42. It’s a Date
~ brIDGET ~
Sunday I was as nervous as a cat in a waterpark. I spent the whole day deciding I wasn’t going to meet Sam and picking up my phone to text him, then throwing it onto the couch, or my bed, or shoving it back in my pocket and trying to forget.
I was so stressed, I got online to see if Cain had messaged—which, of course, he hadn’t—but there were three emails from Jeremy, so I had to spend an hour answering his questions about Ronald, and praying blessings on Val for telling him that he needed to come to Vigorí on the slowest day, which was Tuesday.
By the time that was done, I needed to get in the shower.
I cut myself shaving twice, then swore at myself, because why the fuck was I shaving?
Then I’d remember that moment when Sam had caught my wrist so quickly, and the burning darkness in his eyes and I’d remember why I was shaving and holy fuck I was just going to tell him not to come.
By the time my doorbell rang, I was a jittery mess.
I stood on the other side of the closed door without answering it for a full minute. He’d rung the doorbell twice by that time. I couldn’t make myself turn the knob to open it.
But then I heard a foot scuff on the other side and thought he was leaving, and my chest went tight and I couldn’t grab the handle fast enough.
I swung it open like a madwoman, ready to call after him, but he was standing there, head down, his phone in his hands.
There was a split second when my brain registered everything—the tight shirt with the sleeves rolled almost to his elbows to reveal his tattoos, the strategically messy hair, the trim-fitting black from head to toe— and my heart actually lurched.
Then his head snapped up, his eyes bright and shining, and he smiled when he saw me. He straightened, slipping his phone back in the pocket of his pants and did that thing guys do where they kind of stand back to scan you from head to toe and I thought I was going to see Sam-the-Felon—I thought he’d rub his jaw and nod and say something hot.
But instead he kept his chin down, his eyes came up to meet mine, and his smile got warmer. “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind,” he said quietly, in that low, soothing voice that he’d used when I was upset, except now there was just a hint of an edge to it and I swear it vibrated right in my lady-parts.
“No, just weird,” I blurted, then wanted to close the door and turn back time and start the whole thing over again because I ruined it.
But Sam’s smile got wider and he quirked one eyebrow. “My kind of woman,” he offered.
I think I blushed.
I know I stepped out of my house and checked that the door was locked before I took the arm he offered to lead me back down the path to his cheap little car and I only thought of Cain one time, when I passed the bush that he’d hidden behind that first time…
Then Sam opened the passenger door for me and held it while I got in, then trotted around the car to the driver’s side. The car’s suspension wasn’t great, the whole thing dipped when he sat down, but right after he turned the key and it roared to life, he turned his head and looked me in the eye.
“You look beautiful, Bridget.”
I definitely blushed that time. “Thank you. You look hot. Are priests allowed to do that?”
God, the lopsided smile got me every fucking time. “I told you—”
“I know, but I have joke-Tourette’s and I can’t stop saying it.”
He kind of huffed a laugh and shook his head, as he put one hand on the wheel and lifted the other to hold the back of my seat in a deeply masculine move that always made me shiver as he looked backwards to reverse out of my driveway.
And then he did the whole thing.
The whole normal date thing.
I hadn’t been on a normal date since Homecoming when I was fifteen—and even that was just me and Ryan Speelman going through the motions before we fucked.
I hadn’t thought men still existed who opened doors and reserved tables at cute hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurants that were owned by a family, and paid for the meal and looked you in the eye instead of the chest.
But Sam was… different.
Of course, I wasn’t.
I spent most of the night blinking because he’d ask me something and I’d catch myself sitting there wondering what his chest looked like under that shirt, and I’d have to take a second to remember what he’d actually said. Which was usually a question about me, or an adorable observation about someone in the restaurant.
It was all so fucking wholesome.
Twenty minutes after he picked me up, my belly fluttered because our knees brushed under the tiny, round table we were sharing.
Ten minutes after that my stomach sank because he smiled at the waitress and asked an intelligent question and it hit me that he knew how to do this, and I didn’t.
I was desperately uncomfortable, barely talking, and it was making him tense.
Five minutes later my heel was bouncing under the table and I was looking at the exit over his shoulder.
“…wondered if you’re comfortable talking about your past—the normal stuff, I mean. I wondered how it felt to change your name so young.”
I grimaced, fiddling with the knife and fork on the tablecloth, turning them over and over. “That made me feel dumb,” I said.
“Dumb? Why?”
“Because people would say my name and I’d forget and think they were talking to someone else, and then I’d make up stupid excuses and… everyone just thought I was weird and kind of psycho and I mean… I kind of was…” I said lamely.
Sam tipped his head. “That’s a lot for a kid.”
I snorted and grabbed a piece of the very yummy free bread. “That was nothing. The weird part was instead of playing sports, I was put in twice-weekly self-defense classes—when I was ten—and forced to have monthly meetings with law enforcement because everyone thought my dad’s people were going to try and come for me, so they wanted me to have people I could feel comfortable to talk to,” I said, making my eyes big because it was such a farce.
“Law enforcement?” he asked, his voice a little tight because, felon. “You mean, Police?”
“No, I mean law enforcement. That’s what my aunt always called them. I know now that they were FBI, but she never told me.”
“The FBI came to your house when you were a kid—?!”
He cut off because my knee shot up to bang the underside of the table and make the glasses and silverware clatter—and I overreacted, my hands shooting out to catch the wine glass so it wouldn’t spill, and instead I accidentally knocked the water glass clean over, so it splashed all over the free bread.
“I’m sorry!” I gasped, shooting to my feet—but that made the table rock and then the wine glass really did tip over, and even though I caught that one, it still spilled a little over my hand and the tablecloth and my heart kind of shattered. “Sorry— sorry!” I squeaked.
Sam was chuckling. “Bridget, it’s fine—”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry, I don’t talk about this stuff and I don’t sit around with people over a glass of wine and… I should never have said yes to this,” I breathed, tearing away from the table towards the bathrooms.
“Bridget—”
He started to get up out of his seat, but I was hurrying. I caught one of the waitresses on my way and whispered something about cleaning up my mess—saw how her eyes found Sam behind me and lit up and my stomach clenched, and I fled to the little bathroom at the back of the restaurant.
I was having trouble breathing and knew this was all just a dumb idea, so I got out my phone and texted him.
ME: I’m sorry. This isn’t going to work. You should leave. I’ll get an uber home.
But he didn’t answer. Because he was a good date and had his phone on silent? Or because he’d already given up and left?
I don’t know how long I sat in there trying to get my hands to stop shaking, but when I finally got up the courage to walk carefully out, our table was empty and a bus boy was clearing it.
I felt relieved and really sad at the same time.
I stood there in front of the bathroom door for a minute watching a spotty kid clean up the table I’d destroyed and reminded myself that there was a reason I didn’t do this stuff. There was a reason people like Cain felt like I belonged to them. And I needed to stop fighting that.
I was still close to tears when I pushed out of the swinging restaurant door—and stopped dead, because Sam was out there, leaning against the hood of his very cheap car, frowning at his phone.
There were some bushes and a couple trees in the garden that ran alongside the sidewalk between us, so I was only seeing him through the gaps. And he hadn’t realized I was there. So I got to just look at him.
If I’d seen him without any context, I would never have picked him for any kind of spiritual man. I wouldn’t have thought he was wise, or thoughtful, or gentle.
My stomach trilled at the sight of him because he was thick and strong and had that air about him that men who could be dangerous always had—an underlying confidence in their own strength, combined with a subtle wariness.
He must have felt me watching, because his head came up and caught me staring. For a second we just looked at each other. I hadn’t moved away from the door because I didn’t know what to say. But he pushed off the car and straightened, his expression a question… and a little fear.
“I’m sorry. I know that was weird,” I said. “I just… I’m just not good at this stuff.”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t care. I just want to talk to you.”
“But…” I made myself walk along the little path around those trees to the parking lot, my hands clenched to fists at my sides. “There’s no way this is going to work,” I said, flapping a hand back at the restaurant.
Sam frowned. “So, let’s try something else?”
Was he serious? “Like… what?”
Then he reached behind him for something he’d left on the hood of the car then held it out.
It was a big paper bag with the restaurant’s logo on it, clearly full of boxed up food.
“You must be hungry?” he said, just loud enough for me to hear it over the rush of cars on the street behind him.
I know I protested, but somehow I ended up back in his car that immediately filled with the smell of rich, delicious food. And after a few minutes of silence and very calm driving on Sam’s part, we pulled off the road and into a park.
I got out of the car without his help this time because he was getting some stuff out of the trunk.
A few minutes later we were sitting on a blanket under a tree, next to a manmade pond with a single fountain spray at its center, and I didn’t even care that I splattered marinara sauce on my dress after the second bite.
“When I was a kid,” he said around a mouthful of food, “I thought the men that came to visit my father were his friends. They always showed up in pairs. And after I’d yell at my dad that they were there, they’d always be nice to me and ask me questions.”
I looked at him warily. “Law enforcement?”
He shook his head. “Mob.”
I nodded, chewing a mouthful of some very nice alfredo out of one of the trays he’d spread between us. “They aren’t all bad.”
His brows rose. “You’re connected to the mob?”
I shook my head, and couldn’t help but smile a little bit. “No. But one of the, er, Dons has meetings at my ex-boyfriend’s bar. He’s always been nice to me. He said I remind him of his daughter.”
Sam thought about that for a second. “Well, the ones who came to our house and were nice to me were just using me to get information because I was a na?ve kid,” he said darkly. “My father owed them money.”
I winced. “That sucks.”
He shrugged. “They really did like me. I mean, they got me away from my dad when I was a teenager.”
I stared at him. “You worked for the Mob?”
“I was always on the outer fringes because I wasn’t family, but yeah.”
I watched him carefully. “So, maybe you weren’t so na?ve after all?”
Sam just shrugged and changed the subject.
It was a habit of his, I realized as darkness fell and the food got cold, but we didn’t move. He was engaged, and thoughtful, and talking. But every time I’d turned the conversation towards the darker side of his life, he shut the door and moved on.
And left me sitting there in the shadows by myself.
Because he didn’t want to admit his darkness? Or because he didn’t want to be dark anymore?
“Both,” he said bluntly, then looked at me.
I had to swallow. I hadn’t realized I’d asked him the question out loud.
“I, uh, didn’t mean to pry,” I said.
“You didn’t. I’m just… I’m just being honest with you. I hate my past. I hate the parts of me that got molded by it. But they’re there. So the only thing I know to do is… not bring them out. Because they’re my past, not my future,” he said with a strange little squirm that made my instincts prick.