23. Rowan
CHAPTER 23
ROWAN
T he argument with Gil left my insides feeling like crushed glass. If I thought about him for too long, my chest would squeeze and the pain threatened to undo me. So I didn’t think about Gil. I went to work and ignored Brian, and everyone else for that matter. I worked through lunch hour and when I came home, I threw myself into finishing up the renovations in my bathroom.
Fisher was in a mood too, but every time I asked about it, he said he was fine. School was fine . His friends were fine . Everything was fine . He didn’t need anything from me, so it would seem. He sulked around the house with his earbuds in, perfecting the whole moody teenager schtick.
The last thing I wanted to do was fight with Fisher, so I left him be. The fight with Gil still played on loop in my head despite my efforts to block it out. To forget it happened. I’d acted like an asshole. But he’d caught me off-guard by knowing about the date. I hadn’t mentioned it and I wasn’t sure I was going to.
The truth was that I didn’t know how to bring it up without showing all my cards. Yes, I went on a date, but the whole time I was out with Brian, I wanted it to be Gil. I wanted him to pick me up and take me out. I wanted to go eat somewhere and then maybe go for a drive. Laugh. Talk. Kiss.
I wanted to hold his hand or snuggle up next to him in a theater. And dumping all that on him was hardly fair. He’d been crystal clear about his boundaries from the start. It was me who’d let his emotions run wild. It was me who’d gotten so invested in a man who liked me just fine enough to fuck me into oblivion, but didn’t want more. And when he’d mentioned the date, he’d sounded completely unaffected by it, and I hated that. He might as well have been reading his grocery list for how much he cared that I’d gone on a date.
So maybe I’d blown things with the motorcycle out of proportion. Fisher had been excited about the ride, and I trusted Gil. He was good with Fisher. He took Fisher’s moody teenage attitude in stride, but didn’t take any of his shit. Fisher liked him.
I liked him.
Exhausted, I slumped down onto the floor of my bathroom and let out a deep breath. I still had so much work to do on the house. It was a never-ending list of things and for every task I crossed off, three more seemed to take its place. Watching Gil help Fisher with his bike unlocked all kinds of silly daydreams for me. Ones where I had someone rugged and handsome to help me fix broken things. But it was stupid of me to let myself go there, even briefly. It was Fisher and me against the world. And eventually he’d grow up and move on and it would just be me.
Before I could get too mired in my pit of loneliness, Fisher poked his head in the door. His hood was up, and his earbuds were in. He started to say something, then popped the earbuds out and held them in his hand. His brow furrowed.
“What is it, bud?”
“What’s for dinner?” Fisher asked.
“What is there?”
Fisher shrugged. “You didn’t go shopping.”
Fuck. I hadn’t. I was supposed to go a couple of days ago, but the thing with Gil had turned me inside out. Not that I could tell that to Fisher, though he wasn’t stupid. He knew something was up, even if there was no way he’d know what exactly.
“I’ll go now and I’ll pick up some takeout on the way home. Did you want to come with me?”
Fisher thought about it for a moment, but shook his head. “Maybe next time.”
“Sure, next time.” I shot him a smile to show that I wasn’t angry or upset and groaned as I got to my feet. Fisher stuffed his earbuds back in and disappeared upstairs to his room. We still had to paint up there, but he hadn’t picked a color yet.
Maybe next weekend we could paint it together. It wasn’t like I’d be sneaking down the street to see Gil anytime soon. It felt like a door had closed between us. Like a wall had been erected where there wasn’t one before. And he stole my bowtie. I’d given the floor around us a cursory glance, but the bowtie hadn’t been there.
I shouldn’t like the idea of him keeping it, but I liked the idea that he was keeping a piece of me. All I had of him were the memories of the way he touched me. The way he said my name. His smile when he thought I couldn’t see it and the way his mouth felt on mine. Memories of Gil were a bruise I couldn’t stop pressing.
I took the long way around so I wouldn’t have to drive by Gil’s house. Pathetic, me? Probably. The grocery store was practically deserted when I’d arrived. Without a list to guide me, or a real idea of what we needed besides everything, I grabbed a cart and started at one end of the store.
I made sure to get some of Fisher’s favorite snacks, as well as some pantry staples. All the work I’d done the past few days to outrun thoughts of Gil was catching up to me. Circling back around to the deli, I decided to grab something from there instead of making another stop for dinner on the way home.
I ordered a box of tenders and a couple sides of potato wedges. Tonight, ketchup could be the vegetable. Tomorrow I’d go back to being regular old Rowan. Responsible parent and functioning member of society. I just needed to sulk a little longer.
Turning to head to the registers, I came face to face with Brian. He looked far better than I felt.
“Rowan, how are you?”
“I’m good. Uh… just getting dinner. And a few things. How are you?” I cringed inwardly at how stupid I sounded. How stilted and fake. The worst part was that Brian didn’t do anything wrong. I never should have agreed to go on the date in the first place. My feelings for Gil weren’t something that I should have ignored. I should’ve walked away the first time I felt something more than lust simmer between us.
“About the other night…” I started to apologize when Brian lifted his hand, stopping me.
“Rowan, it’s fine. You don’t need to explain.”
“I feel like I led you on.” I shuffled my feet like an embarrassed teenager.
Brian shrugged. “Maybe I asked you out because I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere. I mean, on paper, we’re a good fit, but I knew at lunch that day that we’d be better friends.” He shot me an apologetic look.
“I really am sorry, though. I’m kind of hung up on someone else.”
Brian grinned at me, though he also seemed tired and a bit melancholy. “You and me both. Hey,” he paused, looking a bit sheepish. “Can we still do lunch, though? As friends? I’m kind of short on those.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Wow, that didn’t sound as pathetic in my head.”
“Lunch would be nice. As friends. I don’t exactly have a stacked social calendar myself.” At least if we were both pitiful, it cancelled the other out.
“Great.” Brian’s smile seemed to come a little easier now that we’d established what a bad idea the date had been to begin with—on both our parts. Knowing he was also hung up on someone else made me feel better too. It reminded me that I wasn’t alone in the world. That other people went through the same things I did.
After my wife died, it had felt that way for me. Like all I had left was Fisher. It was a hard mindset to break out of. I had to force myself to join parent groups at Fisher’s school. I tried to stay plugged into the community and other people, but life as a single parent isn’t easy. Eventually it became simpler to do my own thing. To just worry about Fisher and his quality of life. That was the thing to prompted the move. No matter what I did, life back in Crestview hadn’t been easy on him.
Fisher seemed to have settled in well here. He had a few friends he hung out with at school and had even hung around with them after school a few times. It’s all I wanted for him. A bit of happiness. A few friends. The guy down the road who taught him how to fix his bike had been a bonus. Gil was never part of the original plan. After all, how could he be? I hadn’t known he existed, and even if I had, it wasn’t like he was banging my door down, begging to be let in.
By the time I finished shopping, I was in a foul mood. I hated how stuck on Gil I was. How I had all these feelings swirling inside me like a storm with nowhere to go. They battered my insides until the whole of me felt tender and raw. And, of course, Brian was waiting for me outside the store.
“We meet again.” I forced a smile, though I didn’t know why I bothered. Brian knew I wasn’t exactly in the sunniest of moods.
“I was halfway out of the parking lot when I turned around and came back to ask if we could trade phone numbers. And to ask if you’re okay.”
“I’ll survive. But yeah, we can trade numbers.” Instead of handing my phone over to Brian so he could put his number in, I did it myself. I wished that Gil and I were the kind of people who texted back and forth so at least I’d have had an old catalog of messages to scroll through when I couldn’t get him out of my head. Instead, I had nothing. Just recollections of the way he looked at me when he opened his door. Like he was happy to see me and surprised about that fact, but willing not to question it too closely so he could kiss me. Because kissing me was necessary.
My imagination took liberties with the memories sometimes. Clearly I’d imagined things between us that were never there.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Brian asked again. “You can talk to me, you know.”
“I know.” I let out a sigh and sent Brian a text so he’d have my number in his phone. “But I have to get home and feed my kid.”
“Okay. You owe me lunch, though.” Brian looked like he had more to say, or ask, or that he wanted to press me again on my low mood, but thought better of it. “I’ll see you around, Rowan.”
“Yeah, see you.” I watched Brian walk away for a few seconds before I headed for my car. After I unloaded the groceries, I was going to stuff my face with chicken tenders, then crawl into bed and pretend that tomorrow would be a better day.