Chapter Fifteen
H e headed west and, thirty minutes later, exited on Delafield Street. I was somewhat familiar with the area but not enough to know what was around besides cornfields and gravel roads. I’d asked him right away where we were going, but only received a smile and a “You’ll see.”
Shortly after, we pulled into a place that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere but was obviously popular. The parking lot was packed full. Chase found a spot while I took in the entrance with the name splayed out across the brick: Zydecki’s . I’d never heard of it.
There was a large deck wrapped around the side with outdoor seating. White lights sprinkled throughout, and I could imagine that, when it was fully dark, it’d be gorgeous.
“What is this place?” I asked as we walked up to the restaurant.
“Best Cajun food you’ll find outside New Orleans.” I think I made a happy squeal because he squeezed my hand and smiled wide. “I take it you approve.”
“Definitely.”
To my delight, we sat outside. The weather was perfect with just the right amount of breeze. God, I felt good. Comfortable in my own skin. The bluesy music surrounding me was pleasing to my ears, and the guy who sat across from me was candy to my eyes.
And I was excited as hell to try the food. I looked over the menu, torn between five different things. “So, you’ve been there?” I asked. “New Orleans?”
“A couple years ago. You?”
I shook my head. “Always wanted to, though.” There were tons of places I wanted to travel to but never had the opportunity. I suppose there was nothing stopping me now.
“What can I get you, sugar?” Our southern belle waitress winked at Chase. She barely gave me a look.
I ordered a chicory iced coffee, having no desire for anything stronger tonight. He did the same. “Feel free to spice it up,” I told him. “I can drive if needed.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
The waitress took down our order. “If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know. My name’s Delilah.” It was glaringly obvious that she was speaking to Chase and not to me. I shook my head and laughed a little. I wondered if he got this kind of female attention wherever he went. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
“Zydeco or swamp pop?” he asked when Delilah sashayed her hips to the next table.
“Depends if I’m in the mood for something fast-tempoed or something emotionally-driven. I’m really enjoying the mixture tonight, though. The music matches the atmosphere.” Chase sat back and stared at me, small smile on his lips. I was starting to get a complex. “What?”
“I just think it’s cool that you even knew what I was talking about.”
The next hour flew by like that. Dare I say I was having a great time? The rest of the diners seemed to dissolve around me, except for Miss ‘Can I do anything for you, Sugar? My job is to serve.’ Wink wink, nudge nudge. She was impossible to ignore, like a needy cat rubbing against you every second. Or in my case, the devious cat who darts between your legs on ‘accident’ as you’re walking down the stairs. Chase seemed impervious to her innuendos, and that only seemed to make her try harder.
Fortunately, Delilah was easy enough to dismiss when she wasn’t loitering around our table, trying to overdo her job. Chase and I discussed and debated anything music-related while I died and went to Heaven with my plate of incinerating shrimp pasta. It was so worth it.
I was opening up more to being paraded in public, but I did draw the line when he tried convincing me to get up and dance with him. It was one thing to share the same restaurant and have a nice dinner and quite another to frolic in front of everyone and basically scream, “Hey, look at us—we’re together. As a couple.”
After a huge laughing spree, Chase stared at me again, but this time with a strange expression. “Your face looks….”
Flawless? Smooth? Ten years younger?
…white.”
My hands flew to my cheeks, and I started patting around. It felt crinkly under my eyes. Oh, fuck. “Excuse me.” I took off for the restroom, keeping my head lowered. What the hell is going on?
I tried my best to ignore the lady next to me washing her hands as I gaped into the mirror. I resembled a freaking barn owl. I peered closer. No, scratch that. I looked like a preschooler who got a little glue happy. My face was the opposite of flawless and smooth; it was scary and crackly like I had some weird skin disease.
I peeled off a layer from my eye mask, only to discover more white gunk underneath. If my bathroom mate was panicking that I was contagious, she didn’t act like it, bless her heart. She just nodded and smiled and quickly got the hell out of there.
I ran a paper towel under the sink and dabbed my face. After a good bit of scrubbing, all the white wrinkles were replaced by red splotches. I frantically dug through my purse, hoping to find something to cover it. I’d use chewing gum if I had to.
Fortunately, it didn’t have to come to that. I had a tube of concealer, and I made good use of it. By the time I’d stepped out of the restroom, I looked somewhat normal again, at least on the outside. On the inside, I was a heap of jumbled emotions.
The tipping point was going back to my table and finding our irritating-as-shit waitress literally hanging over Chase, giving him a hearty eyeful of her irritatingly perky-as-shit tits. No doubt she was just waiting for me to leave so she could pounce. She probably slipped a diuretic into my coffee.
She saw me and straightened, then scurried away. I flopped down on my chair, the mood pretty much over for me. Yes, I’d been having a fantastic time before my face crumbled off. Yes, it was petty of me to let something like that ruin my night. Yes, it was the inside that counted. Blah, Blah, Blah.
“You were gone awhile. I was about to send someone in there.” He paused a minute. “You look better. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. No.” Who was I fooling? I couldn’t just put on cream and magically jump back another decade. I was not even close to his age, and I never would be. “Delilah looked like she was making herself at home in my absence.” I tried to speak with zero snark, and hopefully, I accomplished it.
“She tried getting me to take her number. I didn’t want it.”
My eyes might have popped a bit. I reached for my drink, then thought better of it and went for the water instead. “Why are you even telling me this? I wouldn’t have known. Are you always this honest?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Or… are you just trying to make me jealous?”
“Are you?”
“God, Chase. I told you I don’t get jealous.” I felt the heat bubbling to the surface, and I wasn’t sure why. “But I do think it’s very rude of her, doing something so bold when you’re here with someone else.”
Deep breath. In her defense, she probably thought I was his mother.
“I agree.”
I had to think about that for a second. At first, I thought he was agreeing to my mother comment until I realized I’d said that in my head. “Is that why you didn’t take her number? Because of the way she did it?”
He looked at me like it was now my entire brain falling off in chunks. “No, Jillian. I didn’t take it because I’m not interested in her. And that wouldn’t have changed whether I was here with you or a group of guys.”
He made it sound so simple when really it was anything but. She was young and gorgeous. Give it another fifteen, twenty years and he’d be all over that shit if she was offering it up. I needed to keep that little fact front and center. Needed to keep things real.
“It’d be easier if you were interested, Chase.” I honestly meant that too. I wasn’t doing some stupid reverse psychology crap, hoping for his reassurance. “I’m too… complicated.”
He smiled. “Aren’t all women?”
Time to bring out the big guns. “Remember at Candle Park, the kid I was talking to right before we left?” He nodded. “Who did you think that was—an ex-fling?”
Chase sputtered on his drink. “No, that had not even crossed my mind.” He raised an eyebrow. “An ex who calls you Mrs. Hudson?”
“Maybe it was a Mrs. Robinson situation.”
He shook his head. “What’s going on with you, Jillian?”
“That boy, Ben, he’s my son’s good friend.” Wait for it, wait for it. Hmm…. Nothing. “Technically, my stepson, but I’ve raised Daniel since he was two and couldn’t love him any more if he were my biological child. Without getting into too much detail, I’m pretty much the only mother he’s ever known.”
Chase was quiet for a few minutes, and I kept waiting for him to jump up and tell Southern Belle that he’d made a mistake. “The pictures on your bookshelf, those are Daniel?”
“Yes.” I figured he saw them at some point. I wasn’t hiding them, but I wasn’t thrusting them in his face either. For all Chase knew, they could have been a little brother or nephew or… “Why didn’t you ask me who he was? You seem to ask me everything else.”
“I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to.”
It sounded reasonable. I’d already gone nutso because he fixed my air conditioning; I could see him being a bit leery asking me something on the personal side.
“And now I told you,” I said.
“Am I going to meet him?”
My mouth dropped open and froze there awhile. His question had come hurling at me a hundred miles an hour out of left field. “Uh, he’s in school right now. In Italy.” And he’s only three years younger than you. And I wouldn’t embarrass him like that. And you and I will be done screwing around long before he’s home anyway. So, in other words, hell, no .
“What’s he studying?”
“International Business.”
I knew there was so much more he wanted to ask, his face contorting with unspoken thoughts. We sat across from each other in awkward silence; the easygoing vibe was gone. At least it was for me. Delilah had made herself scarce, and I almost wished for her intrusion. I was that uncomfortable. I wanted to leave.
“Anything else you want to tell me?” he asked. “To show your complication, I mean. Because if you’re trying to scare me away, I’m gonna need more than that.”
“Like that wasn’t enough?” I stared at him wide-eyed. I didn’t have anything more to throw at him right then. In what universe was it not clusterfucked to be sleeping with a guy only three years older than your son?
“No, and do you know why it’s not enough?” I shook my head. I honestly didn’t know, but I’d love to find out the magic secret. Maybe he was a crackpot. Nothing bothers those people. “Because nothing you’ve told me so far changes how I feel. You are still the woman I like. A lot. I still find you interesting and sexy as hell. I very much enjoy your company, whether we are conversing over a table or fucking on it.”
I darted my eyes around, but no one was paying us any attention. “So, you still want to come home with me?” Just because I didn’t want to be at the restaurant anymore with him didn’t mean I’d given up on him completely. I was still crazy enough to want the mind-blowing pleasure. Chase wasn’t running for the hills yet, and I still had a handful of months before Daniel returned.
Whatever came first….
He leaned forward and took my hand, stroking it with his thumb and opening the floodgates. “Only if you want my mouth on your pussy.”
“Let’s go.”