All Tangled Up

by Caitlin Ricci

  “I am, too. I’m sorry, I was dumb. I just can’t believe it took a teenager to make me see that.” I felt like such an idiot. I still thought my worry was valid, but not enough that I should have completely discounted the idea of having another date, possibly even a relationship with him.

  “I never thought that I shouldn’t date you because you’ve been divorced,” Travis admitted.

  He had a good point. I sighed. “Sorry, again,” I mumbled. “You’re really okay dating a divorced man with a teenage son?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I am. And...” He took a deep breath. “And you’re still close with your ex, right? I mean, you said you were still friends. So...”

  I could see where he was going with this. Knowing everything I already knew about him, and wanting to start this relationship off with as much honesty as we possibly could, I decided to answer him fully, even though I knew he probably wouldn’t like my answer. “Cindy and I are friends. She’s dating someone now, and she seems serious about her too, but I need to know if you’ll be okay with her staying over sometimes. She sleeps in the guest room , and we haven’t been intimate in years, but there may be nights where you call at two in the morning and she and I are up watching movies and eating ice cream together. It happens pretty frequently, actually.”

  Travis shook his head, and I was sure that my friendship with Cindy would be a dealbreaker for him, but then he met my gaze. “Can I trust you?”

  “With her? Yes.” I was pretty sure that he could have trusted Cal too. I didn’t see any reason to point that out, however. Not when he was already on edge and uncertain about us. “If you have a question though, I need you to ask it. Don’t assume that I’m cheating on you if you call and she’s over. She’s always going to be a big part of my life.”

  To my relief, Travis instantly nodded, and I thought maybe he understood. “She’s the mother of your kid. Even if you weren’t still friends with her, she’d always be in your life. I get that. And I’d like Cal to be my friend, once we’ve worked through all of this crap that we’re dealing with right now.”

  I put my arm over the back of the chair and faced him. “What kind of crap? Same thing as before?” The only issues that I knew about with him and Cal was about him cheating. If there was more, and if he was interested in telling me, then I wanted to hear it.

  Travis shrugged and looked down at the coffee mug in his hands as if he couldn’t bear to look at me right then. “It’s that I cheated, and the hurt feelings between us, but it’s also that I’m having a really hard time accepting Dillon. Plus it’s that a big part of me still loves Cal. I don’t want him back. Not really. I’m in therapy, I go pretty often, actually, and she’s helped me work out that what I’m missing is the romanticized version of the best parts of our relationship. I know he and I don’t belong together. I know there’s no reason to get back together with him, even if we were both single. But it’s still hard sometimes. I’m probably not making a whole lot of sense here.”

  Actually, he was making perfect sense, because I’d felt that way once too. “No, you’re fine. I used to think like that too. When I was newly single, and so was Cindy, I used to go over those great times and dream about how I could get her back. I didn’t think about how much we argued, or how horrible we could be to each other. I just thought about those late nights with ice cream and pizza and sharing the ugly old blanket we’d had for years. I focused on the times that we’d been perfect, but those weren’t reality. Not all the time, anyway. We had some great times together, but if it had been good overall, we would have stayed married. I know that now much better than I did then. In time, maybe you’ll see that too with you and Cal.”

  “I’d like that.” He sounded wistful. “Thanks for giving me another chance.”

  I nodded. “All I ask is for your honesty.” I didn’t want to find him cheating like Cal had. If he wanted to leave me someday, I needed him to just tell me that.

  “I can give you that for sure,” he promised.

  And that was good enough for me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Travis

  Getting a ride to game night at Gavin’s house was a good idea. He did live a fair distance from me. But getting that ride from Cal and Dillon might not have been my smartest idea ever. I was dreading the trip even as I climbed into the back seat of Cal’s car.

  “Thanks for offering to give me a ride,” I said, turning to put on my seatbelt.

  It was Dillon who turned around to look at me. “No problem. I know the drive down to where we live can be really tiresome.” He smiled at me. I forced myself to smile back at him.

  He was still looking at me, so I figured I should come up with something to say to him. “So...how was the conference?” It had been last week, and I figured that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, since I’d spoken to Cal on Wednesday and he hadn’t mentioned anything.

  Dillon shrugged. “It went okay. Someday I’ll be fifty and respectable and they won’t ask me if my father is the one who wrote the articles anymore when I introduce myself.”

  I cringed. That didn’t sound good at all. “Why do you go to them?” I imagined he got that kind of treatment at every convention because of his age.

  “Generally, I enjoy them. I like being around other beekeepers. I like helping out newbies. There’s lots of hard-headed, experienced people, those that have their ways and success doing it, and they don’t think anyone else is right or even worth listening to. They aren’t always the best at being nice to those first-year beekeepers who rush in with a whole bunch of money and equipment without doing a lot of research first. Not every new beekeeper is like that, but I’ve met my fair share of them. Inevitably those first-year people lose a few hives, or all of their hives, for one reason or another and then some of the more experienced people look down on them or ridicule them, and I can’t stand that. So I go to these conventions to help new people become more successful and to learn from other people as well. I’ve got a lot of hives, and I’m fairly well known in the community, but I know I’ve still got a lot to learn.”

  “He’s not kidding about wanting to learn. He’s got a whole bookshelf of bee books and magazines.” Cal laughed and reached over to take Dillon’s hand, which took Dillon’s attention off me for the moment. For once I didn’t mind them touching. Even something as simple as them holding hands had been a problem for me to see only last week. But I was getting better, and therapy was a big part of that.

  “It sounds like you’re needed there,” I told him.

  I caught Cal’s gaze in the rearview mirror and he nodded to me. I returned the gesture back to him. We’d be okay as friends. I knew that we would be. It took me giving a little and him giving some, too. I knew he liked physical affection, and I also knew that he was probably holding back with Dillon when I was around. I appreciated that. And I was trying really hard not to be jealous of them.

  “How are you and Gavin?” Cal asked me. He didn’t sound hurt or jealous at all. I wanted to get to that same point someday. Where we could be friends who were once together but no longer were, and we were happy for each other in the lives we’d made apart. I was desperate to have that happen for us.

  “We’re...” I wasn’t really sure, actually. I’d never started off a relationship like this. We were both coming from places of uncertainty, but we were willing to see how things might progress. It was a good spot to be in and it felt very honest, which I really needed right then. “We’re hopeful, I guess you could say. I’m continuing therapy, and I’m working on my jealousy and being honest about my needs.”

  “Good. I’m glad you are,” Cal said.

  Therapy was good for me. I knew that. Therapy and friends. And Cal could be my friend. Maybe Dillon could be, too. I was less hopeful about that one, but maybe by thinking the thought I could let it start taking root in my mind too.

  We didn’t say much on the way down to the farm. Maybe they were uncomfortable with me bein
g there with them. I couldn’t imagine they actually spent this much time not talking to each other normally when they were alone.

  “Is it nice having a big family?” I asked Dillon. I really wasn’t that curious, but after forty minutes of nothing but the songs on the radio between the three of us, I needed to say something.

  Dillon smirked. “It can be. We are pretty close. But they also give me hell sometimes. It’s because they love me, I know that. But sometimes it would be nice to be able to breathe a little.” He was quiet for a few moments. “Kyle seems to like you. He said you were nice. And you’ll get to meet Cindy today, she’s Gavin’s ex-wife.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting her,” I told him honestly.

  Dillon looked surprised at that. “A lot of guys wouldn’t want the baggage of an ex and a kid and a huge family to contend with.”

  “Lots of guys wouldn’t give a known cheater a second look either,” I quietly replied.

  Dillon didn’t say anything to that, not that I expected him to.

  We were quiet the rest of the way there, with Cal and Dillon holding hands and me staring at my phone.

  “We’re turning onto the farm, if you want to see it,” Dillon said, getting my attention again. I wondered if Cal was staying as quiet as he was in an attempt to get Dillon and me to talk. It seemed like something he might do.

  I looked up and read the sign for Hillcrest Farm. I didn’t know anything about the farm, but I liked that there weren’t a lot of houses or traffic around. It was nice to be out of the city for a little while, to be able to breathe some. “It must be nice living here,” I said.

  “It is. I can’t imagine living in Springfield, or anywhere near it, like you both do.” Dillon actually looked repulsed by the idea.

  I snorted. But the thing was, I could picture myself living in the middle of nowhere. If I could afford a place out here, that was. “There probably aren’t that many jobs this far out of the city, though.” Which was a shame. I hated my little apartment. I’d really loved having the space that I’d had when Cal and I were living together.

  “There really aren’t that many, I’ve looked,” Cal spoke up.

  I caught Dillon’s sharp look at him, and Cal’s little smile, and I understood that Cal was probably thinking about moving down here. I didn’t blame him for that. Maybe if Gavin and I continued this thing that we’d started, then we would get to that point too. I hoped so, but I wanted to take it slow.

  Cal drove us down a series of narrow dirt roads. They didn’t even look like roads to me. Not real roads. These were more like paths where the grass had been worn down to just dirt between two high white fences. I didn’t see anything in the pastures on either side of us. “Are there animals in there?” I asked as I pointed to the empty space to my right. There were trees, but not enough that they blocked my view. I saw a barn a good distance away, and next to it a house, but nothing else.

  Dillon looked with me. “Yeah. There’s horses on that side. We, my cousins and my brothers and I, we all inherited Hillcrest Farm and split it up into our individual farms. Though, to be fair, I have bees in nearly every section of the farm. We each have fifty acres. The horses must be in the pasture on the other side of the barn. Cameron rotates them to keep them from overgrazing the grass. Then he doesn’t have to buy as much hay during the winter months.”

  He was talking about things that I didn’t understand, but I still nodded along. I didn’t even know what fifty acres would look like. Or even one acre. “It sounds like a lot of land.”

  Dillon shrugged. “It can be, depending on what you’re doing with it. Lots of people have cattle around here, and they take a ton of land. Gavin’s sheep use every bit of his farm. I think it’s a good size. I can spend hours walking around on just my property.”

  “I like going for walks,” I mumbled.

  “You and Gavin should go walking with his sheep. They’re short and cute.”

  Cal turned onto a driveway and I got my first look at the traditional farmhouse I assumed was Gavin’s. With the front porch and large barn nearby, it was what I’d always assumed a farmhouse would look like. “Is your house like this?”

  “Dillon lives in a tiny home,” Cal answered for him.

  “My apartment is tiny too,” I said. I shared his misery.

  But Dillon was smiling. “No, it’s an actual tiny house. I really like it. It’s just me, so it’s not like I need a ton of room. Maybe someday...”

  He looked to Cal, and I knew what they were trying to spare me from, but Cal had already mentioned it. And, really, it was okay. They were together. Inevitably they would talk about moving in together. “It’s okay,” I told them both.

  Cal caught my gaze in the rearview mirror as he pulled up in front of the house. There were trucks, cars, and two SUVs. Nothing looked really new or especially expensive. They were all practical vehicles, like mine was. I’d been worried about not fitting in. I already felt like an outsider coming in to crash a family party.

  Once Cal parked the car, he turned it off and looked back at me. “You’re okay with Dillon and I living together someday?”

  I nodded. “I’m happy for you.” I was talking to him. Just to him. Yes, my heart still hurt when I thought about how I’d lost him. But I did want him to be happy. And clearly being happy wasn’t something he could have done with me. Even before I’d convinced myself that he’d been cheating, we hadn’t really been happy. But here he was, getting a chance at love again, and I wanted him to have that. He deserved it, just like I did.

  He reached back and took my hand. I gave his fingers a squeeze. And then we were done. We got out of the car and he and Dillon held hands as they walked up to the front door together. Kyle opened the door for us and ushered us inside.

  “Hi,” I said to him, realizing now that he was my boyfriend’s son. It was a strange distinction, one I had realized before, and it was only just clicking for me now. There were people nearby, but we were pretty alone right there in the doorway. “So...I’m dating your dad. And...” Really I had no idea what I was trying to say here.

  Kyle just raised his eyebrows at me. “You’re cool, no worries. You’re not the first guy my dad has dated. Don’t be a jerk and everything’s good. Dad’s in the living room with everyone else. There’s food already out. We started early tonight. Tacos. Feel free to help yourself.”

  “Th-Thanks.”

  Kyle gave me a nod before he walked away from me. I went in search of Gavin and found him sitting with his arm around an attractive woman who I knew instantly was Kyle’s mom. He looked a lot like her. “Hey,” I said, getting his attention.

  And the attentions of the four guys who were also in the room with us. Cindy shot them all a look before getting off the couch and coming to me. I looked uncertainly at her at first, but then she smiled at me and took me into her arms. “We need to go on a double date soon. You and Gavin, me and Lyssa. It won’t be nearly as awkward as you might think.”

  I gave her an awkward hug back. “Um. Thanks. I’d like that.”

  The guys that I didn’t know had started talking again. I heard an orchard mentioned, and horses. I didn’t catch more than that. “I’m glad you’re here.” She had dropped her voice a little. “I know how you and Cal ended, and we all like Cal, so there’s going to be a bit of an adjustment here, but you’ll do fine. Gavin likes you. A lot. Just don’t hurt him, okay?”

  I really appreciated her honesty. I wished that more people were as outright as she was. “Okay.”

  She gave me one more hug, and then she went to the kitchen. Gavin got up from the couch and took my hand, leading me out to the back deck. “I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure that you would.”

  I was glad to be there too. “Why not? And why are we out here when the party seems to be back inside?” I motioned over my shoulder.

  Gavin snorted. “Because that’s a lot of people to handle at once. And that’s the answer for both of your
questions. My family is big, and even though I’m the oldest person here, I sometimes don’t feel it. Then there are those days when I feel like I have to watch out for each and every person in my family. I thought maybe they’d be too much for you right now, with us being so new and all.”

  I leaned against him. It felt right and good to be with him in his house and in his space. “I am a little nervous,” I quietly admitted to him. “But that’s okay. I’m happy that I came here. I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of your family and being a part of your life.”

  Gavin kissed my cheek. “I’m glad to hear it. If you’re ready, let’s go back inside and I’ll introduce you to the chaos that is my family.”

  I did want to meet them all, but I wanted to spend just a few minutes with him first. I turned to him and kissed him gently on his lips. I must have surprised him, though, because it took him a second or two to react to me kissing him. But then he slid his hands to my hips and held me close and I knew things were going to be okay.

  That night just before sunset Gavin took me for a walk in one of his pastures.

  “Do the sheep just know to go in at dark?” I asked. They had formed a long trail as they headed into the barn. They were close enough that I could’ve watched them go in if Gavin didn’t have my hand and wasn’t pulling me along.

  “For the most part they do. Sometimes when it’s really nice they’ll come back out. This pasture that we’re in right now is so close to the house that I don’t worry about them staying out all night. This section is only an acre. During the day they run in one of the five or ten-acre pastures, depending on where I’m grazing them at the time. But once they’re all in ,I’ll close the gate and they’ll be in the small pasture for the night.”

  I thought they were cute little fluffy creatures. “I’m not great with pets. Fair warning. I can barely take care of myself right now.”

  He gave my hand a squeeze. “I get that, and it’s not like we’ll be picking out kittens together tomorrow. If you ever want to help with the sheep, I’d love the help, but I don’t expect you to. I’ve got a big family for that.”