Page 34 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
Oh, hell, I thought, just freaking ask.
“Would you like an appetizer? I’ll brag a little and say the antipasto platter—”
“Are we on a date right now, Roman?” I blurted, cutting him off.
And cut him off I certainly had. He went still, mouth still partly open, frozen in the middle of his sentence. We sat there staring at each other for about a year—okay, ten seconds, maybe, but it felt like a year.
When he replied, he hedged. “How would you feel if we were?”
How would I feel? Glad. A little giddy, even. But hesitant as well. Part of me still felt like the teenager babysitting his kid. That’s dumb, I know it now and I knew it that night, but feelings are not always smart, you know?
Also, and more importantly, I was only guessing about his marital situation, and I needed the real answer. “To know how to answer that, I need to know about Mrs. Mendoza. When I left Bluster, you were very married. I noticed you don’t wear a ring anymore, but ...”
He looked at his bare left hand and didn’t look up again as he answered. “I took the ring off about a year and a half ago.” He met my eyes and dived in. “Carla and Gabriel died seven and a half years ago. They were coming back from her folks’ place inRedding, and a logging truck on 299 took a switchback too fast. Hit them head on and sent them all over the cliff.”
I was instantly sick and sad and profoundly guilty. I’d been thinking divorce! “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I asked!”
“Don’t be. It’s been long enough that the pain is an old ache. For the most part, I’ve grown used to it. Besides, it’s common knowledge here, and it’s relevant. I should have said earlier.”
“No. That’s a thing you say in your own time.”
That made him smile a little. “Is the time right for me to ask about your ... situation?”
My loss was fresher, and the ache maybe keener, but there was more than grief in my feelings. There was anger and betrayal as well. “Micah—my husband, Wyatt’s dad—died about fifteen months ago. He was an avid climber. That day he was free-soloing a cliff face and lost his grip. Dropped about eighty feet.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. And then, right after he died, I found out he’d drained all our assets on stupid investments. Wyatt and I lost everything while we were still in our funeral clothes. It’s a big reason we’re here.” There was more to the story, like the implosion of my career, but for now, those were the important points.
Dustin was back with the wine. Roman and I sat back and let him do his thing. I watched as Roman performed the Ritual of the Fancy Wine. Personally, I’m content with wine in a box, so all that sniffing and swishing and swirling is lost on me. Kinda hot watching Roman perform, though.
He approved the wine, and Dustin filled our glasses. We ordered—the antipasto to share, swordfish for me and halibut for Roman, and a finish of caprese salad.
When Dustin left, Roman honed his attention on me again. He set his elbows on the table and leaned in a little. “This is a date if you want it to be a date, Leo.”
I got that good little flutter at the base of my throat. “Because that’s what you want?” I asked as I leaned in a little, too.
He nodded. “It’s what I want.”
So here’s the question that crawled unwanted into my head at that moment:Why?
Two weeks ago, it had been two decades since we’d laid eyes on each other. Way back those two decades, I’d been a teenager and he’d been a man with a family—a young man with a family, but still. It would have been creepy—it would have been inappropriate—for him to be attracted to me then. I had a pass because teenage girls are supposed to crush on older guys, but it doesn’t work the other way.
Iknowhe hadn’t liked me that way back then. He’d been manifestly in love with his wife. I don’t mean performatively, like he doted on her ostentatiously when people were looking. You could just tell, even if he wasn’t around her. He loved her. To me, he’d simply been a nice, handsome man who’d trusted me with his child when he took his beloved on romantic dates. Like this, probably.
But I’d been back for about a minute and a half, and Roman had decided he wanted to date me? That seemed a bit strange. Had he been with anyone since he’d lost Mrs. Mendoza and Gabriel? Why now? Why me?
Again, I couldn’t deal with so many questions, so I simply asked. “Why?”
He frowned and sat back a bit. “Why? Why what?”
“Why do you want to date me?” Too late, I saw that it would have been better, safer, to ask why he wanted this particular dinner to be a date, but the broader question was already out, so I let it stand.
Roman didn’t seem to care about the distinction between the particular and the broad. Even more interesting, he’d picked up on the root of my question. “If you’re asking if I was attractedto you before, the answer is no. I saw that you were pretty, of course, and I ... I suppose I felt something like ... I don’t know, maybe protective of you, but no, I wasn’t attracted to anyone but Carla for as long as I had her, and for a long while after that.”
“Protective of me? Why?”
His head dropped to the side an inch or two. “Because of your mom.”
