“Thanks. You don’t look so bad yourself.” Gavin was in slacks and a light green dress shirt. He didn’t seem like the type of guy to dress up much, so I hoped he wasn’t taking us anywhere too fancy.
“So where are we going to dinner?”
“I’ve been meaning to try Nicola’s in Wilmington.” He held open the passenger door for me, and I climbed up.
I waited for him to get in before continuing the conversation. “Wow, all the way down there.”
He laughed. “All the way down there? It’s only twenty-five minutes. Besides, it’ll give us some time to talk.” He patted my leg, a gesture that was a little too friendly for me.
“You do remember that this isn’t actually a date, right?”
“Sure. I’m the one who suggested the friend dinner.”
“Okay. I was just checking.” I felt so guilty about going to dinner with one man when the night before I’d been intimate with another. I could play the casual game all I wanted, but I wasn’t going to be seeing two guys. Great, just another thing to feel guilty about.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asked as he drove through town.
“Honestly?” Gavin talked like he’d known me for years rather than a few days. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it.
“Of course, who wants the non-honest version?”
“I’m kind of involved with someone. It’s nothing exclusive or serious obviously, but I wanted to be upfront considering I told you I wasn’t ready to date. I wasn’t lying, I’m not ready for that, but—”
“Involved with someone? Is that what you’re calling it?” Gavin cut off my rambling.
I looked over at him, not sure what to expect. “Umm, what do you mean?”
“Have you forgotten how small this town is? You think I don’t know you’ve been sleeping with your ex?” His eyes looked amused more than anything. I didn’t get it.
“You know? It hasn’t been happening a long time.”
“Jake Mathews was blabbing about it last night at Gill’s…”
“Oh. I didn’t realize Jake knew.” I could not believe this conversation was happening.
Gavin chuckled. “What does that kid have against you, anyway? The way he described it, you were some witch bewitching his brother into bed.”
I groaned. “You do realize I’m the same age as him, right?”
“Sure, but you’re more mature. By the way, I told him to go to hell. Besides, witch or not, I don’t know why a man would have to be bewitched to sleep with you.”
“So, you really don’t care? I just thought this whole friend-dinner thing was a pretense.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I didn’t care. I also didn’t say I liked it. But I get it. You’re using Ben as a rebound. He’s safe and familiar, it doesn’t take effort to be with him, and you aren’t making yourself vulnerable.” He placed his hand on my leg again, this time leaving it there. “This dinner might be as friends, but I have no intention of letting it remain that way. I just don’t plan on being your rebound.”
“Then what do you intend?” I hoped the question didn’t come across as flirty.
“You’ll get tired of Mathews, and I’ll be the one you come to. You don’t want familiar and safe—you want exciting and safe. I can give you that combination.”
“Exciting and safe? What makes you think I want that?”
He turned to look at me. “You’re a wild child playing dress up. There’s a reason you dropped out of law school, and it wasn’t the break up.”
“Is that so?”
“Uh huh, and you know what? I want that too. I want someone I can have fun with, but who is there for me at the end of the day. You can be that woman, I know that.”
His hand on my leg started to take on a whole new meaning, so I shifted in my seat trying to let him know I didn’t want it there. He got the hint, moving it to the back of my seat.
“Right now I’m just trying to figure out how to speed things up so you realize Mathews is only a distraction.”
“I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about it.”
“Are you saying it’s more?” For the first time he looked a little worried. By then, we were on the interstate heading to Wilmington.
“No. It’s not more.” I couldn’t have more. I didn’t deserve more. “But I’m not looking for anything else right now.”
“Sure you aren’t.” He turned to give me a cocky smile before returning his attention to the bumpy road. The road was stripped down to gravel. They must have been getting ready to redo the blacktop.
“This is going to be an awkward dinner.”
“Why?” he asked, when we moved back onto smooth road.
“How can you have a non-awkward date after talking about this stuff?”
“So you’re calling it a date now. Interesting.”
“Oh, come on, you know what I mean.” I wrung my hands together, questioning whether to roll down my window. The atmosphere in the car felt a little suffocating.
“All right, so let’s talk about something else,” he suggested.
“What topic were you thinking?”
“So you’re a law school dropout. What made you think you wanted to do law school in the first place?”
Gavin wasn’t the first person to ask me that, but he was the first one I didn’t give a canned answer. “It seemed like a secure career path, money, respect, and it’s what Adam did.”
“Money? You don’t strike me as the type of girl to be that interested in money.”
I shrugged. “You don’t really know me, do you?”
“Maybe I haven’t known you long, but I don’t believe you’re that materialistic.”
“See, I’m not as much of a catch as you thought.”
“Oh, you’re a catch all right.” He moved his hand back to the steering wheel. “So your ex-fiancé was a lawyer then, or was he in school with you?”
“He was practicing. He was a senior when I met him freshman year.”
“Good to know you have a thing for older guys.”
I laughed lightly. “Not always.”
“Yeah, Ben’s almost the same age as you, but you dated him years ago.”
I decided not to point out that, considering Ben and I were sleeping together, I was still attracted to guys closer to my age. “How old are you, anyway?”
“How old do you think I am?” he challenged.
“Twenty-eight?”
“Wow, I’m not aging well, am I?” He laughed.
“Then how old are you?” I shifted in my seat to look at him.
“Twenty-six.” He smiled.
“I was really far off, huh?”
“You’re twenty-two, right?”
“Uh huh, I was young for my class.”
“Got to love robbing the cradle.”
“You aren’t robbing the cradle. You’re friends with the cradle, remember?”
“Hey, you slipped up and called it a date. I can try too.” He pulled off at our exit and drove through Wilmington. I looked out the window, barely recognizing the sights around us. For as close to the city as I grew up, we didn’t go often when I was a kid.
Gavin parallel parked and helped me down from the truck. He put a hand on the small of my back as we walked toward the restaurant. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t even had dinner yet. It was going to be a long night.
I decided to use dinner to ask Gavin questions, hoping that if the conversation wasn’t on me, it might be less awkward.
“So tell me more about you.”
“What do you want to know? I’m an open book.” He placed his hands palm up on the table to illustrate his point.
“Siblings?” I asked, looking for a safe topic.
He leaned back in his chair, seeming very relaxed. “Two brothers and a sister.”
“Where do you fit in?”
“I’m the second from youngest. What about you? I know you have a sister; is that it?” he asked.
“Yeah, just Sh
ayna.”
“And she’s a doctor?”
Somehow the topic had moved back to me already. “Yup. She’s in her anesthesiology residency right now.”
“Is she married? Kids?”
“Yeah. Married to another doctor. Two kids.”
“Do you like being an aunt?” He sat up straighter, watching me carefully.
“Whoa, I never promised to be an open book.”
“Come on, do you like kids?” he asked.
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“Some people don’t.”
“Are you an uncle?” I turned the conversation back on him. I was beginning to feel like we were locked in a fencing match, pushing the conversation back and forth between us.
“Yup, I have two nephews and three nieces.”
“Wow. Quite the uncle Gavin.”
He laughed. “Yeah, but they always ask me when I’m having my own kids.”
I didn’t like the way he looked at me when he said the last part. It was like he was sizing me up for the position of having his kids.
“Well, hopefully that girl you were telling me about likes kids,” I said playfully.
“She does. I mean, come on, who doesn’t like kids?”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “I still don’t know why you’re wasting your time hanging out with me when you could be spending time with her.”
“I still don’t know why you’re wasting your time screwing around with Mathews when you could be dating me. But you know what? Tonight you’re with me and not him, so I can’t complain.”
The waiter came over to see if we wanted to order any drinks. Gavin tried to guess what my drink of choice was and got it on the first try. “Vodka cranberry?”
The waiter took our dinner orders and left. I’d gone for the manicotti. I was totally craving something with ricotta cheese. Thankfully, Gavin hadn’t tried to order for me too. It would have weirded me out if he’d gotten that right.
“Lucky guess.”
Gavin snorted. “No, I just know you.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“Oh, I will.” He smiled in a way that let me know he was really just joking around. I’d bet I wasn’t the only girl with that drink of choice.
The rest of dinner passed pleasantly once we got on to the topic of sports.
“So, did you become a Red Sox fan after so many years in Boston?”
I took a moment to finish a bite of my manicotti. “Not really. My friend Becca is a diehard fan and took me to a few games, but I’m really not a baseball fan. Are you?”
“You can say that.” He smiled.
“Okay, what aren’t you saying?”
“I played in the minors for a while after high school.”
“Really? Any team I’d know?” I may not have been a baseball fan, but I still thought playing professionally was pretty cool. I could definitely see Gavin as an athlete. He was in incredible shape and just had that look.
“The Durham Bulls.”
“Oh, I love that Bull Durham movie.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn’t play with Kevin Costner.”
“Oh, that’s disappointing.” I fake pouted. “I’m not sure if this is a sore topic, but why did you stop playing?”
“Rotator cuff tear—destroyed my pitching arm.”
“Oh, I’m really sorry. That must have been awful.” I imagined giving up baseball couldn’t have been easy on him.
“It was. I had just signed a new contract to move up to the majors—I thought I’d made it. But what can you do? You move on.” He shrugged.
His positive attitude impressed me. “So how’d you go from baseball to being a cop in Clayton Falls?”
“I needed to find something else to do, and I had a friend who suggested I try the academy. I met Tom there and he took me home with him to visit once. Clayton Falls seemed like as good a place as any to move, and I love the beach.”
“And you like it here?”
He smiled. “Most of the time. I like my job, and I’ve got some great friends. Now all I’m missing is the right girlfriend.” He winked.
I shook my head. “Good luck with that.”
When the check came, I tried to grab it first so I could figure out what I owed.
“Nope, I’m treating, remember?”
“Let’s split it.”
“How about this; I’ll pay tonight and you can get dinner next time.”
“How do you know there is going to be a next time?”
“Exactly. There’ll have to be if you want to call it even.” He put a credit card down, letting me know as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.
“Well then, thanks for dinner.” I hoped he wasn’t holding his breath on there being another dinner. He was a nice guy, but we were never going to be more than friends, and I didn’t want to lead him on.
“My pleasure.”
***
“Good morning, sleepyhead, we’re almost back,” Gavin said as I tried to wake up. I must have nodded off on the way back from dinner.
It took me a moment to realize where we were. The thick woods on either side of us could have been anywhere, but not the old run down gas station. “You can’t take this road!” I shouted. “You have to turn around and go the other way.”
“Why? It’s faster this way and closer to your house.”
“Please, just turn around. Please.” I started to panic, ready to beg him if necessary to avoid the railroad crossing.
Gavin looked spooked. “Seriously? Okay, I’ll turn around and go back around the long way.”
“Thank you.” I let out a deep sigh once he had us headed around and back on the highway.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”
I didn’t want to tell him, but I also felt that I had to explain my behavior. “It’s not a pretty story.”
“I’m a cop, Molly. I can handle it.”
“I can’t drive over that railroad crossing. I haven’t in five years.”
“Why?” he asked gently.
I breathed in and out a few times, preparing myself. “It’s where my dad died.”
Gavin slowed down the car, pulling off into the dirt on the side of the road. “Your dad died at that crossing? That cross is for him?”
“Cross?” I’d never actually gotten the nerve to visit the spot. Even though I hadn’t gone to see the accident scene, I could picture the mangled metal of his car. My chest tightened at the thought of looking at the crossing.
“Have you never seen it?”
“No.”
Gavin unbuckled his seatbelt, turning to look at me. “I’m really sorry to hear that. You said it was five years ago, so you were in high school?”
“It was the summer before college.”
“That must have been tough.”
“It was, mostly because it was my fault.” I looked down at my hands in my lap.
“Your fault? But you weren’t with him, right?”
“He did it because of me,” I said it quickly, waiting for Gavin’s reaction, knowing the sympathy would disappear.
“What? It was a suicide?”
“Not one that could be proved. He didn’t leave a note, but why else would he drive onto the tracks? He was a very safe driver. It made no sense.”
“Accidents rarely make sense.”
“He’d lost his job a few weeks before, and earlier that week he told me.” Once I started telling the story, I couldn’t stop.
Gavin’s hands squeezed mine reassuringly, and I tried to concentrate on the contact rather than the story. “He told me he couldn’t pay for college, and instead of understanding, I threw a fit. I yelled at him and told him it wasn’t fair. I got the grades and a partial scholarship to Boston University. He’d promised to pay the rest.”
I didn’t dare look up at Gavin. I couldn’t handle seeing the look of disgust. “He told me I needed to grow up and accept that things change. I could take a semester off,
maybe take some classes at a community college and hope for a scholarship from one of the state schools. I told him I hated him. I didn’t talk to him. Two days later, he was gone.”
“You can’t actually think you had anything to do with it, even if he did kill himself. You know that right?”
“I know he died with us fighting, and I know I made him feel like he let me down. Why wouldn’t I believe I pushed him over the edge?”
Gavin shook his head and didn’t say anything for a minute. I waited nervously for him to change his tune and tell me he was disappointed to hear I would treat someone that way. Instead, he steered the conversation in a different direction.
“But you still went to BU, right?”
“I did. Mom tried to make me use some of the life insurance money. They never even investigated whether it was an accident or not. I refused to take any of it. I took out loans for what the scholarship didn’t cover. I still can’t look at my mom and sister without feeling sick. I robbed them of him, and they both know it.” What I didn’t tell Gavin was how I still cringed every time I heard a train whistle late at night, or how I’d drive miles out of the way just to avoid ever crossing railroad tracks.
“Molly, please. Have you really been carrying this around with you for five years?”
I suddenly realized how ridiculous it was to be pouring all of this out on a guy I hardly knew. A barking dog broke through the silence of the night. “I’m sorry, we can go.”
“No. No, we can’t go. You need to stop beating yourself up.”
“It’s why Ben and I broke up, you know,” I said quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t there for me that night. He was too busy getting high with his friends. He said he didn’t hear his phone, but I have no idea whether he did or not. I decided he wasn’t responsible enough for me. I couldn’t rely on him.”
“Ben was a druggie, huh?”
“Not exactly.” It felt wrong to discuss Ben like that. My instinct was to defend him. “He liked to get high, and I hated that he did. He tried to hide it from me, but I always knew.”
“Well, I can’t comment on the Ben part, but you can’t keep blaming yourself for your dad. People make their own decisions. No one else can make their choices for them.”
“Yeah, but we can influence their decisions.”
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