Page 87 of All I Ask
I shake my head. “I didn’t hate you, Derek. I didn’t understand. I was hurt, and angry, but I never hated you. I loved you too much to hate you.”
The waiter clears his throat and we both lean back with a polite smile. My heart is beating against my chest and I grab the wine, thankful for the distraction. That was a pretty intense first ten minutes of a date.
We both order the pasta with a grin shared between us. After the waiter leaves, Derek and I sit in comfortable silence. There’s so much to unbox from our previous conversation, I think we both need a second to process.
“Did Chastity know you were coming out?”
“She did. I don’t keep much from her and I thought if she was going to hear about our date, it was better coming from me.”
“Again, another display of how inept I am at dealing with my own kid.”
God, I can only imagine what that means. “I take it Everly knows?”
“She does.”
“And she took it well, I see.”
He laughs. “It’s hard. She knew that you and Meghan didn’t get along.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true.” I didn’t have a problem with his wife. And really, his wife had nothing on me. I didn’t write that damn journal entry. I never once made any kind of advance toward Derek. They were married, and no matter how broken I was over it, I didn’t do anything to warrant her hatred. “I thought I got along with Meghan, she didn’t like me for somethingyoudid.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not really first-date discussion.”
“I don’t think you and I could have an authentic first date,” I say with a smile. I don’t want my first, and probably only, date with Derek to be a bad thing. “We might as well call it what it is when it comes to us—weird.”
I want to be able to remember tonight with affection. This has been something I’ve dreamed of and now it’s here. The last thing I want is us spending it bickering or talking about heavy shit.
“How can you still do that?”
“Do what?”
“Change topics so fast. It was always something I wished I could do.”
“It’s a gift,” I say and then take a sip of my wine.
I’ve never really tried to dwell on things that don’t matter. I like to handle it and move on, except where Derek is concerned. He’s always been my weakness.
“Okay, well, how did Chastity take it?”
“The truth?” I ask.
“Always.”
Chastity is a great kid. She never has given me pushback and usually is very supportive when it comes to things regarding me living a life, but this time not so much. “I want to preface this by saying it’s not you.”
“It’s my daughter.”
I nod. “She loves you. She thinks you’re really funny, clearly she doesn’t know your humor is lacking, and she’s learning a lot by working with you. I think she’s just afraid that you and I could mess that up.”
She also said she’ll cut all my hair off in my sleep if I ever think she’s going to live under the same roof as Everly. Sad thing is, I don’t doubt her.
“I would never stop allowing her to work with me. Chastity is great with the animals and a huge help,” he says earnestly.
“Other than she came back telling me her male cat is actually a pregnant female.”
“Yeah, there’s that, but she’s been reading a lot about what to expect—”
“Oh, I heard all about it. I didn’t realize they even have photos to help guide her through.”
