10. Ben #5
“Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly it.” I heaved a breath now that I was in relatively safe territory. “Sorry about that. I got a bit caught up in my own head.”
“Was it because I told you that your son looks up to you a lot and you have a very different mental image of how good of a parent you are to him?”
I was spending an awful lot of the date staring at her in surprise. “Do I even want to know how…?”
She shrugged. “I’m not a parent, but I get it.
I do. Losing my mother gave me all sorts of complicated thoughts, and I would be lying if I didn’t say my anxiety gets pretty intense.
Sometimes when someone compliments you out of the blue and it directly contrasts with what your trauma is telling you, it can be pretty triggering. ”
How did a woman who barely knew me understand me so well? How could she know me so well? It seemed like sorcery.
“You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head,” I said, instead of accusing her of being a witch or otherwise non-human entity.
“I do like to think I’m pretty perceptive. If you’d like, you can ask me about anything you’re curious about. I’m not a shining example, but I’ve made a lot of progress and figured out several coping mechanisms that have helped me.”
Some people would consider the whole conversation pretty emasculating, but those people were idiots. My pain, my PTSD, didn’t make me any less of a man. I was an alpha. It would be insane if I wasn’t deeply affected by what had happened.
I was hurting because I cared, because I was a red-blooded alpha and designed to be a protector. Because I was supposed to be nurturing and tending to an entire pack, but they were all dead because I was a fucking idiot.
“Actually, I?—”
“And here’s your flight!” our server said, popping up out of nowhere.
She moved awfully quiet for a human. “Again, sorry this took forever. We have a fifteen-top along with the ten-top I mentioned earlier, and the kitchen is slammed. But I talked to the manager, and he said this app is on the house. Just as a thank you for being so patient and understanding.”
Although money really wasn’t an issue for me, I still appreciated it. “Thank you. You didn’t need to do all that.”
“Please, you treated me like a reasonable human. You wouldn’t believe how rare that is.”
Giselle raised her hand slightly, and I wasn’t even sure she knew she was doing it. “I’m a teacher, so I absolutely believe it.”
“A teacher? Yeah, you get it. But anyway, the kitchen is trying to catch up, so hopefully your meals will be brought out a bit, uh, more expediently. ”
“Oh, nice vocab,” Giselle chimed in.
“Thank you! Can I get you any refills?”
“Yeah, I’d like to try the other German lager, then a big glass of ice water, extra ice.”
“And for you, ma’am?”
“Not a ma’am, please. I’m still in my twenties.” Giselle chuckled. “And I’m good. I might need another water with my food, but I don’t want to fill up on liquids.”
“Totally understand! I’ll get right on that for you then, sir, and let me know if you change your mind, Miss. ”
“Thank you,” Giselle said with a chuckle.
Our conversation drifted from there. She told me more about her disease, which sounded intense.
I was glad to hear that it usually wasn’t life-threatening with management, but that was the key part.
Management. I could imagine that was growing increasingly harder to do with the way the economy was going.
We talked a little more about her mother, but didn’t linger on that topic. I didn’t want Giselle to have to trot her trauma out like a show pony to soothe my frayed nerves. But still, it was nice that she trusted me.
We didn’t only talk about heavy backstories and childhood wounds.
We talked about the weather, but only because we’d gotten sidetracked in discussing the wild environmental divides between different prehistoric eras.
We talked about shows we liked, movies we were looking forward to, and of course, the kids.
We laughed. We joked. And when the food finally came, we dug in.
It was delicious, and very welcome. It’d been long enough since I’d eaten to make my stomach rumble, but the food wasn’t anything life - changing.
It affirmed my opinion that just because something was more expensive, it wasn’t necessarily better quality.
It really could have gone on forever, but after another hour, our food was either completely gone or growing cold, and it was getting close to closing time.
Wow, I couldn’t believe it. It never should have worked, and yet, I was having a really great time—better than I’d had in a long time.
“I suppose we should wrap this up,” I murmured, not all that eager to leave. “We’ve been camping here a while.”
“Have we?” Giselle looked at her phone, which had been sitting unused next to her purse. “Oh my god! We’ve been here two-and-a-half hours? How? ”
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” I said, pulling out my wallet and placing my credit card on top of the bill our server had dropped off about a half hour earlier. Normally, I never camped out, so I was going to give her an utterly ridiculous tip.
Did I wish that servers were paid fair wages and restaurants didn’t exploit them and their own customers to subsidize their own business? Absolutely. But until that happened, I made sure anyone who served me was properly compensated.
“Thank you again,” Giselle said, her eyes a bit misty as she gazed at me. “This was even better than I imagined.”
“It has been pretty great,” I agreed.
We didn’t have time to say much more before our server swept in and took my card off to charge it. She returned with it and the receipt, as well as the boxes Giselle needed for her leftovers.
She hadn’t eaten much while I ate with gusto, but she’d taken additional bites all throughout our conversation, which showed me she was serious about not ending up in the hospital again.
I had no right to feel proud of her for that, yet I did. She’d made a promise to my son, and she was keeping it. That meant a lot to me.
And she was looking out for her own health. That was important too.
We chatted a bit more, then stood up. It seemed neither of us really wanted to go, but the restaurant was about to close, so we had no choice.
I offered to carry Giselle’s bag of food, but she shook her head. “No, I can handle it.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”
“No, I want to. But thank you for asking.”
“Of course, any time.”
Boy, did I mean that. I didn’t want this to be the last time Giselle and I interacted, despite how many times I’d told myself there wouldn’t be a second date. When I was with her, it was almost easy to forget everything that was wrong with me.
Together, the two of us walked to the car. I had to fight the crazy urge to kiss her under the inky depths of the night sky. But that was way too far, way too fast, and considering the breakdown I’d had about going on a date with a woman who wasn’t Millia, it was also potentially dangerous.
So, I kept my lips to myself and opened the passenger-side door for Giselle. She got in, but before I could close it, our server shouted from the entrance of the restaurant.
“Excuse me, Miss! You forgot your purse!”.
Giselle let out an exhausted sound, and I got it. From what she’d told me, Graves’ disease had a pretty heavy exhaustion mechanic.
“I’ll go get it,” I said, handing her the keys. “Why don’t you turn on the car and get those heated seats going?”
The look she gave me was so open, so warm, that I was a bit taken aback. “Thank you, Ben.”
Fuck, I loved the way she said my name. A single syllable, but I felt it in my chest.
“No problem.”
I closed her door and jogged over to the restaurant. It really was the least I could do, so I didn’t mind at all.
And who knew, maybe I would get a chance to do even better.
I supposed time would tell.