CHAPTER NINE
Naomi
Sunday, it was my turn to check all the barrels and demis in the barn.
I was two-thirds of the way through when the barn door opened.
The bright sunshine pierced the dimly lit space like a shiny sword, and I glanced toward the tall, broad-shouldered figure ambling toward me.
With the sunlight behind him, I couldn’t make out his face, but I knew who it was just by the way he walked.
My belly stirred in both good and bad ways.
He left so abruptly last night after finding out my age.
Was it because of my age, or entirely unrelated?
I knew a panic attack when I saw one.
Not that I was prone to them myself, but Sam had them from time to time, and Mabel said that’s what her dad had.
She was an interesting kid.
Very well-spoken, very direct, incredibly smart, if not a little socially awkward. But she was polite, helped clean up the kitchen before she left with Tom and Danica, and thanked all of us for having her.
She was welcome back anytime.
He slowed his roll as he approached me, hands in his pockets, biceps bunched, making those sexy tattoos pop. My mouth grew a little dry as I gave myself an extra half a second to ogle his muscles before bringing my gaze to his face. “Hi,” I said softly.
“Hi.”
I set down my clipboard on the shelf and faced him. “Everything okay?”
“No.”
Oh no.
“Is it Mabel?”
He shook his head. “No. She’s fine. Kid is resilient.”
“Most kids are. Bodies and brains are far more elastic than the rest of us.”
His lips twisted, highlighting the sexy white scar. “Listen … about last night …”
“You don’t have to—”
He swallowed hard, and my attention was drawn to his large Adam’s apple, but only for a second.
He was avoiding eye contact and I glanced down to see him wringing his hands together.
All I wanted to do was reach out and still them for him.
Let him know he didn’t have to explain, apologize or discuss it any further.
“I do,” he finally said. “I need to apologize for my behavior. For the way I just booked it out of here so abruptly and rudely. It was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
“Mabel said you had a panic attack. Was it over something I said or did?”
His head shook again, but then he said, “Yes.” I could tell he was struggling, so I just stood there patiently and waited for him to collect his thoughts. “No. Sort of. You told me your age and it kind of triggered me.”
Okay …
My age triggered him? Well fuck that and fuck him.
“I’m twenty-six.”
It took me a second to do some math, but when I did, my eyes widened in surprise. He was twenty-six and had a thirteen-year-old daughter. “Whoa. And Mabel is yours biologically?”
“Yes. She is my biological daughter, who I conceived with my stepmother. She was … is seventeen years older than me. It was,” he swallowed, “it was not a situation I consented to. She molested me and sexually assaulted me since I was eight.”
My hand flew up and covered my mouth as a river of ice cascaded down the length of my spine. “Oh my god.”
“She was just granted parole yesterday. That was the phone call I received. So needless to say, I’ve been a little on edge. Not exactly myself.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah … as you can guess, I’m pretty fucked up when it comes to women and relationships.
I … I’ve never had a girlfriend before. I’ve never been in a relationship.
Besides Kyla—that’s Mabel’s mother’s name—I haven’t been intimate with any other women.
For a while there, I thought that I might be asexual because I never really found myself attracted to other women.
But … I don’t think so because I find myself thinking about you.
And I think that I have feelings for you. ”
He inflated his cheeks like a chipmunk, then pushed the air out before he awkwardly rocked back on his heels. “There you go. That’s me in a fucked-up nutshell.”
“Oh.”
His lips twisted in a cute way. “Yeah.”
I wasn’t buying the casual way he was acting and shrugging this all off.
Not for a second. This couldn’t be easy to discuss, not with me, not with anyone.
And the fact that his abuser had just been granted parole …
if I didn’t know for a fact that Ephram was dead, but was instead just in prison and up for parole too, I’d be shitting bricks and booking the next rocket to the moon.
This had to be a defense mechanism. In fact, I knew it was. Because I did similar things when discussing my traumatic past. I downplayed it. I didn’t go into expanded detail. I gave the cliff notes version with minimal emotion and attempted to redirect the conversation.
He needed to know he didn’t have to do that with me though.
I nodded gently, letting him know I understood and that I wasn’t judging him. “So then, when you found out my age, you became triggered because you think I’m too old for you?”
Tugging his hands free of his pockets, he gestured with them, tossing them in the air a little.
“I don’t know. I mean, yes. It triggered me.
And I started to think that maybe that’s my kink …
you know? That I’m only attracted to women older than me because of what she did.
That my brain is all fucked up.” He twirled his finger to his temple and bugged out his eyes.
I nodded. Okay, this was starting to make more sense.
Well, as much sense as something this fucked up could. Because this was seriously fucked up.
I thought my life and past were traumatizing, but this was insane.
“Does … does Mabel know about her mother?”
“Mabel and I have zero secrets. She’s too smart to keep anything from anyway. It was easy enough for her to do the math, then start asking questions.”
I was beginning to feel like a bobble head the way my head just kept moving back and forth so freely on my neck. “Right. Right.”
“I called my therapist when I got home.”
“That’s good.”
“He asked me if I started to have these feelings for you before I found out your age.”
“Okay …”
“And I did. And you don’t look thirty-seven.”
“Thanks?”
“He told me that I don’t have a kink for older women if I fell for you before I found out your age, and I thought you were younger.”
That made sense. However, my brain was still trying to process the fact that this man in front of me became a father at thirteen.
That his childhood, innocence, and teenage years had all been stolen from him.
Everyone talks about protecting our daughters, and while I agree that we must, we can’t forget that our sons are still vulnerable, and that women can be perpetrators and predators too.
He met my gaze beneath his lashes. His head still tipped down a little, like he was studying the concrete floor. “I know we haven’t known each other long, and I have no idea if I’m even doing this right because I don’t know how to date or flirt or anything, but … I like you, Naomi.”
My face grew warm, and I smiled. “I … I like you too.”
The way he exhaled in relief and let his shoulders leave his ears was adorable.
“You make me feel … normal. And I don’t know if I’ve ever felt normal.
But talking with you … being around you, I feel …
good.” He huffed out a chuckle. “I’m a very educated man, just so you know.
But right now, words seem to elude me.” Scratching at the back of his neck, he tilted his head to the side like a cute puppy.
“What I’m trying to say is, I like how I feel about myself and about life when I’m with you.
You have this warmth and honesty about you that pulls me right in. It captivates me. You captivate me.”
The cheeky butterflies in my belly all woke up and started to flutter about with zero flight plan.
I captivated him? No man had ever said such sweet, yet powerful things to me before.
My heart raced and my temperature rose. I was sure my cheeks were pinker than the rosé I was standing in front of.
I certainly didn’t feel like a captivating person.
Or someone who could captivate someone else.
I was just me. Just plain-Jane, overall-wearing Naomi.
That’s when I realized I also hadn’t said anything for quite a while and just stood there awkwardly in front of him, staring at his lip scar, my mouth slightly open, eyes wide like I’d just been caught picking chocolate chips out of the cookie dough from the bowl in Gabrielle’s kitchen.
He lifted his gaze even more and shoved his hands into his pockets. “So, do I ask you on a date now, or … how does this work? Can this work? Will this totally mess things up for your kids if you go on a date with their principal?”
That snapped me out of my fugue state and I blinked a few times before shrugging. “I doubt it. As long as you’re cool and don’t give them preferential treatment or make them feel weird with the other kids at school, I think it would be fine.”
His throat bobbed. “Okay.”
“I-in the vein of honesty,” I started, taking a deep breath, “I haven’t ever dated either.
I married young—didn’t date before that.
Then I was widowed. I had one … friends with benefits, if you want to call him that, but that was it.
My husband was—” Then I shook my head and hand. “Story for another day.”
“So, we’re going to be two adults fumbling and muddling our way through this dating thing?”
“Seems like it.”
His smile grew wider and brighter. “What are you up to right now?”
I glanced at the wine barrels, then picked up my clipboard.
“Just recording temperatures, ensuring the bubblers are still air locked, checking the SO2 levels, the malolactic fermentation status, and recording wine levels. Can’t have too much oxygen exposure, or too cold an environment. Doesn’t make for good wine.”
“Can I … can I watch you? Or help?”
I nodded, and we continued down the row. I’d read out the temperature and measurements, and he’d record them. It didn’t save any time, but it was nice to do it together.