Page 34 of The Contractor's Rose
ROSEMARIE
After a few silent minutes,I moved from Gavin’s lap to gather our dishes. He made a comment about me not needing to clean up, but I protested that he’d made dinner so I was going to help. He relented, but only if I allowed him to dry and put them away. I washed our plates, silverware, and the pans, passing each to his waiting hands.
This version of Gavin—the one I’d just seen open up at that kitchen table—was the same one I saw years ago in my parents’ kitchen.
Back when I was too young to understand what grief could do to a man.
Back then, his eyes didn’t sparkle like they had earlier, while we sat at the dinner table. They were dim, vacant. Even now, on holidays or at summer BBQs, I’d sometimes catch flashes of that same expression when he thought no one was watching. It was his brokenness, covered in guilt. The pain he never said out loud but somehow still filled the room.
There’s no world in which my childhood—survivingparents who treated me as a grown adult that needed no parental guidance rather than their daughter—compared to losing someone like Vanessa the way Teagan did. But tonight … seeing that pain unfold from him like smoke from a long-suffocated fire … it made me understand her more. Her silence. Her rebellion. Her distance.
She came from a man who’d tried so hard to carry it all alone. And from an outsider’s perspective, it seemed like she had been doing the same.
Once all the dishes were clean, Gavin’s voice tugged me out of my thoughts. “You want a glass of wine? Beer? Hot chocolate?” he asked, already moving toward a bar cart on the other side of the kitchen. It was fully stocked with glasses, mixers, and alcohol, with a mini cooler next to it housing beer and wine.
"Wine, please," I said. He selected a bottle hesitantly and poured it like someone who didn't often pour wine: generously. The liquid nearly touched the rim.
I bit back a smile. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”
He gave me a quick, crooked grin as he handed me the glass. “A tipsy Rose could be cute,” he said as I took a few sips while he returned to picking a drink for himself.
Heavens above, that grin.
He popped the tab on a can of craft beer with one hand, that thick forearm flexing, and then nodded toward the double doors. “Come sit with me?”
I followed him outside, barefoot and with wineglass in hand, into the quiet night. The deck was wide, stretching toward the trees behind the house like a secret haven. The air smelled like pine and damp grass, the sky dark was enough that the stars blinked through. A large L-shaped sectionalwrapped around a low table with a built-in firepit. Gavin hit a button and, with a smallclick, flames danced up into the crisp evening air, casting a soft orange glow across his face.
He sank into the cushions and waved for me. “Come here.”
I didn’t hesitate. I slid down beside him, tucking my feet up under me and turning slightly to rest my arm along the back of the couch. I was close enough to feel the warmth of him before we even touched. But I couldn’t help it—I leaned in, just a bit closer, until his thigh brushed against my leg. He looked down at me with that same soft smile from the kitchen, then reached for my legs without asking and guided them gently across his lap.
His hands were warm on my bare skin as he started tracing slow, soft circles just above my ankle, working his way up in light strokes that made my whole body melt. His touch was both casual and intimate, like he’d done this a thousand times.
“I used to never come out here,” he said quietly, his thumb pressing lightly into my calf muscle. “Didn’t make the time. I was always working. Always moving. I thought if I stayed busy enough, I wouldn’t feel anything.”
I nodded, taking a few sips of wine, fingers curling around the stemless wineglass. “And now?”
“Now I try to come out here every night, when it’s warm enough. Just to sit, and think. Or don’t think. Sometimes I just listen to the trees. It’s quiet out here. Peaceful. I never really let myself have that before.”
I let the moment settle between us, enjoying the warming of him, the fire, the wine, and the gentle brush of his fingers. Then I spoke. “Can I ask you something?”
He glanced at me, eyes steady. “You can always ask me anything.”
I looked down at the wine, now almost empty, and prayed to the liquid courage gods to help me string a sentence together that wouldn’t ruin everything.
There was so much I wanted to ask.
Why he blamed himself. Why he carried guilt like a second skin. Why he always looked like he was bracing for impact.
But I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. He wasn’t, either.
So instead I said, “Why now?”
He blinked. “Why now?”
I nodded. “Us. Now. Why?”
He gave a deep, throaty laugh and tilted his head back, eyes squinting in amusement. “Are you Tarzan now?”
