Norah giggled. There was a time when no one else in her life would have understood the perverse pleasure in trashing horrible book adaptation movies. It was so nice to know someone else who truly got it. “That actually sounds like fun.”
“Let’s do it then,” Dina replied. “I’ll call Brandon and let him know what we’re doing.” She glanced around then dug her hands in her pockets, coming up empty. “Shoot. I must have left my phone in my car. Let me go get it.”
“Sure,” Norah said easily. When Dina disappeared out the door, She forced herself to concentrate on her inventory and not on the stubborn twinge of jealousy trying to bloom in her chest. She and Dina, like every TIH in Corbin’s Bend knew perfectly well that ‘letting them know’ was code for asking permission. It wasn’t fair for Norah to be jealous that her friend had someone to answer to while she did not.
Except that she wasn’t jealous, not really. She just missed that connection with another person, the safety in the knowledge that he would give her boundaries and keep her safe. Logically, that was absurd. She was a strong, professional woman, reasonably intelligent, and fully competent to take care of herself, not some silly little ditz with a head full of nothing but air. She didn’t need a man to take care of her. But she wanted it.
“We’re good,” Dina’s voice broke into her thoughts. “I had to promise him we would get real food in addition to the ice cream, and that I wouldn’t stay out too late. So, what say we do dinner first?”
That was how Norah found herself ensconced in a booth at Endelé sipping gingerly on a margarita while they waited for their orders to be delivered. Dina was excitedly telling her about the plans she and her supervisor, Jeff, had for helping with the local science fair. Since their first experience volunteering a couple years ago, it had become something they participated in every year. Dina was enthusiastically describing the experiments they planned to try. Norah made a mental note to be sure to include informational books about science fair projects in her upcoming inventory order. There were quite a number of books that featured experiments for children, and from what Dina was saying, they would be in high demand in the spring when science fair time came around again.
Norah laughed at Dina’s hilarious description of a variation on the classic exploding volcano experiment that they had tried in the lab, which had unfortunately worked a little too well and ended up with garish purple grape soda splattered all over everyone and everything. As she paused to catch her breath and tried to regain her composure, she realized quite suddenly that she was having fun. It was as if a tension had suddenly lifted off of her shoulders and the boulders she had been carrying around for weeks without realizing had disappeared. Dina was right. It was good to get out of the house. She needed to get back into things and stop hiding out in the store waiting for Caine to come back.
That thought bought her up short. Was that what she was doing? Surely not, that was just crazy. Why would she be waiting for him to come back? He wasn’t coming back. What would be the point? It was obvious that their relationship was a lost cause. She shouldn’t have ever let herself get involved with it to begin with. It had been doomed from the start. She was a spanko, and he was vanilla. No matter what people said, that just didn’t work. She had the scars to prove it. There was no sense in pining over it. It was time to move on.
“So,” she asked Dina, “who are the single HOHs around here? I’m sure there are at least a few eligible bachelors.”
Dina thought for a moment. “I’m pretty sure Jon, who runs the movie theater, is single, but I’m not sure if he’s an HOH. There’s Jacob Mence, but he’s not your type.”
Norah raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“He’s not that big on commitment from what I can tell,” Dinah explained. “He goes through women quickly, and you’re not the love them and leave them type.”
Norah wrinkled her nose. “No, I’m not,” she agreed.
“There’s Gabriel Tompkins. He’s a sweet guy. No wait, he’s gay.”
Norah rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think I had to specify a single straight man. Geez, Dina.”
Dina threw a broken fragment of a tortilla chip at her. “Shut up. I was just thinking out loud. Wait, I’ve got it. Carlos Esperanza. He’s single. He’s the assistant principal at the high school. I’ve worked with him a little bit on some of the science fair stuff. He’s very cute, and the kids love him. If I wasn’t taken, I might have taken a shot at him. I can put some feelers out if you want, see if he’s currently looking and would be interested.”
Norah took a deep breath, considering. Did she really want to do this? It felt a bit like stepping off a cliff. At the same time, she knew moving on was the only answer. She couldn’t keep hiding out in her house and moping over Caine, even if the idea of going out with anyone but him made her heart contract painfully. Still, sometimes you had to take a chance to get what you wanted. That was what had brought her to Colorado in the first place. Maybe it was time to do that again.
“Sure,” she told Dina. “There’s no harm in asking. As my father is fond of saying, you won’t ever know if you don’t ask.”
“Great,” Dina replied, bouncing a little in her seat. “I’m so excited for you. It’s going to work out great, you’ll see.”
Norah was hanging onto that hope like a lifeline as she waited in the bar at Amore the following week, nursing a soft drink, fiddling idly with the stirrer Marie, the bartender, had stuck in it, and trying desperately not to throw up. She would have dearly loved to have something stronger than soda but didn’t dare. After that humiliating incident with Caine the night they painted her apartment, she wasn’t about to chance a repeat with Carlos tonight.
What was she doing? She was waiting to meet another man for a date and still thinking about Caine. She pushed the memories irritably down into their appropriate box. Their relationship was over. There was no point in letting the ghost of it ruin her new relationship before it even had a chance to start. That was the whole point of coming out tonight—to get Caine firmly out of her head.
Thankfully, Carlos chose that moment to appear, stepping out of the crowd and sliding onto a bar stool beside her.
“Norah?” he asked hesitantly.
She nodded. “Yes, I’m Norah. You’re Carlos, I presume.”
He smiled, offering his hand. “Carlos Esperanza. I’m very glad to meet you. Sorry I’m late. This afternoon’s faculty meeting went on a bit longer than I expected.”
“It’s fine,” Norah said easily. “Life happens.”
Carlos nodded in the direction of her drink. “What are you having?”
“Just soda,” Norah told him. “I’m not much of a drinker.” That wasn’t entirely true, but she preferred to drink at home or among friends. It wasn’t something she would do in public with someone she didn’t know well.
“Mind if I grab a beer?” he asked.
“Of course not, go ahead.” Norah was surprised that he would ask but pleasantly so. He seemed to be a gentleman. That was definitely a plus in his favor.
“Can I get you a refill?”
Norah shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Thank you though.” While he set out to track down Marie and place his order, Norah took advantage of the opportunity to get a good look at him. Dina was right about one thing. He was very good-looking. He had ink black hair that hung just a little long over his collar and skin the color of caramel. He wasn’t a big man, but he filled out his polo and khakis well. He wasn’t overly tall. If she had to guess, she’d say he didn’t quite reach six feet. He still towered over her by a good six inches or so, but a tiny part of her mind, one she was working very hard to keep quiet, couldn’t help but notice that he was neither as tall nor as broad as Caine.
Not that it mattered. Carlos had one important trait that Caine lacked. He was an HOH. She would never have to try to explain how DD worked to him, much less beg him to spank her. He needed this type of relationship the same way she did. That mattered far more th
an a couple inches of height.
He came back a moment later carrying an open beer bottle. It wasn’t a brand she recognized, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. It wasn’t as if she was any sort of beer aficionado.
“Let’s see if we can get a table,” Carlos said. “I think it will be easier to talk, and we can get food. I don’t know about you, but it’s been a long time since lunch.”
“It has,” Norah agreed. In fact, she realized uncomfortably, she couldn’t remember whether she had actually eaten lunch at all, which probably meant she hadn’t. She was falling back into her old bad habits now that Caine wasn’t around. She wondered how Carlos would feel about that. If they were in a relationship, would he discipline her for skipping meals?
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t get much of a lunch at all,” Carlos went on. “Two senior boys got into an altercation, and I spent most of my lunch time sorting that out.” As he spoke, he took Norah’s hand and helped her down from the barstool, guiding her through the crowd toward the hostess stand with a hand at the small of her back.
His hand was a warm weight, a bit surprising, but not unwelcome. It was also almost completely neutral. Caine had, on occasion, guided her through crowds in this same manner. The day at the flea market came to mind. Only when he did it, even before they were dating, it had never been neutral. His touch had been a live and flickering spark, electric even from the start. The realization that Carlos’s touch came nowhere close to inciting that kind of feeling flooded her with disappointment.
Still, not every relationship began with instant attraction. In fact, she had known of a few couples who hadn’t even liked each other when they first met. She owed it to both herself and Carlos to give this date an honest try. “Does that happen often?” she asked.
“Missing lunch or the fight?” Carlos questioned.
“Either,” Norah said.
Carlos broke off briefly to speak to the hostess before replying. “Every once in a while, on both counts. In general, there are far fewer problems here than any place else I have worked, but with a building full of teenagers, a certain amount of chaos and conflict is inevitable. Sometimes that happens at inconvenient times, like lunch. In fact, it most often happens at the most inconvenient time. There’s about a ten minute wait for a table right now. Do you mind waiting? We can go back to the bar if you’d rather.”
“I’m fine here,” Norah said. Carlos moved them over out of the flow of traffic, leaning against the wall and finishing his beer. They tried to chat, but that was virtually impossible since nearly everyone coming in the door knew either him or her. Finally, their table opened up, and they were able to go sit down.
“So,” Carlos said as they looked over the menu. “Dina says you’re opening a bookstore. I’ve heard it was coming, but I didn’t know who was doing it.”
“That would be me,” Norah said absently. She was trying to decide what she wanted to eat. She was starving, but sometimes having so many choices at restaurants could be overwhelming. “Do you come here often?”
“Not too often,” Carlos replied. “Work keeps me busy most of the time, but every once in a while. I come in when I get tired of my own cooking.”
“What would you recommend?” Norah asked.
“Everything is good,” Carlos told her. “I haven’t ever had a dish that wasn’t excellent.”
“It all looks delicious,” Norah agreed. “I can’t decide what I want.”
“If you want to go for the classics, you can’t beat the lasagna,” Carlos replied. “If you want something a little lighter, the salmon is amazing. Like I said, you really can’t go wrong with anything.”
When the waitress arrived to take their orders, Norah decided on the seafood tortellini while Carlos went with the lasagna. While they waited for their food, Carlos told her about his childhood, growing up in Arizona. His father was Hispanic and his mother was Native American, of the Yavapai Nation. Though Carlos himself had grown up in Phoenix, he had vivid memories of going to visit his grandmother on the Yavapai reservation at Fort McDowell. It was a world away from Norah’s own somewhat formal New England childhood. It seemed very vivid and colorful in comparison.
When she told him so, he grinned. “I did have a lot of fun.” After the food arrived, conversation halted as they settled down to eat. After a while, Carlos broke the silence. “What are your plans for the bookstore?”
Since that was a subject Norah could talk about all day, she had no problem jumping in and telling him all about it. When she told him she wanted to be able to work with the schools to provide reading materials to encourage students to read, he grabbed onto the idea with enthusiasm, telling her about the high school’s summer reading program and the school-wide literacy program he hoped to develop. For the first time that night, conversation really took off, and Norah began to relax and enjoy herself. Even so, it felt more like a business meeting than a date. There was none of the easy comfort and familiarity she was used to with Caine. Instead, it felt more like two colleagues discussing an idea that they were both passionate about. That was good, but it wasn’t what she wanted. No, what she needed. She relished the opportunity to grow her business and build community partnerships, but that wasn’t what she was looking for in her personal life.
When the meal was over, Carlos suggested dessert, but Norah declined. “I’m stuffed,” she told him. “I don’t think I could eat another bite.”
“Coffee?” He tried again.
“I don’t think so,” Norah said. “I need to be getting back.”
“Would you like to do this again sometime?” Carlos asked.
Norah hesitated. On the one hand, he was a nice guy. There was part of her that wondered if maybe they could build something over time. On the other, she had absolutely no feelings for him whatsoever. She could enjoy doing business with him on behalf of the high school. She could even see herself one day coming to consider him a casual friend, but deep down, she couldn’t see it going further than that. It just wasn’t there. Would it even be fair continue anything with him, knowing that?
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said after a moment. Immediately, disappointment and possibly even a little hurt flared in Carlos’s eyes. Norah bit her lip against the momentary pain in her own chest. It was the right thing to do, but she hated hurting him. “I am sorry,” she told him softly. “You’re a very nice man. I’m sure you will find the right person for you someday. I just don’t think that’s me.”
“I understand,” he told her, though it was obvious from his tone that he didn’t. “For what it’s worth, I’ve enjoyed our evening, and I would still like you to be involved in creating the literacy plan for the high school at very least, though I really think we should talk to all the schools about creating a coherent plan among us all. I think you should be part of that.”
“I’d love to be part of that,” Norah said. “You’re welcome to get in touch with me if that gets off the ground, but I think we should leave it at that. For now, I think it’s best that I go. Thank you for tonight. This was nice.”
She quickly gathered her things and left before he could give voice to any of the questions she could see in his eyes. They were questions she knew she couldn’t answer, and frankly she didn’t even try. The truth of the matter was he was a great guy, and several months ago, he might’ve even been the sort of guy she was looking for. He was sweet, and settled, and safe. At one point in her life, that would’ve been enough. Now it wasn’t because for everything that he was, there was one thing he wasn’t. He wasn’t Caine, and damn her traitorous heart, it was Caine she wanted.
Chapter 13
You can go harder than that. I’m not going to break.”
Caine huffed out a frustrated breath, looking down at the back of Jonathon’s head. “I know that, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
Jonathon was lying face down across his lap so he couldn’t see his face, but he could practically hear his friend roll his eyes. “You’re n
owhere close to hurting me. Trust me, Benjamin swats a lot harder than that.”
“He’s right,” Benjamin agreed from where he sat on an adjacent chair watching them. “Remember, that’s what the safeword is for. If it really gets to be too much, he can tell you, but otherwise you need to make it count.”
Caine nodded. He knew this. Benjamin had told him over and over during these lessons. When they had first started practicing with Brent’s practice dummy, it had been easier. He didn’t need to worry about hurting the dummy so he could focus on things like learning where to safely spank so he could be sure not to do damage and the other technicalities of how to do this. Benjamin said he was getting pretty good with the dummy, and Caine had to agree that he had gotten comfortable with it.
Then, Benjamin had said they needed to kick it up a notch and asked Jonathon to volunteer so that Caine could practice with a real person, and now Caine felt like he was starting all over again. He was just as nervous and uncertain as he had been when they had initially begun these lessons, as if the previous month and all his work in the counseling Benjamin had insisted he enroll in to work through his childhood so that it didn’t continue to affect his relationships didn’t exist.
Jonathon scrambled off of his lap and moved to sit beside him. “Hey,” he said, rubbing Caine’s shoulder carefully, “you’re not hurting me remember. You’re helping. For me, and for Norah, it’s stress relief. No matter what it looks or sounds like, this helps, but in order for it to help, it’s got to be hard enough to feel it. You trust me, right?”
Caine nodded again, feeling suddenly impossibly tired.
“Then trust me to let you know if it’s too much. Ben’s right here watching too. Do you really think either of us would let you hurt me?”
Of course they wouldn’t. There was no way in Hell Benjamin would let anybody hurt Jonathon, ever. What was he so worried about? They had safety nets in place. Even though both Benjamin and Jonathon had explained that most domestic discipline relationships didn’t use safewords for discipline like BDSM relationships typically did, they thought that Caine should for his own security. That way, Caine didn’t have to worry about going too far. His partner had a way to stop him before he crossed that line, and unless the safeword was invoked, he could be sure that what he was doing was still within agreed-upon boundaries.
Corbin's Bend Homecoming Page 21