Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Gage
Staying home wasn’t an option after Katie left my apartment last night.
I needed a distraction, so I slipped on a pair of shoes, grabbed an umbrella and took the stairs as soon as I heard the elevator doors close.
I reached the lobby just in time to see her getting into the front seat of a police car.
It took off down the street. I hit the sidewalk to walk back to Tin Anchor.
By the time I got there, the place was packed so I jumped behind the bar to help Zeke. I served drinks and talked people through their problems until closing time.
When I got home, I dropped into bed, but sleep didn’t come for another hour or two.
I was restless. I couldn’t shake the look on Katie’s face when I told her about Kristin.
The ball is in her court now. Whether she volleys it back to me is completely up to her.
“You’re here earlier than usual.” Gus walks up behind me. “This brilliant blue sky was hiding behind those rain clouds.”
I look up at the rising sun. “It was worth it.”
“Storms are always worth it.” He brushes past me to sit on the bench. “Lois used to say that the darkest skies give way to the brightest days.”
“She was a smart woman.”
“You’re telling me?” He laughs causing the skin at the corner of his eyes to crease. “Why do you think I married her?”
Because you loved her. Because you had faith in her love for you.
I lacked that with Katie. It took me months to realize that. I didn’t give her a chance to respond to the news that I was a dad. I stole that from her by making a life-changing decision on my own.
I was a twenty-four-year-old fool who saw the world through a black and white lens.
Katie didn’t want kids. I suddenly had one.
In my mind those two things couldn’t add up to a happy ending, so I did what I thought was best at the time.
Gus glances at the tree behind us. “You’re on foot today?”
I tug at the waistband of my black running shorts. I’m shirtless. My phone is strapped to my bicep so I can listen to my favorite playlist as I run through the streets of Manhattan.
It’s an escape at the beginning of my day. The bar fills that need at the end of the day. It’s the hours in between that are the hardest.
“I get a better workout on foot.” I laugh. “I have to work off that donut I had for breakfast.”
“When the weather turns we should do this at the coffee shop.” Gus looks down at his watch. “I think that’ll be sometime around December, January if we’re lucky.”
“We’ll make it happen.”
He doesn’t show up every day, but I know that my presence brings him a sense of peace. I haven’t pried, but I sense that Gus is traveling through the latter part of his life completely alone.
“You’ve lost weight.” He wiggles the fingers of his right hand at me.
I pat my abs. “I’m holding steady.”
He shakes his head. “Some of that weight that’s been on your shoulders is gone.”
He couldn’t have spoken truer words this morning.
I may not know where I stand with Katie, but I woke up feeling lighter for the first time in five years.
“Confessions will do that to a man, Gus.”
His graying brows pop up. “Amen.”
I stare out at the East River. The only sounds around us are the traffic helicopters overheard and the light wind whipping from the North.
“What’s her name, Gage?”
I look down at him. “Katie.”
“Does Katie know what she has in you?”
A coward who couldn’t face his own truth five years ago?
I stretch my right arm over my head. “I know that there isn’t another woman on this Earth like her.”
“She’s your Lois, is she?”
I smile at that. It’s a bar set high in his eyes, so I answer honestly. “She’s my Lois. She’s always been and will always be my Lois.”
“Does Kristin look like you?”
My head lifts. After my confession last night, I prayed I would hear that sweet voice again, but I had no idea it would be this soon.
I watch as Katie settles onto a bar stool. She looks incredible. Her long blonde hair is straight. Her makeup is slightly bolder than it’s been since I walked back into her life. She’s wearing jeans and a red blouse that’s tied at the waist.
A few men in the bar turn to look at her. It sparks envy deep within me.
They aren’t carrying around the burden of my past mistakes with her.
I can’t offer her a clean slate like any of them can, but I can offer her memories of two college kids desperately in love.
I tug my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans. I scroll through the image library until I land on the most recent picture of my daughter that I have.
I flip the phone around to show Katie the brown-haired, green-eyed ray of sunshine that I love with all of my heart.
“This is Kristin.”
Katie leans forward. Her eyes skim the screen. “She’s beautiful.”
I turn the phone back to face me. The picture was taken at a playground. Kristin had just gotten off a swing. Her hair was bobbing around her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed pink. The grin on her face was wide, revealing a missing bottom tooth.
It’s pure joy in the form of a photograph.
Katie studies my face. “What’s she like?”
Staring into her eyes, I rest both of my forearms on the top of the bar. “Smart as a whip, kind, impetuous. She’s not afraid to speak her mind.”
She breaks eye contact with me with a quick glance at a man sitting two stools away from her.
I straighten. “I’ll make you a dirty martini.”
“With two olives,” she says, smiling enough to part her lips.
I set to work making her drink with a flicker of hope that I haven’t felt in years.