Chapter 41 Blythe
BLYTHE
I’m still mentally berating myself as we drive to the restaurant Sam has a reservation at.
Instead of packing Eric’s wedding band, I slid it onto the chain with the locket he gave to me when Maggi was born.
The added weight of it immediately brought me comfort, but I took it off for the date.
It didn’t seem right to be going out with someone with my dead husband’s ring resting against my skin.
I have a feeling that Sam wouldn’t care, but as much as I am ready to move on, there is a guilt that’s gnawing away at me, feasting on my doubt.
It’s not even the finding someone new thing.
It’s living in general. The daily reminder of getting to see Maggi grow and learn new things.
Of getting to celebrate a new life with Sarah and Colin’s news.
I’ve gone through all of the stages of grief before, but no one prepared me for how they seem to exist in a cycle when it’s your person that you’re grieving.
For weeks you accept it, move on, and then something new happens, and you think, they should be here and then you get sad because they aren’t, followed by feeling this uncontrollable anger at the person responsible for them not being here.
Bargaining happens in between all the other feelings.
Offering all the things you’d give for them to be present for this one thing because it would mean the world to them and your kid.
And slowly but surely you swing back around to acceptance until something starts the cycle all over again.
I jump when Sam’s hand rests on my thigh, which he quickly removes.
“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” I croak as my throat threatens to close.
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have touched you.” I look over in time to see him grimace and give his head a little shake as he glares out at the road.
“Sam,” I say softly, resting my hand on his bicep. “I was somewhere else.” I want to tell him he can touch me. That I want him to touch me because I miss his hands on my body. I miss my hand in his.
His face relaxes, and I use the opportunity to slide my hand down his arm to his wrist and then gently pull his hand away from the wheel, guiding it to my thigh.
I hear him relax further, releasing a shaky breath as his fingers flex beneath my hand and realize something—this is only the second time I’ve seen this man anything other than confident.
There are things we need to discuss if this is going to become something. But I want to get this first date out of the way before I bring up all the complicated feelings that live within me.
“What’s for dinner?” I ask, rolling my head over to look at him.
“Pizza,” he says, a smile pulling his mouth to the right so that dimple deepens. “Figured that a full meal would be ideal.”
“You wanna leave dinner satisfied or something?” I tease.
“The company will keep me satisfied,” he assures, glancing in my direction quickly. “But it would be better if my stomach wasn’t growling for the second half of the date.” He chuckles, and something warm blossoms in my chest as he starts to look like the guy from the cottage.
The pizza place Sam picked is one I mentioned loving one morning over a lazy breakfast. I shouldn’t be surprised that he remembered, but I am touched all the same.
His hand finds my lower back as we skirt by a group of teenagers on the sidewalk and remains there until we reach the restaurant.
He grounds me so easily with his touch, keeps me present in a way I never expected.
Had I been thinking, I would have reached for his hand the second we got in the car and placed it on my thigh.
Avoided those pesky feelings I haven’t managed to quiet yet.
“Anything catching your eye?” I ask after we’ve had a few minutes with the menu.
His mouth twists, and he rubs his chin, the sound of his beard against his skin louder than it should be in the busy restaurant. “How hungry are you?” he asks.
I can’t help but laugh because I know exactly what he’s going to suggest when I tell him. “Hungry enough to go along with whatever you’ve got in mind.”
“Good,” he says as the waiter steps next to the table. “What’s your top choice, Rosie?”
“The White Out.”
“What’s your second choice?”
I look back down at the menu, and the spicy honey pizza jumps out at me. “The Bee Sting.”
“We’ll have both of those and also the Brekky and the Branston Pickle Pie,” Sam says, closing his menu and handing it to the guy.
The waiter looks at our table and then at the tablet he’s recorded our order on. “Do you want a bigger table?” he asks, gaze sweeping the room. “I’ve got a quad open in the corner.”
Sam looks over his shoulder to the booth that’s tucked into the back corner and smiles “That would be great.”
“Just let me get it sorted,” the waiter says.
“I’ve never had to move to a bigger table because of a dinner order,” I whisper.
Sam pushes back from the table and holds his hand out to me. “I did say I wanted a full meal.”
“You did say that.” I take his hand and let him lead me to the new table, which is conveniently a curved booth, so we end up next to each other rather than across. I’m not going to complain about his thigh pressed against mine. “Was ordering that much food an excuse to get closer to me?” I taunt.
“No, but it is a fantastic outcome.” He’s so close that I feel his words caress my skin, and by the way my body reacts, you would assume that he reached between my legs.
My mind is screaming that we are in public, but I find myself leaning in, trying to get closer.
When I work up the courage to look at him, he’s staring back calmly, and I wonder if he feels whatever this thing I feel is, too.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says so quietly that I’m convinced that I imagined it, until his hand slides along my jaw. “So pretty.”
“Bee Sting, Brekky, Branston, and White,” our waiter says as three others set down our pizzas on stands.
It’s an interruption that should have us jumping apart, but Sam’s hand doesn’t leave my face. His eyes don’t leave mine. He offers a polite thank you, but for a guy who said he was hungry, he sure doesn’t seem to be in a rush to deal with that hunger.
“What pizza are you going to try first?” he asks, his hand still cradling my face, his attention still fully on me.
I want to say to hell with the pizza. Get them to pack it up, and we’ll take it to go. But I manage to blink out of the haze of infatuation and pull back just enough that his hand falls away. If we’re going to do this date thing, I need to focus on the here and now and not the possibility of later.
“Definitely the pickle one. What about you?” I reach for a slice, the cheese pull dramatic as I bring it to my plate.
“I’ll go with the Bee Sting. Sweet and spicy is appealing right now.” The cheese pull is as dramatic as it pools on his plate. He uses his knife to swirl the cheese around the slice, and I watch, practically transfixed, as he brings it to his mouth and blows before sinking his teeth into it.
He makes a noise, and it sparks a memory that makes my toes curl.
“Eat your pizza, Rosie,” he says once he swallows and catches me staring directly at his mouth.
I do as I’m told and try to focus on the odd flavours playing across my taste buds.
“Good girl,” he growls, his words tickling my ear, stopping everything.
How am I supposed to focus on eating now? I’m not even hungry anymore—not for pizza anyway. It suddenly feels like I’ve been fasting. I haven’t felt like having sex, haven’t touched myself, haven’t dwelled on what that week had been like. But now he’s right here, and I am so fucking hungry.
This isn’t how I imagined this date going.
I thought I’d be calm, cool, and collected.
A lot more like I had been during our week away, but apparently believing there was nothing for us beyond that week helped immensely.
Now that there is apparently potential, I’m struggling to remember how to do this dating thing.
What I need to do is not remember what it’s like to have his hands on me or the look in his eyes when he peers up from between my legs.
The problem is, the more I tell myself not to think about it, the harder it becomes to not think about it. Then he goes and drops a “good girl” in a tone that has me clenching my thighs.
“So the job,” I blurt out after I’ve been staring at my half-eaten slice of pizza for thirty silent seconds. Sam turns slowly toward me and sets down the slice of the Branston pizza he is in the middle of eating. “What is it?”
He dabs the corners of his spotless mouth with his napkin and sits back against the booth.
“Well, you’re looking at the new assistant coach for the Glasgow Gryphons of the United League.
” Colour darkens his cheeks, and he clears his throat.
“I knew the job was mine, but I signed all the paperwork yesterday morning. It’s a two-year contract, but Grant Marshall is retiring after this stint, and ultimately I’d be up for the head job when that happens.
Obviously it depends on how the team performs, but the squad is solid.
I’m not too concerned.” There’s a light in his eyes I haven’t seen before as he tells me about his new job.
One that definitely wasn’t there when he talked about the bookstore.
“They’ve got five of my old teammates still, so it’s going to be a little weird being on the sidelines instead of on the pitch with them, but”—he shrugs and gives his head a little shake—“I never… I’d given up hope of having a career in this sport after I went home. ”
“That’s really great, Sam,” I say quietly, reaching over and squeezing his arm, not because I want to feel the way he flexes under my grip or anything. “What about the bookstore?”
He winces and breathes in deeply through his nose.
“I’m still financially attached to it. I couldn’t cut ties altogether—baby steps.
” He chuckles. “I ugh… I wasn’t exactly a joy to be around when I was back.
Well, no,” he corrects. “I was for this short burst when I went a little bonkers with Loch Ness and Ogopogo books.”
“What?”
He turns more so he’s facing me straight on.
“I seem to have caught Nessie fever—I don’t know how else to describe it.
I had a woman come in looking for a book about the myth before a trip, and when I was ordering in a copy of a basic travel book, I went down this Scottish folklore rabbit hole.
The next thing I know, there’s a box of books and toys being delivered.
” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps a few times before turning it to me.
On the screen is an elaborate display of children’s books featuring the Loch Ness Monster and other lake monsters from around the world.
Placed around the books are stuffed monsters and figurines I recognize and several I don’t.
I glance up at him quickly to find him looking nervous as if I’m going to be upset or something.
“Maggi would be in heaven in there,” I marvel, handing back the phone. “Her enthusiasm is infectious,” I admit, scanning his handsome face as it relaxes and fisting my hands so I don’t grab him and start making out right here, right now.
“Anyway, Stella, my aunt, figured there was a reason, and she did that thing where she wouldn’t take ‘Leave me alone’ for an answer.
I told her about you and Maggi—I left a lot out.
” His cheeks darken further, making me grin like a fool.
“Then after I flew to Ontario to see you, she cornered me and told me that I better do something about my feelings or she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.”
“What did she mean by that?”
His shoulders rise and fall in a dramatic shrug. “Well, when I had been contemplating not coming over for the wedding, she threatened arson, so probably something along those lines.”
I stare back, waiting for him to tell me he’s joking, but he doesn’t. “Wait, seriously?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. No one has ever not followed through with something after a Stella threat.” He grins and reaches for my hand that’s resting on the table. “I’m not upset about being pushed,” he admits softly as his thumb ghosts across my knuckles.
“I should send her a thank-you card,” I murmur, staring at our hands.
“What about you? What have you been up to?”