Page 48 of Sweet Escape

I wrinkle my nose. “There was a guy. But not anymore.”

He hums softly. “Sounds like you might still be a little upset about it?”

“He cheated on me,” I say, kind of blurting it out. “So, I’m upset about what happened, but I’m glad that it ended ... if that makes sense.”

Errol nods. “It does. So that’s why you’re on this trip alone? To get away?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m working. But really, I wanted to leave it all behind and try to give myself a chance to breathe.”

He gives me a sympathetic look and pats my hand. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

I shrug. “It is what it is. He wasn’t right for me, and I’m glad we didn’t have to go any longer without me realizing it.”

“I’m glad you’re keeping positive.”

“What about you?” I ask, turning my body around so I’m leaning back against the picnic table, my legs stretched out on the grass. “You have a lady love?”

He mentioned a wife and used past tense language, so I’m not surprised when his smile grows reflective.

“Oh, I had the greatest lady love,” he says. “Norma was my best friend. That’s how love’s supposed to be. Someone you can tell your secrets to.”

My lips tilt up, and I wish I knew what that was like. My parents were the only example of love I had growing up, and they shouldn’t serve as an example to anyone. They only gave off the appearance of being in love when they were around other people, but at home, it was mostly silence, each of them seemingly lost in their own personal world.

Part of me considered for a brief time that maybe Theo and I would be different, though I couldn’t have been more wrong. We ended up becoming younger versions of them, every interaction so exhausting that we simply avoided it as much as we could.

“She’s been gone a few years now,” he continues, drawing me back. His gaze grows distant. “It was her idea to refurbish the firehouse into an inn, and it took us several years to get it done right. She loved everything about it.”

“Norma sounds like a smart woman. She had a job she loved and a husband she loved even more. I hope to be that lucky someday.”

He hums and pats my hand again, his skin soft and warm. “You will, sweetheart. You will.”

I can only hope he’s right.

We chat for a bit longer, and Errol asks lots of questions about me being a singer. He’s very excited for me when he hears about Humble Roads, Todd, and that I’m recording an album soon.

But once the movie begins, he tells me he needs to call it a night.

“I’m not the spry thing I once was,” he jokes. “These old bones need to be getting into bed soon.”

“I’ll join you on the walk back.”

I start to get up, but he waves in protest. “No, no, no. You stay and enjoy yourself. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a new hunky beau, huh?”

I laugh, giving Errol a wave as he walks slowly to the concrete path and then off in the direction of the Firehouse.

I leave the picnic table and head over to the food truck in the corner to grab a little bag of popcorn. Then I settle on the grassy area facing the screen that’s hanging between the center posts of the gazebo.

The movieisa children’s movie, though not one I’m familiar with. I only half watch it. Instead, my mind drifts to the last outdoor movie night I went to. With Theo.

We’d only been dating for a few months, and he took me on a date to a rooftop theater in downtown LA. They were showingMy Fair Lady, which Ilove. And I remember thinking to myself that this guy really got me. That he understood my interest in theater and music and performance in general. It kind of cemented for me that I was into him, since it made me think he had more range than the kind of bro-ey dates we’d been on so far—sports bars and nightclubs and the like.

It was almost a year later that I found out he’d taken me there on accident. That, originally, we were supposed to get dinner at the sports bar in the same building, but that I’d been so excited about the movie, he’d kind of gone with it.

I hadn’t been surprised when I found that out. It actually made a lot of sense. It clarified a few things for me that I was struggling to understand.

God, I wish I’d called things off sooner. Wish I’d taken the time to really reflect on how things were between us before I let them get so bad that they turned into the disaster they became.

I try to be a direct, honest person in my day-to-day life. But for whatever reason, when it came to Theo, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face what our relationship had become. We were roommates with alarge number of overlapping friends who, occasionally, had mediocre, half-assed sex.

---