7. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
Foster
He said he’s been detained because of business.
He’s an important person with an important job.
He’s just…running late.
I checked my phone for the tenth time in the last three minutes. I’d arrived at Fifties at the precise time Arnav had specified. Sarabeth, the wonderful server, had found me a newly vacated booth.
That had been nearly thirty minutes ago, and now the line of patrons wanting seats went out the door.
I should get up and leave. Let someone in line have the booth. I considered grabbing two stools at the counter, but they were all occupied as well. Fuck it. I can’t hold up the booth anymore. I rose and reached for my coat.
“Hey, Foster.” Sarabeth came up beside me. “You don’t have to go. Why don’t I have the chef whip something up for you? I know you’re famished.”
I gazed into her pitying blue eyes. I’d asked for a table for two and had held off ordering, so clearly she’d pieced together that I’d been stood up. “I…uh…”
“So sorry.” Arnav stepped around Sarabeth and planted a kiss on my cheek. “Can you believe an accident on the road had me taking a detour that led me halfway out of town and then back? I had to go over the dam and come back in the long way. So sorry.” He smiled at Sarabeth. “Could I order a coffee?” He turned back to me. “You don’t have to go, do you? You’re not expected somewhere else?”
He came off with bravado, but I read both the apology and the nervousness in his gaze.
Does he even realize he just kissed me on the cheek? As a way of an apology, but…is he out? Am I now out? I wouldn’t have thought him so careless. Or that he would slip up in such a way. Maybe he thought, because I’d invited him for dinner last night, that I was out. Or because we’d held hands in Kink that I was okay with outward signs of affection. Or maybe he was just stressed about his job and whatever had delayed him.
Regardless, I found I wasn’t as concerned about it as maybe I should’ve been. It wasn’t so much that I was hiding in the closet…I’d just never had a reason to come out. In the end, I tucked myself against him and brushed a kiss to his chin. “I’m glad you’re safe. No, I don’t have anywhere else to be.” I tossed my coat back to the bench seat. “Why don’t we sit?”
“I’ll grab that coffee. I hope no one was hurt in the accident.” Sarabeth gazed at him.
“Seth said not…just too much glass to risk people driving over, and the vehicles hadn’t been towed away. A real mess, but nothing serious.”
At Arnav’s mention of Seth, I drew in a breath. I liked the young RCMP officer. A really good guy. I didn’t like the idea of him standing out on the road for hours on a cold night like this. But that was me—worrying about everyone else while not taking care of myself.
“Glad to hear everyone’s okay.” Sarabeth pointed to the menus on the table. “You know everything in there, and nothing’s changed, but I’ll leave them with you in case you’re looking to try something new.”
Before either of us had a moment to react to her words, she was bustling down toward the front.
“I guess she’s getting my coffee.” Arnav removed his coat. “I really am sorry. I didn’t want to stop and text, and calling felt…” He pushed the gorgeous wool into the booth. “Presumptuous?”
“It wouldn’t have been.” I slid in beside my own down-filled jacket. “You can always call me.” God, please let that not have sounded as needy as I think it does.
“I’ll remember that for next time.” He reached over to grasp my hand, only pulling back at the last moment. “Shit.” He said the word quietly enough so no one else would have overheard him. Good thing because a number of the larger booths were full of families.
I managed a smile. “I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, but we’ve never even discussed whether you’re out.” Again, said quietly. “I am. I mean, after Meenakshi found my stash of gay porn when I was twelve—”
“Twelve?” I might’ve whispered that forcefully. I couldn’t fathom.
He grinned. “Yeah, I was a precocious kid. She told my parents, who sat me down. We spent more time on the pornography issue than the gay stuff. I think they already suspected, and although my mom was a little distressed that she wasn’t likely to get biological grandchildren from me, she was happy to know I was an okay kid. By then, Samara had a couple of kids, and several of my other sisters were clearly headed in that direction. Who knew Minal, the youngest, would have six by the time she was thirty-six? All that stress.”
“All boys, right?” I was taking a bit of a risk, but I really had tried to pay attention last night when we’d been talking.
“Yeah.” His grin widened. “You remembered.”
“A coffee and another hot chocolate.” Sarabeth offered me a warm smile. “On the house.”
“No way.” Arnav shook his head. “Everything’s on me. We’re celebrating, and I’m making up for being late.”
I had to try. “That wasn’t your—”
He held up his hand. “I insist.”
Except he’d paid last night. After a tussle with Stavros over the bill. In the end, he’d accepted a discount and left the difference in a tip for Timothea.
Sarabeth glanced back and forth between the two of us. “You two are adorable.”
“Still new at it,” Arnav pointed out.
She grinned. “There’s a lot of that going around.”
Before I could ask what she meant, she pointed at the menus.
Right. She’s super busy. “I, uh, will have the ham-and-cheese omelet with sourdough bread.”
“I’ll have the spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread.” Arnav handed her the menus. “Because I feel like living dangerously tonight.”
Huh? Oh, did this have something to do with the cholesterol issue he’d mentioned last night? I should’ve done more research about it, but I’d been slammed at work and then had raced home, showered, then headed here.
Boldly, I reached out to take his hands. “Okay, so what happened today? Or what can you share?”
He flashed white teeth with his beaming smile. “I delivered the best news to two of my clients.”
“That sounds great. Does that happen often?”
“Well, sometimes. I’m usually a defense attorney, but sometimes other stuff comes up. I defended a woman about three years ago. I secured probation. She offended again. More probation. Unfortunately, she did it again. Meanwhile, she’s got a young kid, and I’m getting increasingly worried about that kid. I don’t see any signs of abuse, but with the third strike, the judge sends my client to jail, and her kid goes into foster care.”
Oh God. Anything but that…
“I knew the social worker, and she let me know the child had been placed with this really great queer couple.” He sipped his black coffee. “I kept in touch with them on behalf of my client, and everyone sort of hoped for a reunion.” I winced at “hoped for.” “She got out of jail and said she needed time. She also let me know she didn’t need my services anymore. I figured she was good, and as long as she kept to the terms of her probation, everything would work out.”
“But they didn’t.”
“No.” He tapped his index finger against the worn Formica of the table. “Two weeks ago, she got arrested. I won’t say where or for what. That’s not really important. She has a new lawyer now and wanted to see me today.”
My gut clenched.
“Long story short? She relinquished custody of her child and has asked the gay couple to adopt the kid.”
For the first time, I noticed he hadn’t gendered the child. And had been quite generic about gay parents. I would never, not in a million years, share what he was saying to me.
“I shouldn’t be telling you all this.” He winced.
As if he’d read my mind.
“I won’t tell anyone.” I squeezed the hand I still gripped. “You’re happy. I get it. No one else heard.”
The joint was hopping, the music was loud, and we had to huddle close even to hear each other.
“Still…” He held my gaze.
I stared at him “I’m a safe place for you, Arnav. You understand that, right? I mean, you hold my secrets about, you know—”
“I would never—”
“I know. And now you know I’d never.”
Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
I held his gaze. “So you’ve made some people very happy today?”
“You have no idea. Truly, just…I can’t even express how happy they are. Pure joy, you know? What they’ve always dreamed of. Wishing the circumstances were different, of course.”
“Of course. We all hope for the best, but sometimes that just isn’t in the cards.”
He cocked his head.
Oh shit.
“Spaghetti with garlic toast.” Sarabeth put the plate before Arnav as he leaned back.
We dropped hands so I could do the same when she put the omelet before me.
“You guys need anything else? Parmesan cheese?”
We shook our heads.
“Great. Flag me down if you do.” And then she was off again.
“Foster—”
“Eat your food before it gets cold.” Even as I said the words, steam rose from his plate of pasta.
“Foster—”
I let out a sharp breath as I met his gaze. “Not now.”
“Okay. But maybe later?”
I wanted to shout abso-fucking-lutely not. But something in those deep dark-brown eyes had me hesitating. Could I deny him that? The secrets I held most closely to myself? The shit I never shared with anyone? I just didn’t know the answer to that. “Maybe. Some other time.” I’d try for never, but I suspected that was too long of a time to hold up my defenses. I took a tentative bite of my sourdough bread.
Arnav dug into his spaghetti as if he hadn’t eaten in a month. Yet he’d packed in a huge amount of food last night. Maybe he’d skipped a couple of meals today? Or maybe he just had great metabolism? I didn’t. Nearing fifty wasn’t sitting well with me. I didn’t feel that old, even though I knew I was. I kept my hair super close cropped, but eventually those silver strands would appear. I’d already found a couple on my chest and another couple in my whiskers when I let shaving lapse for the weekend.
“You’re not eating.” Arnav pointed to my food. “Is there something wrong?”
I shook my head. “I don’t like super-hot food.”
“Right. I think you said that last night.”
I smiled. “I should clarify. I don’t eat a lot of spicy food, and I don’t enjoy foods that are super-hot in temperature. I always let my food cool a bit. Sarabeth’s used to it. She no longer asks if there’s anything wrong.” Which was precisely what he’d done. Crap. Now I sounded defensive.
“Is that why you haven’t drunk your hot chocolate?”
“Pretty much.” I sipped it now. “Perfect.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “I order my coffee extra hot, eat my food the second it’s out of the oven, and always request extra-spicy.”
“Well, I’d say we couldn’t be more different.” Which left me with a pang. If we were incompatible with the little things, how might we cope with the big things?
He cocked his head. “Different’s good. I don’t want a replica of myself. I have some super annoying habits I wouldn’t want to live with.”
I laughed. “Okay, like what?”
“Like I’m a sucker for rom-coms and always cry at the breakup moment, even though I know the couple is going to get back together.”
I couldn’t envision him crying over anything. “Well, I cry during sad movies.”
He eyed me. “ Old Yeller ?”
I blinked. Then narrowed my eyes. “You did that on purpose.”
“I’ve never seen the film, but Samara said when she was a kid, the adults still thought the movie was a kid’s movie. I looked that up. Showing that to a child is, like, child abuse.”
That had been as true back then as it was now—but I wasn’t going to share that with him. “Little Orphan Annie.”
“Oh, good one. Or Anne of Green Gables . When Matthew dies.”
Again, I blinked. “No fair. I grew up on the Megan Follows. And I remember when Jonathan Crombie died. That was super sad. I mean, the guy was just forty-eight. And gay. He only came out later in his life…” Kind of like me .
Arnav’s eyes widened. “Okay, that I didn’t know. Makes me want to google him.”
“And Colleen Dewhurst died tragically as well.”
“I see a rabbit hole of research appearing.”
I pursed my lips.
He smiled. “Okay, maybe not. Although I wouldn’t say no to a rewatch. Pooja made me watch when I was a kid. Like, she’s eleven years older than me, and forcing me to watch something that she wants to make me cry. But I’m stoic. Now, Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant? Every time.”
“Huh?”
“Notting Hill.” His eyes widened. “Oh my God, you haven’t seen Notting Hill ? What are you doing tomorrow night?”
Since the answer was the same literally every night of my life, I answered without thought. “Nothing.”
“Great. Why don’t I come over tomorrow night so you can hold me while I cry during Notting Hill ?”
My chest expanded at the thought of Arnav coming over to my house the next night. Perhaps I should’ve found it bold of him to assume I would allow him into my house. Except he knew where I lived, likely how I lived, and I didn’t worry. Somehow, this was right. If I’d known this was what he wanted, I would’ve made the invitation.
Part of me was curious as to why we couldn’t go to his place, but that didn’t matter. I had a private house. I lived alone. Welcoming him would make me feel good—and something assured me he understood that. I’d be comfortable in my own home. With my familiar things. In the place I felt most safe. He wasn’t invading—he was adding a new element of comfort.
I found the courage and offered a wide smile. “I can’t wait.”