TEN
Nate
R ose slowly backs up and sinks into a chair at the table. All the color has drained from her face. “You’re Big Spoon?”
I shove my phone into my pocket and let out a long breath. I don’t know how I didn’t realize this sooner. Her username literally says ‘Rose.’ She joined Blindly by accident while looking for an elite singles app. She works in the city. She has problematic parents.
I run my hand down my beard and stare at her for a long moment before I nod. “Yep.”
Her mouth drops open like my verbal confirmation is an additional shock.
I’m not sure what to say. The girl I’ve been talking to on Blindly is perfect, sweet, adventurous, and…not Rose. Not snooty and obsessed with her overpriced shoe collection, or afraid to touch a snowflake.
But she is.
It’s the same person.
I shake my head in disbelief and almost laugh. “This is insane.”
Rose shakes her head at me too, but she looks irritated. She turns her eyes to the boots on her feet and suddenly kicks them off and sends them scooting halfway across the floor.
“I’m wearing your wife’s boots?” She stares at them, horrified. “That’s…that’s so wrong .”
I clench my jaw. “You needed something to keep your feet dry. The shoes you brought—”
“Are expensive garbage.” She attempts to complete my sentence. “Yes, I know Nate. But God, this is so weird. They’re hers .” She stands up and puts her hand on her head. “And why didn’t you tell me you had a daughter?”
I sigh. This is a mess. “I was going to tell you before we met in person. Tonight, probably. I was just trying to give you a minute to come to terms with my marriage first.”
I haven’t moved from my spot, but Rose is starting to pace. She spins and looks at me with narrowed eyes. “It doesn’t make any sense. The person I’ve been talking to… You’re nothing like him.”
I shrug. “You’re nothing like her.”
Her eyes dart to my pocket and then she holds out her hand. “Let me see your phone.”
“Why?” I narrow my eyes right back at her.
“I need proof,” she replies simply, tapping her socked foot on the ground.
I sigh and dig my phone out. I open Blindly and hand it over.
She stares at it for a long moment, then her shoulders fall and she hands it back. “I’d like you to take me to my car now.”
I shake my head. “Roads aren’t cleared yet.”
She huffs and starts to the door. “I’ll walk then.”
Laughing this time, I return to drying the dishes. “You’re not walking to your car. It’s ten miles, and it’s probably buried past the exhaust. You’d poison yourself with carbon monoxide if you start it up.”
She stops and crosses her arms with a grumble.
I don’t say anything while I dry a long skewer. I’m too busy in my own head replaying all the personal things I told her online. They felt right being said to ASingleRose, but it feels wrong that this Rose knows them now.
“Why aren’t you more shocked?” she spits finally. “Did you know it was me?”
I stop and raise a brow. “Why in the world would I keep it from you if I knew?”
“ Did you know?” she repeats.
I sigh. I wish I did. “No.”
“Then why are you so nonchalant about all this?” Her arms are still crossed.
I slide the skewer into a drawer. “Because there’s nothing we can do about it. We accepted this risk when we joined the app.”
“Pft…” She shifts back and forth on her feet and stares pointedly at me. “I didn’t choose to take this risk. I didn’t even want to stay on the app, but then you—”
“I never made you stay,” I interrupt her firmly.
She chews on the inside of her cheek and holds my gaze. I think she might say something, but she eventually just shakes her head and rubs the bridge of her nose.
At this point, I’m mostly annoyed that my chance at getting back into the dating field has been postponed. I’ve been happier this week than I’ve been in a long time. And I really liked this girl. I haven’t opened up to anyone like that since Amber.
I gulp back the pain of her absence when it hits me again. It doesn’t stab me the same way it used to, but it still stings. My last night with her flashes across my mind. I’ll never forget the way she looked as she lay in her bed in hospice, so frail and tired. I remember watching the tears rim her eyes when she told me she wanted me to move on. She didn’t want to go, but she had such a beautiful confidence in her voice when she told me to find someone to love me, and to love Kara too.
I squeeze my eyes shut while I turn to dry another skewer. Rose is nothing like Amber. Amber grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. Her family barely had enough to get by. She could make a five-star meal from a bag of beans. She could change a tire even faster than me. She built the chicken coop in the backyard for Kara. She did that after her diagnosis . Because she knew Kara would need something to make her smile.
Rose doesn’t know how to cook, she wouldn’t even begin to know how to cope with my average salary, and she wouldn’t want to. And I can’t imagine ever seeing her get her hands dirty.
Amber wanted me to move on. But not with someone like Rose.
“So, what are we gonna do?” Rose says from behind me, and my eyes fly open because I’ve almost forgotten she’s still here.
I turn to find her staring at me expectantly. “You’re gonna sleep here again tonight.” I motion toward her room. “And then tomorrow I’ll dig your car out and you can head home. It’s simple, really.”
She looks at me like I’ve missed the point. “I mean…about us.”
I raise both brows. “Oh, um. Well, I mean, it’s clear we’ve made a mistake. So, we should just…” My palms feel sweaty, and I don’t know why. “…move on?”
She turns her eyes to the floor and runs her hand through her hair. “Yeah, you’re right. Ok.”
I blink at her for a moment. She seems almost disappointed. But I lower my voice. “We both know I’m not who you’re looking for.”
“Right.” She still doesn’t look at me.
“There’s literally no way we could have known this was going to happen. And maybe we’ve discovered why an app that restricts identities is not a great idea,” I set the towel down and cross my arms.
She finally lifts her eyes to mine again. They’re a steel blue; soft and severe at the same time. She’s gorgeous. I’m not denying that. The first time I walked into her office, I may have spent a little too long studying her tight skirt and the undone button she hadn’t noticed at the top of her blouse. And earlier tonight at Nelson’s , for just a moment, I relished the curve of her body against mine when I taught her how to shoot pool.
But it ends there. She’s not my type in any other way.
She’s studying me now like she might find a secret hidden in my eyes. And I let her. I stare right back, searching her just the same.
“I’m going to bed,” she finally says with a sigh as she blinks away and begins to retire.
“We can leave at eight in the morning,” I call after her.
“Fine,” she replies. And then I’m alone.
I finish drying the last dish and then retrieve Amber’s boots from their haphazard spots on the floor. I run my finger across the stitching on the side, remembering the way they looked on her. Remembering the way she would wear them when she made snow angels with four-year-old Kara in our yard. I don’t know why I kept them. I donated all her clothes over a year ago. But the boots remained in the closet. A lingering memory of those beautiful moments.
Seeing Rose wear them affected me differently than I expected. I thought it would hurt. But instead, it actually gave me hope. Hope that someone could fill Amber's shoes someday. In my life and in Kara’s.
And it seemed harmless to let Rose wear them, but that was before I knew she was ASingleRose. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have offered them. I didn’t want her to fill Amber’s shoes. Not literally. She’s right, it’s now somehow…wrong.
I walk to the hall closet and return them to the place in the back next to the box of Christmas decorations. Then I check the coals in the fireplace, shut off the lights, and retire to my bedroom, where I flop down in bed and pull out my phone.
I open Blindly and scroll through our conversation. My chest tightens as I realize this is over. I miss her already. I miss what could have been. Twenty minutes ago, the promise of potential between us gave me more hope than I’ve felt in a long time. Now it’s been ripped away, replaced by that cold empty place inside me. A place I know all too well.
I roll over in bed, close my eyes, and bury my head in the pillow, trying to block it out. But behind my eyelids, I see Rose. I see her out the window when she tiptoed through the snow with Kara this morning to collect eggs. I see the sharp contrast between the grimace on her face when she left and the giggles she shared with Kara when they returned through the door. I see the two of them sitting on the floor while Kara thumbed through her notebook of drawings and Rose pointed out her favorites and patiently asked questions. Kara told me this afternoon that she thinks Rose is ‘super fun for an adult.’
I remember the way she looked tonight at Nelson’s , sipping her beer happily like the rest of us. I’m sure she felt wildly out of place, but she didn’t complain. She actually seemed like she enjoyed herself. Maybe, if she tried, she could fit into my world. Maybe if I tried, I could fit into hers. Maybe there’s a world that accommodates both of us. If she truly has been honest on Blindly, maybe there really was something common between us.
I can still feel her soft hands gripping her pool cue as I taught her how to shoot. The rise and fall of her shoulders beneath mine, and the curve of her ass against my hips; I lost myself for a moment then, almost touching my nose to her neck as I breathed her in. She smelled like roses. Go figure. And I loved it. She’s the kind of delicate beautiful reserved only for women who don’t get their hands dirty. I usually hate that, but damn she looks like every inch of her skin is as soft as a petal. And her lips…perfectly pink and full. I wonder what they taste like. I wonder how she’d react if I sucked one of them between mine. I wonder what she’d do if I wound my hand in her hair, pressed myself against her, and ground my hips into hers.
I wonder if she could ever actually want that too.
I can’t stop the fantasy, even though I know I should. So, I let it consume me tonight because it makes me feel warmth, and promise, and hope .
And I need that.