassured that he will know what his mom likes. Plus, I really want to see what his tastes lean to. Was he a typical sixteen-year-old boy who would order something simple like pepperoni? Or did he have more unique tastes?
When he adds roasted red peppers to the toppings, I know that he has a more distinctive sense of taste than a typical sixteen-year-old, but still isn’t too adventurous. Yet. I have a feeling he’s willing to explore, and I hope that I can be the one to teach him. It isn’t every day that I come across a kid his age who is interested in culinary arts.
After placing our order, we settle in to easy conversation.
I learn that Carly is an only child, and that her father died before she was born; she doesn’t have much of a relationship with her mother. I steer clear of asking any questions about Jack’s dad, sensing that it was a topic neither of them want to wander into. Jack reveals it was his request that Carly start boxing, so that she knows self-defense. That way, when he is gone at college, and he isn’t here to protect her, she will feel safe. Hearing this tells me more than I think either of them realize, but, again, it was clear neither of them want to delve more deeply into the real reasons why.
“So, Jack, what made you decide you wanted to become a chef?”
He looks at his mom briefly. “I’m not really sure, I guess. After Mom and I moved to Liberty, we started cooking a lot of meals together. Before, I wasn’t allowed…” he shifts in his seat and clears his throat when he notices Carly stiffen, “I mean, I didn’t cook very much where we used to live. It just didn’t work out. But here? I don’t know how to explain it. I love coming up with recipes and using ingredients that are new to me. It just… when I’m cooking I feel free and it’s the only place where I don’t have to think.”
“Then I’m glad you discovered it. Never let go of it. Even if you don’t run a restaurant or become a chef one day, you’ll always need that skill. It sounds like your mom was smart by encouraging you to learn.”
“She’s pretty great.” He smiles at her and I look over just in time to see her blush before tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.
“What are you planning to rename Tony’s?” Carly asks and knowing that she’s invested enough in the conversation to ask questions of her own makes my heart speed up a little.
“Balance. I’m mixing in the recipes I grew up with and the foods I’ve come to love as I have gotten older.”
“I love it!” they both exclaim together. It’s weird but knowing they approve, and that they’re both curious about this part of my life – creates a sense of pride inside of me I didn’t know was there.
Once the food comes, conversation slows down, allowing us to enjoy the meal Jack ordered for us, and when we’re finished, Stephan himself delivers a trio of desserts to our table. There’s a sense of intimacy in the three of us sharing a meal. The entire evening has been so much more than I expected when I walked into Tate’s gym a few hours ago, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Our waitress lays our bill on the table and I snatch it up quickly.
“James, you don’t have to do that,” Carly objects.
“Sure I do. Friends pay for each other’s meals sometimes, right?”
“I’m getting it next time.” At her words her eyes widen and cheeks flush. I wink but don’t respond with words.
We walk outside to the darkening sky, and even though I don’t want the night to end, I know I had pushed it enough for one day.
“Thank you for letting me tag along with y’all today,” I tell them.
“Y’all, huh? You suddenly from the south?”
I smile, feeling happy that Carly is able to make a light-hearted comment. Over the course of the night she’s relaxed exponentially.
“Nah, but my father is. He’s a Southern transplant living with the Yankees.”
“Ah, so you’ve picked up a little of the lingo along the way, huh?”
“That’s right. And sometimes, when I’ve been around him for a while, I even take on the accent.”
“Gotta love a guy with an accent.” As soon as the words escape her lips, she covers her mouth in embarrassment.
I could have let it go, but it was the first time she said something even remotely flirty in front of me.
“You dig the Southern accent, huh?” I say in my best twang I’ve got in my arsenal.
She looks away and bites the corner of her mouth. I want to reach up with my thumb and pull it away but yeah, boundaries, friend-zone, and all that.
“Yeah, I’m gonna go wait in the truck,” Jack says looking between us.
“Alright, kiddo. Right behind you.”
“Take your time, Mom. See ya later, James. Thanks for supper and stuff.”
I don’t know what and stuff is, but I tell him he’s welcome anyway.
“Hey, Jack!” I call out before he can walk away. “Barrett, you know, Maggie’s dad?” I ask, teasing him a little.
He chortles, “Yeah, I know the guy.”
“He and I will start working on the old diner this week. You should stop by.”
His eyes light up and he grins. “Really?”
“Sure, why not? Maybe you can even have a turn with the sledge hammer.”
“Cool,” he says with an awkward thumbs up. “Thanks, man. Have a good one.” He gives me a low wave as he walks back toward his pickup and climbs into the driver’s seat.
“So.” I turn fully to Carly, hoping to catch her eyes.
“So?”
“At the football game, I was actually going to ask you two questions, but I punked out on both accounts.”
“Oh yeah?” She looks up at me from under her lashes, those giant chocolate brown eyes sucking me in.
“Yup. I was going to ask for your number,” I put my hand up to stop her when it looks like she’s going to interrupt me. “Friends, right?”
“Just friends?” Her voice is full of trepidation.
“I promise. I won’t push. I won’t pressure. But, Carly, I had a lot of fun this afternoon.”
“Me too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says, her eyes going soft. She looks at me, really looks at me, and it feels like she is trying to see what is hidden below. If I am pretending to be someone I’m not. Whatever she sees must make her realize I’m being real because she reaches out a hand, palm up, asking for my phone. I place it in her hand, my fingertips grazing hers very purposefully. Her eyes that were focused on our hands shoot up to my eyes. I may have promised just friends, but that doesn’t turn off my attraction to her.
Nor does it change the fact that my end goal is becoming more than friends, no matter how long it takes.
She quickly pulls the phone close and programs her number into it. As soon as she hands it back to me, I open the camera app and snap a picture of her before she can protest.
“Hey! I look like crap!” I notice she isn’t fighting me taking the picture, just that she’s afra
id she looks bad.
One side of my mouth turns up. “Beautiful, remember?”
She bites that lip again and murmurs a thank you. She looks over at Jack waiting in the pickup and throws an arm in his direction.
“I’d better go.”
“Okay.” I nod
She hesitates, not moving a single inch from her spot, which only makes my heart soar, knowing that she doesn’t want to leave either.
“Jack’s waiting.”
“He is,” I agree, not hiding the now enormous grin on my face.
“Yeah.” She’s staring at me, and her voice is light and airy.
“Want me to walk you over there?” I ask.
She shakes her head fast and jerks back in response. “What? No! I mean. Ugh. I’m sorry.” And even though I can tell it bothers her, I love that I can make her fumble with her words.
Her entire body deflates as if she’s embarrassed, her head dropping down.
“Carly. Don’t be sorry. I get it, okay?”
“I’m going now, before I can act like even more of a doofus.”
I bark out a laugh. “Doofus, huh? I haven’t heard that one in a while.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t think of a better word to describe myself at this moment.”
“Oh, I can think of a few.” I wink at her.
She smiles at me. “Bye, James.”
“Not goodbye.”
“See you later?”
“Better. I’ll see you soon, Carly.”
“Did you find a gym?”
“Oh yeah,” I reply with a note in my voice that hopefully lets Barrett know there’s more to the story. We’re chopping wood in his back yard for his fireplace, and he places a newly cut log on the pile behind the house.
“That sounds interesting.”
“Carly was there.”
He pauses in lifting a large log and looks at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Carly, as in Harper’s teacher Carly?”
I nod my head and reach for the log to place on the wood splitter that he apparently has already forgotten. “The one and only.”
“Oh boy.”
“Oh boy what?”
“Tess is gonna have a field day with this one.” He snickers and shakes his head.
“Tess doesn’t need to know,” I tell him with my eyebrows raised.
“Ha! Right.” He laughs again. When I don’t respond, he does a double-take and looks at me. “Shit. You’re serious? No. Nuh-uh. No way. I don’t keep things from Tess. Besides. I’m a terrible, terrible secret keeper. Everyone knows this. I’m the guy people tell a secret to hoping that I’ll spread the word.”
I bust out laughing because it’s so true. I can’t believe he was able to keep the whole re-proposing thing from Tess until he actually did it. “Alright, well, I’ll amend that. Let’s just not make a big deal of it. I don’t really think Carly is interested in dating, anyway.”
“Captain James Cole? Surely not!” He gasps. “She was what Tess and Lauren say, swooning all over you before the football game. Hotty McHotPants, remember?” He waggles his eyebrows.
I bite back a laugh. Tess and Lauren have been friends since they were kids but even more, she’s married to Barrett’s business partner, Josh. They’re rarely apart.
“You’re such a jerk.” I roll my eyes. “And, be that as it may, she definitely isn’t interested.”
“She’s interested. I saw the way you two looked at each other at the game. The entire game.”
“Did you also happen to see her bolt from me when I was walking her to her car?”
“Oh, that was classic. Maverick crashed and burned,” Barrett says using his hand to simulate as he picks up another piece of wood.
“I thought I was Captain?” I brush some sawdust off my flannel shirt and move the newly split piece to the neatly stacked pile of wood.
“Ah, potato po-tah-to,” he says turning his head side to side.
“You are so weird. Besides, when I saw her at the gym, she basically told me I was in the friend-zone,” I argue.
Barrett winces like he actually has a clue how that feels. He fell in love with his high school sweetheart. He never really experienced being friend-zoned or major heartbreak, for that matter. “Ouch.”
“Word.” I nod my head a few times seriously.
“What are you, living in the nineties?” he asks, laughing.
“Well, I didn’t say word to your mutha.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “May as well have.”
“Whatever. What were even talking about?”
“Carly. Gym. Are you seriously getting so old that you can’t remember back five minutes?”
“This is what talking to you does to a person! I don’t even remember what day it is!”
“It’s Saturday,” Barrett adds helpfully, picking up another log and placing it on the wood splitter. The wood splinters in two pieces, and sawdust flutters to the ground, lightly covering our dark brown work boots.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. So… the gym? You sure you don’t want to just workout here? With Grady?” Barrett motions toward the outdoor arena Grady and he built together.
“No thanks.”
“What’s the matter? Think he’ll kick your ass?” He runs the thick log through the splitter.
“I don’t think so. I know so. That thing is a torture chamber.” I pick up the two split pieces and reposition one to run through the knife.
“Right?” He grins. “I don’t see how he does it every day.” He tosses the split pieces aside while I put the other half back on the tray.
“He’s eighteen.” I give him a perfectly logical answer.
“Word.”
I bust out laughing. Barrett is such a dork.
We keep working on the pile of wood in relative silence, stacking up the wood as we go.
“Anyway, yeah, I found a gym. Tate’s? It has a boxing ring, does some MMA-type stuff, too.”
He nods his head. “Yeah, I know the place. Tate’s a good guy. We actually did some work for him when he remodeled his house.”
“Yeah? He a good guy?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Seems like it. I don’t know. Didn’t really have many in-depth conversations with him. He did come over one day to check out what Grady designed and built, to make sure it was safe and all that.”
“That’s cool,” I say distractedly. I look away from his questioning eyes. “He’s married, right? Has a couple kids?” I briefly look back toward him but regret it immediately.
Barrett gives me a funny look as he finishes the last of the wood. He shuts down the wood splitter then leans against it, folding his arms across his chest and crossing his ankles.
“Why do you wanna know?” He smirks.
I look away from his all-knowing eyes and shrug my shoulders. “No reason. Just didn’t want to be giving my money to some roided-up asshole who’s on a testosterone power trip.”
“Uh, yeah. Not really sure what that means.”
“Is he a gym-rat asshole, or is he a good guy?”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that maybe Tate is working with Carly?”
“Who? Huh? Not sure.” I keep my eyes focused on the woodpile. What is it about talking and thinking about Carly that makes me feel like a sixteen-year-old? Hell, not even a sixteen-year-old because Jack is more mature about all of this than I am!
“Dude.”
I hang my head with my hands on my hips. “I know.”
“Du-u-ude.”
“I said I know! I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me!” I yank the cap off the top of my head and hit my leg with it before placing it back on.
“You got it bad, huh?”
I nod my head. “I think I do. Which is frickin’ dumb. I’ve known her like… what… a day? But there’s just something about her. It’s more than her looks. I mean, don’t get me wrong. She’s beautiful. Beyond beautiful if I’m being honest, but it’s so much more than that with her
.”
My mind drifts back to last night when I went for pizza with Carly and Jack. We spent three hours in that tiny Italian restaurant.
Now the place looks like it walked off a movie set, but when I found it almost two years ago, it was a disaster. The menu was decent enough but, much like Tony’s, the ambiance left a lot to be desired. He wanted something that screamed “my mob family owns this joint” and what it said back then was “the gang busted all up in here.” He wanted authentic, or at least what Americans view as authentic. So, he put a lot of thought and work into making it a cozy place.
And cozy it was. Last night, the red-and-white-checkered tablecloths covered all the tables, with single white votive candles in a glass jar flickering in the center. Italian instrumental music softly piped through the speakers while the waiters and waitresses bustled around the small establishment.
When we sat down, Carly seemed nervous, fidgety. She kept looking around the restaurant and pulling the sleeves down on her bright green top, even though it was long enough that her thumbs could fit through the little thumb holes. She thought she looked gross and sweaty, and said so a couple times, but I thought she looked beautiful, even though she was clearly uneasy.
When I lay in bed that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about our evening together. I could tell something major had happened in her life, something that changed her. Something that changed Jack, too. Boys are protective of their mothers, but Jack? It is more than that for him. He looks at her like he would do anything to shield her from hurt.
“Did you hear me?” The sound of Barrett’s voice jolts me out of my thoughts and into the present.
“What?”
“Man, you really do have it bad already. You totally zoned out just now.”
“Sorry.” I shake my head, though I’m not sorry at all. “What was it you were saying?”
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