First Crush

by Linda Seed

  She took the card and slipped it into the pocket of her lab coat. He’d given her his contact information a couple of times now—once on Owen’s medical forms, and again with the card. The first was business, and she told herself the second was only courtesy.

  Still, she felt the weight of the card in her pocket long after he’d left. She found herself repeatedly reaching into the pocket to touch the card, then she chided herself for being stupid.

  Troy Davenport had rejected her once. She had to be an idiot to think he was interested in her now. And even if he was, a lot had changed since high school.

  Thank God.

  4

  “I asked around,” Sofia said a couple of days later when she, Patrick, and her sisters were sitting around the dinner table at their house in Cambria’s Happy Hill neighborhood. “TJ Davenport has a place in Pine Knolls. His parents still live in town. He’s a good electrician, apparently. At least, he is if his Yelp reviews are any indication.”

  “Why did you ask around? I didn’t ask you to do that,” Bianca said.

  Bianca, generally considered to be her family’s best cook, had made an Italian meal of pasta, braised veal, salad, and garlic bread in an approximate imitation of the meals her mother used to serve on Sunday afternoons. Her parents had both been gone for a few years now, and the food was her way of remembering them.

  Martina, a vegetarian, had skipped the veal and the meat sauce and was filling up on salad, garlic bread, and pasta with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. She reached for the bottle of Chianti that was sitting in the middle of the table and refilled her glass. “She asked around because you’re too proud to do it. And somebody had to.”

  “I’m not too proud. I’m just … not interested.” Bianca twirled some pasta onto her fork, looking at her plate instead of at her sisters.

  “Cool story, sis, but it’s bullshit,” Benny said. “Am I the only one who remembers your junior year? You told me he was the love of your life. You planned your wedding, for God’s sake.”

  “It’s still okay if we use your wedding plan, isn’t it?” Patrick asked tentatively. “I mean, if it’s not, we’ll manage. But we’ve put down deposits already, so …”

  “It’s all yours,” Bianca said. “Mainly because I'm not interested in TJ Davenport, except as the father of one of my patients. I’m not sixteen anymore. I’ve grown up, and so has he.”

  “He certainly has.” Sofia batted her lashes suggestively.

  “Hey,” Patrick protested.

  “Don’t worry, honeybun.” Sofia linked her arm through Patrick’s. “I like the smart, geeky type.”

  “Geeky?” Patrick said. “I don’t think—”

  “Can we get back to Bianca?” Benny suggested. “I’ve been thinking. We can set up an electrical emergency. Not a big one—nothing will catch on fire—but, you know, something that requires a service call.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Bianca.

  “Would you all stop?” Bianca put her fork down on her plate with a loud clink. “He’s my patient’s father. That’s all.”

  “And the man you were obsessed with eighteen years ago. Who’s back in town. And available,” Martina pointed out.

  “He’s also the man who ripped my heart out when he tossed me aside,” Bianca said. “Can we remember that part?”

  “It might be good to heal those old scars,” Sofia suggested. “I’m just saying.”

  Bianca had been toying with those same thoughts, though she wouldn’t admit it. The problem was, old scars could be healed, but they could also be reopened.

  That was something to think about.

  TJ took Owen to get the blood test the next morning before breakfast. The test had to be done on an empty stomach, and TJ had expected his son to complain about being hungry.

  When he didn’t, it sent off alarm bells in TJ’s brain.

  Yeah, there was something going on.

  He didn’t want to obsess over his worries, so he decided to obsess about something else, instead. Bianca Russo seemed like a good choice.

  Man, she’d changed—and for the better. She’d been flustered when she’d come into the room and seen TJ, that much had been clear. But she’d gotten it together, and when she was in doctor mode, she was all calm professionalism, competence, and cool elegance.

  She likely wasn’t attracted to him anymore, but what if she was? He hadn’t dated anyone since the divorce. What if he asked her out?

  He shrugged off the thought. She was Owen’s doctor—going out with her would be awkward as hell.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t think about it. And maybe she wouldn’t always be Owen’s doctor. Maybe she’d fix him up and pronounce him to be in good health. It wouldn’t be so awkward then, would it?

  TJ looked over at Owen, who was slumped in the molded plastic chair in the waiting room of the lab. The kid was falling asleep. TJ elbowed him gently.

  “Wake up, kid.”

  Owen squinted up at his father. “Did they call me?”

  “Not yet. What’re you so tired for? It’s eight a.m.”

  Owen shrugged. “I dunno. I just am.”

  There was that worry in TJ’s gut again. He hoped Bianca Russo knew her stuff.

  Bianca wouldn’t have thought of TJ in years if it hadn’t been for Sofia’s wedding.

  When Bianca was a teenager in love with Troy Davenport, she and her mother had planned an elaborate wedding, including the dress, the cake, the venue—the whole deal. Neither of them had intended for it to be serious. They’d both known it was just a game, an exercise … a way of bonding.

  Now her mother was gone.

  When Sofia and Patrick had gotten together, Sofia’s grief had made it hard for her to move forward with the relationship—so Bianca had offered her the wedding plan as a way of having their mother present when Sofia linked her life with Patrick’s.

  It had been impossible to think about the wedding plan without thinking—okay, maybe a bit wistfully—about Troy.

  And now here he was. It was as though Bianca had somehow conjured him by bringing out the binders full of dress photos and tux rental brochures.

  She thought about that at the office as she went about her routine, seeing patients, updating charts, dealing with insurance companies, submitting prescriptions and referrals.

  She was still thinking about it that night when Peter came over for dinner.

  Peter had been coming to the house more and more often, partly because he and Bianca had been dating long enough that he’d become a fixture in her and her sisters’ lives, and also because cooking for him, with his dietary eccentricities, was just easier than going out.

  He preferred his own place, but Bianca found his condo cold and sterile, in contrast to the warmth and coziness of the historic log cabin where the Russos lived. After a certain amount of negotiation, Peter had come up with a schedule: Monday and Friday at his place, Tuesday and Saturday at hers. Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday had been designated as wild card days, during which they might be at either place or they might not see each other at all, at either party’s discretion.

  Bianca had, with some effort, refrained from rolling her eyes when he’d presented the plan to her, but today—a Tuesday—she was grateful to be able to cook in her own home without having to negotiate anything.

  Because of Peter’s determination not to eat gluten, Bianca had, with regret, set aside any form of pasta and instead was preparing chicken breasts, quinoa, and sautéed vegetables. In a small pan, she was also making a tofu dish for Martina, who wouldn’t eat anything whose mother might mourn it.

  Peter was in the living room reading a book while Bianca cooked, and Benny was poking around in the refrigerator for a sugary beverage. She emerged with a bottle of Coke, twisted off the cap, took a long swig, then looked over Bianca’s shoulder at the food sizzling on the stove.

  “Jeez. Why so healthy? You couldn’t deep fry something?” Benny wrinkled her nose.

  “It won’t kill you to eat somet
hing with actual nutrients.” Bianca poked at the chicken with her tongs.

  “It might,” Benny said. “I’m not sure we want to take that risk.”

  Bianca shot a glance at Peter over her shoulder and then whispered to Benny, “Stop complaining. Do you know how long it took me to find locally sourced, free-range, antibiotic-free, organic, vegetarian-fed chicken? You’ll eat it and shut the hell up about it.”

  Benny smirked and leaned one hip against the counter next to the stove. “If you’d just source yourself a locally grown free-range electrician instead, your life would be a hell of a lot easier.”

  Bianca seriously doubted that. She flipped the chicken breasts, then went to the refrigerator, pulled out some romaine lettuce, and pushed it into Benny’s free hand. “Here, make a salad. If you’re going to be standing here, you might as well make yourself useful.”

  The thing about Peter—or, one of the things about him—was that he tended to act like the Russo sisters’ substitute parent instead of Bianca’s boyfriend and the other women’s friend.

  He was doing it again, Bianca reflected as she watched Peter pick at his chicken, inspecting it as though he worried it might have been poisoned by a hostile foreign government.

  “You know, Sofia,” he said, still squinting at the chicken, “if you were to apply to Cal Poly, you could get into a solid field in a few years. Something with good benefits, maybe a 401K. I’m not saying that working as Bianca’s receptionist isn’t a good job.…”

  “Then what are you saying?” Sofia’s voice carried an edge of annoyance.

  “Just that you should be thinking in terms of a career rather than, well … just a job.” Deciding that the chicken was edible, he cut a small piece and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. He swallowed, then pointed his fork toward the spot across the table from him where Sofia was sitting. “Of course, you’re going to be a faculty wife, which isn’t a bad lifestyle. You’ll have Patrick’s benefits.”

  Patrick, who wasn’t there that evening, was an English professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. While Sofia would, technically, be a faculty wife by this time the following year, Bianca doubted she saw it as a full-time occupation, and certainly not as an identity.

  “Sofia likes what she does,” Bianca said. “She’s not just a receptionist. She’s a small-business owner.”

  “Well … ha, ha. All right.” Peter chuckled, presumably at the thought that the kayak tours Sofia ran out of San Simeon could be considered a viable business. “But I’m talking about something more … stable. More reliable.”

  “Thanks for the advice, Dad,” Sofia said. “Maybe if I go to school and work really hard, I can have an exciting future as an accountant.”

  “Oh, no.” Peter was unfazed. “From what Bianca tells me, you were never that great at math. The taxation courses alone …” He shook his head mournfully.

  Sofia looked at Bianca as Peter focused on his food. She widened her eyes and gestured toward Peter with her chin in a wordless plea for Bianca to do something about her man.

  “Peter, I’m sure Sofia would make an excellent accountant.” Bianca eyed her sister. “But … ah … I think her point was—”

  “Her point was that she’d rather jump into a bathtub full of scorpions than do someone’s taxes,” Benny added helpfully.

  “It was?” Peter looked surprised.

  “I think she was employing sarcasm,” Martina put in.

  “Oh. Well. In any event—”

  “Can I get you some more salad?” Bianca asked Peter before he could step in it any deeper. “It’s pesticide-free.”

  Peter had expected to stay over, but he left after Bianca claimed to have a headache. Once he was gone, the sisters gathered in the kitchen to put away food, load dishes into the dishwasher, and put things back into order.

  “Faculty wife?” Sofia gestured with the dirty plate she was holding. “ ‘You’ll have Patrick’s benefits!’ ” She said the last bit in a remarkably good imitation of Peter’s voice. “I’d like to shove a diploma up his ass.”

  “Leave it in the frame when you do it,” Benny added.

  “Okay, that was bad,” Bianca admitted.

  “You think?” Even Martina, usually so mild-tempered, was worked up about it.

  “But he didn’t mean anything by it. He was trying to be helpful!” Bianca added.

  “Helpful? Helpful?” Sofia waved her hands in the air in outrage. “Helpful is … is doing the dishes! Or folding the laundry! Helpful isn’t suggesting to your girlfriend’s sister that she’s too stupid to be an accountant!”

  “You don’t even want to be an accountant,” Bianca pointed out.

  “That’s not the point!”

  “I know. I know it isn’t.” Bianca’s shoulders fell, and she focused on stacking plates in the dishwasher so she wouldn’t have to look at her sisters.

  “You’re not still thinking about moving in with him, are you?” Martina asked. “I hope you told him no.”

  “I haven’t told him anything yet.”

  In fact, Bianca had been avoiding having the conversation with Peter. That was part of the reason she’d claimed to have a headache. She knew he wanted to pin her down on the subject, and he almost certainly would have made his case to her again tonight if she hadn’t put him off.

  She knew she had to give him an answer soon, but she felt trapped. If she said yes, she’d have to move out of the home she loved—a home her parents had renovated with loving care not long before their deaths—and she’d have to face her sisters’ scorn. But if she said no, she’d be cutting off what could be her last chance to have a family before her ovaries dried up and her entire reproductive system shut down for good.

  It was a lot to think about.

  “You don’t love him, do you, Bianca?” Martina spoke softly, in contrast to her sisters and their outrage. “Because I don’t think you do.”

  “I care about him,” Bianca said.

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  Martina was right—it wasn’t the same thing. But it was something, wasn’t it? Caring could become love. Peter was reliable. He was honest. He was responsible. He was a doctor. He would make a suitable father for her children.

  Bianca just had to decide whether suitable was good enough.

  5

  TJ and Owen lived in a rented two-bedroom cottage in Pine Knolls, on a hill overlooking Main Street. TJ wanted to buy something of his own, but he’d taken a significant financial hit in the divorce. The house was barely big enough for the two of them—one bathroom, and a living room so small it barely accommodated a sofa, a comfortable chair, and the TV.

  Still, they were managing. The place had a lot of character, with Craftsman-style details, archways leading from one room into the next, original hardwood floors, and a setting surrounded by grazing deer and Monterey pines.

  For the two of them, it was tight, but okay.

  But now Owen wanted to get a dog.

  “Dad, please? We couldn’t get one in San Jose because it was against the rules in our building. But it’s not against the rules here. The guy who owns the house even said pets were okay. I heard him. Please?”

  TJ rubbed the back of his neck and looked around the little house. “Where are we going to put a dog? There’s no fenced yard. There’s no place for him to run around.…”

  “I could walk him.”

  “I know how that goes,” TJ said. “You promise to walk him, then I’m the one who ends up outside at six a.m. in the rain with an umbrella and a bag full of dog poop.”

  “No, I really will do it. Even if it’s raining. Even if it’s really early or really late. You can ground me if I don’t. You can take away my allowance or my phone.” Owen had started in on him early, before breakfast. The boy was still in the T-shirt and pajama pants he’d slept in, his sandy-colored hair sticking up at odd angles, his eyes wide in earnestness.

  “Look. You’ve gotta get ready for school.”

  “B
ut you’ll think about it?”

  TJ scrunched up his face in dismay. “Aw, jeez …”

  “Please, Dad? Please?”

  The thing was, it was hard to say no to him. It had been hard before, even without the divorce. But now, with everything that was going on …

  “I’ll think about it. Now get some clothes on and have some breakfast before I change my mind.”

  The whole time TJ was driving Owen to school—a span of about five minutes, because everything in Cambria was close to everything else—he wondered if he was making a mistake to even consider getting Owen a dog.

  Owen’s grades were falling, for one thing. He’d always been a good student, but lately, he couldn’t seem to focus on anything. TJ supposed that was a typical middle school adjustment thing, but still, it didn’t seem like he should be rewarding the kid right now.

  On the other hand, Owen had, through no fault of his own and without his input, been uprooted from his home and moved two hundred miles away from his friends, his school, and everything he knew.

  Sure, he knew Cambria—his grandparents lived here, and there had been visits and vacations—but it wasn’t his home. TJ had to make it his home, and a dog might go a long way toward accomplishing that.

  “It couldn’t be a big dog,” he said irritably as they pulled into the school parking lot. “We don’t have room for a big dog.”

  “That’s okay,” Owen said. “I like small dogs.”

  “It couldn’t be a puppy, either. I don’t have time to deal with any puppy stuff. Training and all that. I’m a busy guy.”

  “Does this mean yes?”

  Owen was looking at him with such hope, such tender anticipation, that TJ couldn’t say anything but yes.

  “I guess so.”

  “Thanks, Dad! Oh, wow. Thanks! I can’t wait to tell everybody.”

  Owen got out of the car, hefted his huge backpack, and headed toward the school. As TJ watched him go, that uneasiness he’d been feeling about Owen’s health returned. As excited as he was about the prospect of a dog, the boy still looked tired as hell. And there was something about his walk that didn’t look right.