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“I hope so.” He swipes at the moisture threatening to spill over the side of his eyelid, then clears his throat. “Sorry. That’s embarrassing. Pretend you didn’t see that.”
The problem is that Ididsee it, and it completely melted my heart.
I smile back at him. “You know, my dad cries.”
Tyler scratches the top of his head. “I’m not crying. My food is spicy.”
“Your baked potato is spicy?”
“Fine.” He slides away his food container. “I cry. I’m a crier.”
It’s humorous that Tyler thinks his sensitive side is a strike against him, because if anything, it makes me want to push the food off the table in front of us and tackle him like I’m a linebacker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“There’s another embarrassing secret about me you discovered. Anything else you want to ask me? Like whether or not I pee in the shower?”
I suppress my smile, trying to keep a straight face. “I think we should hold off on that question for a little while longer.”
“Probably a good idea.”
“But I would like to know how you and Kristen met.” She’s the last piece of family in Tyler’s life that I need to know about.
His smile widens, and a sliver of jealousy breaks loose inside me.
How can I be jealous of a woman that’s no longer living? I’m a terrible person.
“We met in college. I went with some friends to her apartment after one of my baseball games, and we talked the entire night about sports. Teams we loved, teams we hated. Kristen was big into all of that. Everything came easy with her. After that night we spent every waking moment together, and by the next weekend, we were boyfriend and girlfriend. That was thirteen years ago, and I haven’t been with another woman since.”
Tyler’s eyes glow as he talks, and I decide that I’m not jealous of Kristen. I’m jealous of the look in his eyes when he talksaboutKristen. What if Tyler, or any man for that matter, never looks like that when he talks about me? I don’t know anything about sports. If I did, would he like me more? Or would something like that just make him sad, remindinghim of Kristen all the time, like Anna Mae reminds me of my mom?
I don’t know.
I can’t think about it right now.
It’s too complicated to sort through and I don’t have to figure it out tonight.
* * *
TYLER
I’m glad that insertingmyself into Meg’s night with a half-eaten baked potato isn’t our first official date, but I do like how things are going. We’re getting to the deeper stuff. She's opened up to me before about her mom, and I’ve told her about my dad, but tonight feels different. I mean, I teared up in front of her.
Practicallycried.
It’s like I've unlocked the next level or entered the final round of a game neither of us knows how to play.
I wish we were playing Go Fish. I could destroy her at Go Fish.
At least I've finally gotten my foot in the door—literally. I'm walking around her apartment, peeling back another layer to her.
“I like seeing you in your space,” I say, surveying the shelves on the wall near the couch. “You have it decorated cute for Halloween. That comes from your mom, right?”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“You told me in your backyard when we were on the swing.”
Her lips lift. “That right. I like decorating for the holidays, like she did. I know I'm the only one who lives here, but I still like to have it festive.” She points to a pumpkin on the top shelf. “A lot of these decorations were my mom's.”
“That's really cool. It's a great way to keep her memory alive.”
