Page 16 of A Small Town Spring

“Success turned my dad into an asshole.An entitled, womanizing, greedy asshole.I can’t let that happen to me.I’ve spent my entire life trying not to be like him.Except, of course, when I wanted to be exactly like him.”

The sadness in his voice hits me hard.I know something about wanting to be like someone and unlike them at the same time.

“My dad wasn’t an asshole,” I offer.“He wasn’t a successful man, either.He died when I was ten because he wouldn’t take an afternoon off his hourly wage job to see a doctor.A cold that turned into pneumonia killed him at fifty.I never wanted to be like him—living paycheck to paycheck, raising two kids on a shoestring.”I sigh and let myself feel the pain of missing him for a moment.“But then again, I wanted to be exactly like him.Loved by his family, his community.”I wonder how real to get, then remember his exhortation—no regrets.“My mom and sister live down in Georgia and I don’t have a family of my own.I have a sweet car, though.An apartment in the city, this place.”I pause.“I wonder sometimes if he’d be proud of me, or sad for me.”

I worry in the silence after my little overshare that I’ve made Toby so uncomfortable that he’ll leave, but he just lifts the camera to his eyes and takes a picture.Of me.

I shake my head.“Not me—the house.And the outside of it, at that.”

He lowers the camera again, smiles.“I know.I just thought you should see how you looked right then.Your heart was on your face.Beautiful.”

He presses some buttons on the camera and turns it around, my own face now on the viewfinder.At first, I don’t grasp what he means—it’s my face, utterly familiar.But then I catch the particular set of my jaw and the slope of my eyebrows.They’re my dad’s eyebrows.I haven’t thought about him this much in ages and I find myself blinking rapidly.

“You all right?”Toby asks gently, removing the camera from my field of vision.

“Sure,” I say, overly loudly.“It’s just—you caught me by surprise with how much I look like him.”

“Do you have a picture?”Toby asks.“Of your dad?”

The only one I know of in the cottage is in my bedroom.“Yeah.”

“Can I see?”

It’s not an odd request when this entire morning has been so surprisingly intimate.

“All right.”I walk across the room and down the short hall that leads to my room in the back.I thought I’d grab the photo and bring it to Toby, but when I glance over my shoulder, he’s trailing me, his amber gaze taking in everything along the way.I cautiously push open the door, but the room isn’t a disaster.A few clothes thrown over the back of the green velvet armchair next to the bed, but nothing incriminating.

“This is my room,” I say unnecessarily.

“Oh, you have French doors leading to your patio,” Toby says excitedly.“I am so jealous.I’d love an outdoor-indoor room.”

“I had them put in after I bought the place.”I pick up a framed photo from the top of my big walnut dresser.It’s my mother and father on their wedding day in the early ‘80s, with the big hair to show for it.I pass it to Toby, who looks at it with a delighted smile.

“Handsome couple.What does your mom do?”

“She’s a retired teacher who substitutes part-time now.And she helps my sister with her twins.”

“Twins?”Toby sounds awed.“How old?”

“Six-year-old identical boys.”

“I bet they’re a lot of fun and a lot of work.”

“It’s good they’re such adorable little terrors or she and her husband might have gone off the deep end a long time ago.”

“Only child here.Always thought it would be fun to be an uncle, though.”He hands the photo back to me.“You do look a lot like your father.”

I take one last glance before setting the picture on the dresser again.“Thanks.”

It should be odd to be alone with Toby in this space, but it’s not.It’s comfortable, and the nervous energy I woke up with is gone, replaced by a need to spend as much time as possible with the man standing a foot away from me, to get to know him in his entirety, to have him know me.We’re already off to a good start.

But I can’t lie to myself about not wanting more from him, even though I accept it’s hopeless.He might have called me beautiful earlier, but I know he meant it in an aesthetic, artist’s eye kind of way.Even if he did mean it differently, he’s off-limits.I don’t mess around with guys in relationships—unless they’re in an open relationship and everyone’s on the same page.That could work for a brief encounter, but not for the kind of relationship the undaunted romantic corner of my heart still wants.

We clearly need to leave this room with its big comfortable bed.“Shall we go take pictures of the outside now?”I suggest.

“Sure.”

“Let me put on some shoes.”

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