Chapter 14 #2
We spent the next morning in bed, enjoying each other for hours. Once we finally came up for air, Tory grinned and said, “We were pretty loud. I wonder if anyone heard us.”
“I don’t care if they did.” I cupped my hands into a megaphone and shouted, “I hope you enjoyed it, assholes!”
He chuckled and said, “That’s pretty unlike you.”
“I’m done worrying about what people think of me.
That’s one of my recent revelations.” We both settled in so we were facing each other, and I told him, “I’ve had a lot of time to think these last few days.
Way too much time, actually. I was always so busy before, and maybe part of that was because I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts.
Here though, with all this free time, I’ve had a chance to take a hard look at myself and my life. ”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I think so. I have more clarity now, and I’ve come to some conclusions.
For one thing, I truly love the diner, but I have to stop devoting my entire life to it.
Fitzpatrick has been showing me the texts I’ve received from my employees this past week, and the place is fine without me.
I know I should be happy about that, but it was kind of like when Kit moved out and went to San Francisco. It made me feel… obsolete.”
“Both Kit and the diner still need you, Arie,” he said gently.
“I know, but not in the way they used to. And that’s a good thing! I’m glad Kit is off living his life, and it’s great that the diner can function without me being there all day, every day. But now, I’ve had to ask myself what’s next for me.”
“What have you decided?”
“The only certainty in my future is you.” That made him smile.
“As far as the rest of my life goes, I’m still trying to figure it out.
I know I want to stop working all the time and actually live my life.
Also, I want to find a way to do more for other people.
That’s really important to me. The very best parts of my job are helping my senior customers, who rely on the diner for much more than food, and reaching out to the community with my holiday dinners.
I want to expand on those things, but I’m not sure how yet. ”
Tory said, “I know you’ll come up with something.”
“What about you? Once we leave here, you won’t be on the run anymore. Have you thought about what you’ll do?”
“All I know is, I want to be with you.”
I kissed him and said, “You will be. But what else?”
He thought about it before saying, “I’d like to paint whatever I want, in my own style, but I don’t want to make my living as an artist. I’m tired of thinking of art as a product to be bought and sold. I just want to find joy in it again, the way I did when I was a kid.”
“You really need to do that.”
“As far as a career, I haven’t figured that out yet, except that I want to feel like I’m contributing to society and doing something good for a change. I want to give you a reason to be proud of me, and I want to be proud of myself, instead of feeling ashamed all the time.”
I brushed his hair back and asked, “Is that why you didn’t tell me about your past? Because you were ashamed of it?”
“That’s a big part of it.” There was so much vulnerability in his eyes when he said, “I really liked you, right from the start, and I was worried you’d instantly reject me if you knew I was a criminal.
But I thought maybe if you got to know me, you’d see the kind of man I was deep down, instead of only seeing what I’d done. ”
“You’re a good person, Tory. I’ve always known that. And after that conversation with your uncle, I totally understand how you ended up where you did.”
“I should have told you sooner. The longer I waited, the harder it became because I was afraid of losing you. But I really was going to tell you everything the day we got caught. I couldn’t double down on my dishonesty by lying to your family.
Even when our plans to meet them for dinner changed, I was still going to tell you, because I knew I had to come clean. ”
“I believe you.”
After a moment, he said, “I never imagined Ashcroft’s men would trace me through my relatives in San Francisco. I wouldn’t have taken you to meet them if I’d had any idea I was putting you in danger.”
“I know. There was no way you could have predicted that.”
“I really believed I’d covered my tracks.
Right after I met you, I went to Dante for help.
He got me a fake I.D. and rented a car and a flat for me, so there were no paper trails for Ashcroft to follow.
I didn’t think I was putting you in danger by being around you, and I’m so sorry you got caught up in this. ”
“You don’t need to keep apologizing to me,” I said. “And even if I’d known everything right from the beginning, including the fact that this might happen, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I still would have chosen to be with you, Tory.”
He rested his forehead against mine and whispered, “You don’t know how much I needed to hear that.”
Eventually we rolled out of bed, showered, and got dressed. He put on the same tank top and shorts from the night before, and then he retrieved his overnight bag from wherever he’d stashed it and moved it to my room. Both of us had had enough of being apart.
We made it downstairs in time for lunch. After we filled our plates, I suggested eating on the patio. He followed me down the hall and out a side door, and once we were seated he tilted his face toward the sunlight. “This is the first time I’ve been outside in days,” he murmured.
“You have to take better care of yourself and stop with the sixteen-hour days,” I said. “You’ll wear yourself out.”
He glanced at me and smirked. “Ironic, coming from you.”
“I’ve gotten a lot better about cutting back my hours,” I said. “And this is different anyway. You’re in an incredibly high-pressure situation, so you need to be extra careful not to run yourself down.”
“I have to get us out of here, though.”
“You are, but I’d prefer spending a few extra days here to you collapsing from exhaustion.”
After we finished eating, I accompanied him to the studio. He retrieved his glasses from a side table and indicated the canvas. “What do you think?”
“It’s amazing. I’m surprised by how much progress you’ve made in just a few days.” The entire background was completed, and he’d started on the table with the spilled bowl of fruit.
“It’s fortunate that he wanted a Cezanne. This style comes easily to me.”
He started organizing his brushes, so I asked, “Should I go? Whenever I came in here while you were working, it seemed like I was distracting you.”
Tory stopped what he was doing and rested his hands on my shoulders. “You wouldn’t be a distraction, but it’d be boring to watch me paint. You should go do whatever you want.”
When I said, “I want to be wherever you are,” his face lit up in a gorgeous smile.
I opened a few windows to let in some fresh air, and then I curled up on the couch. He was wrong about it being boring. Just the opposite—I found it fascinating.
This was a very different Tory than the man I was used to.
He was usually so polished and perfectly put together.
Now he was barefoot and dressed in a form-fitting tank top and baggy basketball shorts.
His thick, dark hair was unruly, and his usually very short beard had grown out a bit, which gave him a rugged appearance.
He was sexy in a suit, but he was even sexier like this.
I was impressed by his focus, and the way he boldly and confidently attacked the canvas.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was damn good at it.
I could see him holding himself back, though.
This had to be a perfect reproduction, so there was no room for artistic expression.
It was like watching a racehorse that was being forced to slow down, even though it was capable of much greater things.
I couldn’t wait to help Tory set up a studio once we got back home. I was dying to see what he was capable of when he was given free rein.
After a couple of hours, I brought him some water and convinced him to take a break. As I rubbed his shoulders, I asked, “Do you ever work with music playing?”
“Yes, almost always, but that’s not an option here.”
I said, “Hold that thought,” and ran out of the room.
A few minutes later, I returned with a boombox and a storage folder that was full of CDs.
“All the technology in this house is a few decades old,” I said, as I plugged in the music player.
“The movie library is mostly VHS tapes. But hey, if you like music from fifteen or twenty years ago, have I got the collection for you.”
Tory grinned and took a seat beside me on the couch. As we flipped through the pocketed pages, he said, “There’s actually some good stuff in here.”
“Do you think this is Ashcroft’s personal music stash?”
“I really don’t. I believe he’s in his late sixties, and he seems more the symphony type.”
“Maybe this belonged to a far-too-young-for-him girlfriend.”
“I could see that.” He selected a Maroon 5 disc and loaded it into the boombox before going back to work.
As he mixed some paint on his palette, I said, “My son had this album. He used to play it on repeat.”
“So did I. It came out a year or so after my parents died. My uncle and I were bouncing around Italy, and I had a backpack that held all of my worldly possessions, including a portable music player. I remember buying this album right when it came out and playing it over and over.”
“That doesn’t add up.”
“What do you mean?”
“My son was around thirteen when this album was released.”
“Right. And I was about sixteen.”
I stopped flipping through the CD holder and looked up at him. “How old are you, Tory?”
“Thirty-two.”
His words hung in the air for several moments. I couldn’t quite believe what I’d heard.
When I didn’t say anything, he said, “But you knew that, right?” I shook my head, and he asked, “How old did you think I was?”
“Forty? Maybe forty-two?”
“Really? You think I look ten years older than my actual age?”
“No, it’s not that. I guess I made an assumption when we met, based on how you seemed, not on how you looked. You’re so mature and pulled together. It’s like you’ve figured out this whole adulting thing, way more than I ever did.”
He looked concerned. “Is my age a problem?”
I thought about it before saying, “If you’d told me you were thirty-two the night we met, I would have decided on the spot that a fourteen-year age gap was way too much, and that I couldn’t possibly get involved with someone so close to my son’s age.”
“I don’t—”
“Let me finish.” I crossed the room and took his hands in mine.
“But I would have been wrong, Tory. I would have made a huge mistake and missed out on a beautiful relationship with the most wonderful man I’ve ever known.
I’m so glad you didn’t tell me how old you were, because it gave me a chance to get to know you without any biases or preconceived ideas. ”
“I didn’t keep it from you intentionally. I guess it just never came up.”
I caressed his cheek and said, “You had to grow up fast when you lost your parents, so it’s no wonder you seem older.”
“I suppose so.”
I muttered, “Damn though, thirty-two! I didn’t even realize I was a… does the term cougar apply to men?”
“It’s not fair if it doesn’t. Why should women get singled out for dating younger people?”
“That’s a good point.”
He kissed me before returning to the painting, and I went back and curled up on the couch. The music was playing, and a light breeze swept through the room from the open windows. This felt really good.
While I watched him paint, I found myself wondering how people would react once they found out about our age gap. My son might find it surprising since they were close to the same age, but he wasn’t the judgmental type, so I knew it wouldn’t be an issue.
And I didn’t really care what anyone else thought.
They’d be wrong about their assumptions anyway.
Tory might be younger than me, but I was the one who’d started out totally inexperienced in this relationship.
He was also a natural caretaker, so he’d automatically stepped into the role most people would think the older partner would take.
I almost wanted to call it a reverse age gap, because it was the exact opposite of what society probably expected.
Not everyone would understand what we had or why it worked, but they didn’t need to. All that mattered was how we felt about each other, and I adored this man.