The First Time at Firelight Falls

by Julie Anne Long

  “To Bud getting lucky and accidentally getting that home run.”

  “Luck, my ass! I hit that thing on purpose.”

  Eden sat back down across from Jasper. She felt like a cat who’d been vigorously rubbed backward until all of her fur was erect and shooting sparks. She’d once rescued a saucer-eyed, patient yet astounded Peace and Love from the loving ministrations of four-year-old Annelise, who knew she was supposed to only pet him forward.

  “But Mommy, I love him so much I wanted to pet both sides of him.”

  A lesson in compromise for Annelise, that moment, and in love and power dynamics: always default to kindness when something is smaller than you are and dependent upon you. Sometimes what you want means less than what someone you love wants.

  Did she want to pet both sides of Gabe?

  Her heart was slamming so hard, she was a little nauseous and her mouth was arid from nerves.

  His face. Implacable, stunned, and behind that, something much worse: a hard resignation. He’d already indicted her and she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Or had she?

  She sat in reeling silence a moment. The way she felt now told her that it wasn’t about who did or didn’t have rights. She just never wanted to betray Gabe.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she said finally to Jasper, and so suddenly he gave a start.

  He shrugged. “That dude rubbed me the wrong way.”

  “So?”

  “I have a feeling he’s been rubbing you the right way. Am I right? Which is a good thing. I mean, someone should rub you the right way,” he said charitably.

  She stared at him in livid amazement.

  She lunged forward until her face was so close to his she could count his stubble and get a bit of grip on his T-shirt collar.

  “You listen to me, Jasper Townes. I know you think you’re being cute and clever and flippant is your schtick now and you get away with that crap. But we are not a thing, you and I. We happened exactly once. I don’t like the macho posturing, and I don’t like you to joke about anyone rubbing me. And I really, truly don’t care if you don’t like me for being a hard-ass about it. But if you want to think you’re worthy of spending one particle of time in the company of my daughter, if you want me to think you’re a grown-up? Go apologize right now to Mr. Caldera. Tell him you were out of line and give him an appropriate excuse that in no way mentions me. Make it believable. I’ll wait right here.”

  She released him and sat back in her chair hard.

  He stared at her in openmouthed, unadulterated amazement for at least half a verse of John Mayer.

  “You’re fucking with me,” he concluded.

  She rolled her eyes so hard she nearly sprained them. “Believe me, I am in no way . . .” She dropped her voice to a mocking, raspy baritone. “. . . ‘fucking with you.’” She air-quoted that.

  He stared, apparently had no idea what to do with an angry redheaded mom who was clearly immune to his charm.

  “He was a dick to me, too,” he offered finally.

  Those words were just a hairbreadth away from a whine. He smoothed his leather necklace back into place.

  She closed her eyes.

  Why the hell did anyone have anything to do with men? She suddenly yearned for a can of Ego-Off to spray all over the room. Testosterone-B-Gone.

  “Yep. He was. And I bet you get some kind of apology from him, too, because he’s a fucking adult, not a petulant child.”

  Jasper’s eyes flared at once to the size of beer coasters. Then narrowed into little glittery outraged slits. His impressive jaw clenched and jutted stubbornly.

  It was actually a good look for him. He ought to use it in his next publicity photos.

  “Aw, did I piss you off, Jasper?” she crooned. “I don’t care. You need to prove yourself to me. So suck it up. Make it good, make it graceful, make it sound sincere. I’ve seen you in interviews. I know you can do it. And believe me, whatever you say will get back to me, because this is a really small town. I don’t care whether you feel sorry or not. You can either apologize to him now or walk out of here for good. That way I’ll know how serious you are about all of this. About Annelise. About forging some kind of civil, respectful relationship with me. Because Annelise and I are a package, and our life is here in Hellcat Canyon, and Gabe Caldera is the principal of her school. He’s someone she admires and respects, an important part of her life and the community here.”

  And then, perversely, all at once, she was grateful for all of Gabe’s metaphorical chest-thumping. Because if Jasper passed this test, she’d know he was serious about getting to know Annelise. Posturing was one thing.

  Voluntarily groveling to a guy who had two inches on him in height and who had arguably bested him in an ego-off over a woman was another thing altogether, and she was pretty sure it was not something Jasper Townes had ever had to do.

  He held that outraged expression for a few moments longer.

  And then Jasper pushed his chair back so abruptly the legs squealed on the tile.

  He stared down at her, lips pressed hard together.

  She stared right back up at him. And arched an eyebrow.

  He turned his back on her and moved at a leisurely swagger across the checkerboard floor. Which may or may not be how he actually walked and not something cultivated for show; one never knew.

  She watched his progress. What a teeny, tiny butt he had. Annelise didn’t have a prayer of having hips, unless some wayward gene conferred her grandmother’s figure upon her.

  Keep walking, a guilty, dark corner of her heart urged. Walk. Walk past Gabe right on out that door, out of our lives.

  It would be a relief, right?

  And then, some years down the road, she could say to Annelise with a certain conviction: I knew your dad was as stable as a leaf floating on the breeze, and I didn’t want him to break your heart when your heart was still so innocent. I couldn’t have borne that. I was responsible for your happiness and for making you feel safe in the world, for giving you that foundation of courage and faith in life that comes from being loved, so that you feel clear and brave enough to discover whether my truths are also yours. And that’s why he wasn’t in our lives when you were a child.

  And she could tell Gabe about Jasper. And this anger and sense of overwhelm, this chafing sense of injustice—shouldn’t he just trust her?—a niggling fear that they were on the precipice of disaster would fade.

  And years from now she could tell Annelise this very story—of that time her father appeared out of the blue, and then walked out at the slightest whiff of challenge.

  A story Annelise would be able to receive, hopefully, with a certain amount of pragmatism, when she was an adult.

  Four tables remained between Jasper and Gabe’s table.

  Suspense slowed and stretched time as she watched him walk up the aisle.

  Even as her heart sped.

  Because now some deeper truth was asserting itself.

  Something she’d overlooked in all the hazy sex and rushed, intense intimacy was the possibility that Gabe might not know himself as well as he thought he did. That maybe some corners of his heart remained raw and wounded, that maybe he’d only put up hazard tape around his losses and heartbreaks. That the two of them together hadn’t been tested. That his pride might do him in. That his tendency to see things as black and white or right or wrong would tempt him to shut her out forever. What would be would be.

  And yet none of that mattered right now. Because every snarky word out of Jasper’s mouth had scored her own heart with little paper-fine cuts.

  And this was the other reason she’d sent him to apologize. She would be damned if anyone spoke to Gabe Caldera with anything other than utter respect. She couldn’t bear to see him hurt.

  Two tables left . . .

  Eden applied such force to the napkin in her fist that it was nearly spitball size.

  One table . . .

  She curled her nails into her p
alm.

  And then he stopped next to Gabe.

  Eden released a breath that nearly deflated her two sizes.

  And then she breathed in a shuddery draft of pizza-flavored air to compensate for the fact that she’d stopped breathing.

  Because she also knew then, definitively, that she didn’t want Annelise to have a wuss for a biological father. She wanted her to have a father who knew when to make a sacrifice, even if it was only of his own ego. Who maybe wouldn’t even see it as a sacrifice, because it was for Annelise.

  And when she looked at Gabe, she realized it might mean losing everything else she wanted.

  John Mayer crooned for the second time from the jukebox when Jasper Townes arrived at Gabe’s table.

  Gabe had been aware of his approach in his peripheral vision, and he was prepared to handle it in any necessary way.

  He looked up.

  The skin of Jasper’s face looked stretched rather tight. As if he was struggling to hold at bay a thousand emotions eager to reveal themselves via his mouth and eyes and cheeks.

  He looked, in fact, a bit like someone being forced at knifepoint to rob his own ATM.

  Gabe’s own face felt like it had petrified over a series of a thousand years. Stone hard and implacable. As though he couldn’t move it if he tried. Like the hardness was starting at the surface of his skin and working its way down through all the layers, would eventually reach his heart, turn it into a stone, and he’d finally have a little respite from this torment that was, admittedly, only about ten minutes in duration.

  His friends, who by rights ought to be exclaiming over Townes’s appearance, had clammed up tight.

  “Hey, um, Gabe, right?” Townes said.

  “Right. Jasper Townes, right?”

  A muscle in Jasper’s cheek twitched.

  And then Townes drew in a long, long breath. Almost as if he was going to release one of his famous high notes. Maybe he wanted to shatter the glass on the jukebox to shut John Mayer up.

  “I wanted to apologize if I came off a little . . . flippant . . . a minute ago. Sometimes my sense of humor doesn’t translate the way I want it to.”

  Huh.

  Gabe’s friends’ heads whipped toward him with such speed the paper napkins took flight. The sympathetic doe eyes were now blazing headlights of curiosity.

  Gabe studied Townes.

  He thought: Annelise Harwood would sure like the word flippant.

  It was a funny thought to have right in that moment, but it was a reflex. The people he cared about automatically congregated at a sort of hub in his heart, and thoughts fanned out from there.

  As much as he longed to write Townes off as one-dimensional, he knew, of course, he was more than that.

  Which of course made all of this so much worse.

  He also had kind of a hunch Eden had forced the guy to apologize. And if she could make him do that, their relationship was not a casual one.

  All of these thoughts transmuted into feelings that basically turned his stomach into a roiling snake pit while his face showed not a damn thing.

  Gabe was, at his core, a gentleman, caveman instincts notwithstanding. The apology on its surface was gracious. And so he really had no choice.

  “Apology accepted, Townes. And you have my apologies, too.”

  He didn’t specify for what.

  Jasper Townes extended his hand, and Gabe cleaned his own hand thoroughly, a little sardonically, on a napkin before inserting it in the other man’s. They both gripped each other a little too hard, and Gabe indulged in a teensy fantasy about the satisfying crunch those long, nimble beringed fingers would make, fingers that he suspected had touched Eden and maybe heard that little sigh she made when the pleasure became too much to bear.

  And a teeny part of him, a part that he thought couldn’t possibly make itself known, was awed that he was shaking hands with the Jasper Townes, who made the kind of music Gabe sang badly in the shower. If he crunched those fingers, he’d never hear “Lily Anne” live again, and goddamn but he loved that song.

  He wondered if any of his songs were about Eden. Jesus, what if Lily Anne was about Eden?

  A fresh stab of pain greeted that thought.

  He took some minute consolation in the fact that this apology was clearly making Jasper miserable.

  He let go of his hand.

  John Mayer was still singing.

  His friends were still silent.

  But they were looking to him for cues.

  Gabe sighed. “Go ahead.”

  Instantly they all clustered about Jasper, filings to a magnet, cell phones in hand.

  “Mr. Townes . . . would you mind terribly?”

  And the flurry of autographs and photos ensued, all of which Townes was gracious about.

  Jasper finally returned and sat down with Eden in silence.

  He drummed his fingers a little on the table.

  “Sorry,” he said after a moment. “About all of that.” Sounding a little more subdued.

  She just nodded.

  It took all of her pride and willpower not to turn her head. She wanted to be with Gabe, looking at Gabe, touching Gabe, laughing with Gabe, feeling his arms around her.

  A loud laugh rose from their table. Hopefully it wasn’t about her.

  Jasper had plucked up a coaster and was now tossing it from hand to hand like a Vegas dealer with only one card. He stopped at a look from her. He fidgeted the way Annelise did.

  “Boy, you really are a mom. You kinda reminded me of my own for a second there.” The clouds were already lifting from his mood. He quirked the corner of his mouth ruefully.

  It occurred to her then that Annelise’s sunny resilience might not be down to just being lavishly loved by her crazy family. Maybe it was a DNA gift straight from her dad. God knew her mom was hardly laissez-faire.

  In fact, every single one of her mom’s nerves were still buzzing and squealing as if they’d been plugged in to a Marshall Stack and strummed, hard, à la Jasper Townes.

  A whole treasure chest (Pandora’s box?) of discoveries like that awaited if Jasper became a part of their lives. Things that could deepen even her relationship with Annelise, make it even richer. Things she might even look forward to.

  And there was a raw place in the center of her chest, as if someone had taken a peeler to her heart and shaved off a curl.

  She yearned to turn her head to look at Gabe.

  “So what do you think? Shall we tell her I’m her dad?” Jasper asked. Carefully. Reasonably.

  How did anyone make this kind of decision? In a perfect world she’d have weeks to mull. But her life, once again, was condensed into hours and minutes.

  Maybe she’d only been stealing time with Gabe, anyway. Kidding herself all along.

  Why, then, did she feel like she was being robbed of destiny?

  “Yeah. Let’s do it,” she said.

  Jasper’s face lit up charmingly.

  And then she finally got over her pride and fully turned, took one gulping, hungry look at the crowd at that table.

  Gabe was gone.

  Chapter 16

  How innocent her whiteboard had looked Monday morning. The poor thing didn’t know Eden’s life was literally a giant snarl at the moment.

  Eden was tempted to take the marker and scrawl tornadoes, barbed wire, arrowed hearts, exclamation points, and question marks in the next few squares, just to illustrate her internal weather.

  Danny arrived at the shop just in time for Eden to take Annelise to school. She had to get to Gabe first thing.

  So she kissed Leesy goodbye, and with her heart pounding like jackboots coming down, she headed for Gabe’s office.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Maker. How do you feel about baby roses today?”

  She settled the little pot of roses on her desk.

  “Oh, Eden, honey, you’re just the sweetest. Did you know Mrs. Pennington brings cookies when she wants to get in to see Mr. Caldera?”

  “Um . . .�
��

  “Oh, I know the roses are not a bribe, dear. I was just mentioning it.”

  “Well, that’s interesting, thank you for sharing. Is Mr. Caldera in?”

  “He is, and he has about fifteen minutes until his next meeting. Why don’t you just knock?”

  So she did.

  Hard enough for the sound to drown out the sound of her pounding heart, hopefully.

  Gabe looked up at her from his desk, and his heart leaped in reflexive joy before his thoughts yanked it back down.

  “Good morning, Ms. Harwood. What can I do for you?”

  This was hearty pleasantry for Mrs. Maker’s benefit.

  Eden stepped inside. She closed the door gently.

  And then she gingerly sat in the guest chair they’d commuted in together to the sex couch.

  In total silence, they regarded each other.

  She was pale, and she looked like she hadn’t slept.

  Then Gabe looked away, flipping a pen idly. Thump. Thump. Thump. Against his blotter.

  “I think Mrs. Maker might be shaking down the PTA moms for cookies in order to get access to you,” she began. Lightly enough.

  Her hands were knotted, however. Like that straw wrapper on the table between her and Jasper Townes.

  “I’m going to look the other way,” Gabe said. “She doesn’t make all that much money. She has a killer pension, though. All school district employees do.” He said this pleasantly, too.

  And yet everything seemed heightened. Sound. Sight. The air of the room almost hurt his skin.

  He waited.

  “Jasper Townes is Annelise’s father.”

  The words basically blanked his mind.

  He wasn’t entirely certain how many seconds passed before he spoke.

  “Are you . . .” His voice was sandpaper raw.

  “Sure? Yeah. Kidding? No.”

  He was happy he had a baseball to squeeze. He wasn’t going to do that in front of her, however. She knew too much about him. He was suddenly furious at this fact.

  “Did you want me to soft-pedal that, Gabe? Direct is what we do.” She didn’t sound conciliatory. Her words were all still taut.