Page 45 of A Night to Remember

“He doesn’t show it well,” Mom concedes. “But he seems to think this woman you’re seeing?—”

“I’m not?—”

“Gabe, honey, it’s obvious.” She gives me a little smile. “And if she were one of the fifteen, or from out of town, that would be one thing. He’s worried that she’s trying to take advantage of you. None of us wants to see you get hurt again.”

I stand up from my bar stool and pace the kitchen in exasperation.

“None of youknowher,” I say, giving up the ruse that there is no such person. I’m furious that my family all seems to agree that Kayla is some kind of brilliant con artist. I don’t know what I can say in her defense. Even if I insist that she would never take a dime from me (we’d even bickered about who should pay for dinner), they would probably just think that she’s playing the long game.

“But see, that’s the thing,” Mom continues. “You don’t even bring her around. If we did know her?—”

“Why would she want to come over here? She knows what you think of her! She’s not dumb!” I shout.

Mom weighs this for a moment. I hate that I’ve shouted at her. If anyone in my family has my best interest at heart, it’s her. She’s never pushed me like my dad has. And when I was little, she did her best to protect me from Adam’s competitiveness. She would redirect his constant demands that we face off over football orFinal Fantasyand give me time to read or study my rock collection. She’d been not just sympathetic, but downright irate that Gretchen cheated on me. Plus I love and respect her because she’s my mother. I don’t want Kayla to drive a wedge between me and my family, and I know Kayla doesn’t want that either.

“You’d like her, Mom,” I say in a gentler tone. “She’s driven like Dad and tough like you. She’d do anything for her family or friends. She’s decent.”

Mom smiles a little, cautiously. “Gabe, I’m sure we’d love anyone you love. We’re not going to attack her the minute she walks in the door. Give us a chance to get to know her.”

I look down at my shoes. “I’m having a hard enough time right now getting her to givemea chance to get to know her.”

“Why?” Mom’s eyes narrow.

“She works all the time. She’s wary of relationships.”She may be seeing someone else,I think involuntarily. The confrontation with Jeff is still eating at me.

“Are you going to ask her to Hungry Hearts?” Mom asks.

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I don’t know if she would say yes. Is it really so important that I go?”

“Yes.” Her tone is sharp again. “Everyone knows you’re back in town. It will reflect badly on us if you’re not there. I trust you to find a suitable date on your own. But I need you to go.”

I nod, still looking down.

“There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” she says in a tone that draws my eyes back to her face. “Gretchen is coming back to town that weekend. Her sister had the baby and she’s coming home to see her. I don’t know if she’ll be at the dance, but it’s possible that you’ll run into her.”

I let my breath out slowly. I feel irritation. Dread. Stress. But mostly what I feel iscrowded. My burgeoning whatever-it-is with Kayla is like a tender green shoot surrounded on all sides by tall weeds. Between colleagues, family, friends and all of the busybodies in this small town, we can barely find enough sunlight and air to let our whatever-it-is grow. And now Gretchen Meier is coming back. Perfect.

22

Kayla

“A manand a woman who have been cohabiting decide to get married. The woman asks the man to agree that all of the property she now owns will remain in her name if they get divorced. He agrees, but demands a written document.

“However, they get married without having signed anything. Three months later, the wife leaves the husband for another man. She sends him notice to vacate the apartment based on their prenuptial agreement. He refuses and the wife sues, asking that their oral prenuptial agreement be enforced. Is the court likely to enforce the wife’s claim?” I glance up from my laptop screen. “Do you want me to read the possible answers?”

“I want you to shut that door and come over here,” Gabe says with a smile that makes my entire body tingle. We’re in one of the study rooms at the library. I’ve been meeting him here to help him prepare for the bar, but frankly it’s been pretty hard to concentrate. All I want is for him to sweep everything off the table and have his way with me, and from the way he’s looking atme, he’s probably thinking the same thing. I have purposely sat as far away from him as possible. Tearing my eyes from him, I continue.

“A: Yes, because the consideration for the contract was the marriage and its consummation made the contract enforceable. B –”

“You know I never considered fighting Gretchen for the apartment? I mean, it wasmyapartment, but I didn’t want to live there anymore after she cheated. I even paid my half of the rent until she moved out. Isn’t that crazy?” He twirls his pencil absently and looks out the window. I can never tell if he wants to talk about Gretchen or not. I wonder if he still loves her. Given that we’re basically just fuckbuddies, it shouldn’t matter to me, but it baffles me that a woman could have this man’s love and throw it away.

She is obviously the reason for the melancholy I noticed when he first walked into the café. Affection begins to well up in my chest like it did that day, only now we’ve had a week of having sex in the Navigator, a week of seeing who can find the cutest dog pictures on the internet (I won with a snapshot of a woman holding a full-grown German Shepherd like a baby). A week of lunches in the back booth at the café, where he sits right next to me with a heavy arm around my shoulder, nuzzling my neck and eating the extra basket of fries I now know I have to order for him. He likes me to lie next to him after sex and rest my head on his chest. He puts on a sock and a shoe and a sock and shoe, rather than first socks, then shoes, which is possibly the craziest thing I have ever seen a human do. When he was five, he found a piece of gray agate on a walk with his grandfather, which he now keeps in his pocket, for luck.

We’re just friends, I tell myself firmly, fighting the urge to go sit in his lap. Old friends who have delightful sex and will stop as soon as one of us gets a job and moves away. Or who knows,maybe we’ll still text, then hook up every once in a while when we’re both back in town. But we certainly aren’t, or ever will be, anythingmorethan friends.

I try to draw the conversation back to the matter at hand. “Did you and Gretchen have an oral prenuptial agreement?” I ask, keeping my voice light.

“No.” He’s still gazing out the window, lost in thought.

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