Chapter 5
God, she hadn’t expected to be so nervous! All afternoon she repeated her mantra in her head. It’s just dinner. It’s just dinner. It’s just dinner. And all she’d gotten for it was more nervousness.
Hadley had gone with her to the department store after school and helped her pick out something to wear, and she’d wound up with a simple cotton dress that had a tie in the back.
When she put it on again at home and looked in the mirror, she was disappointed.
Hadley had said to go for simple and elegant, but she just looked as plain as ever.
There was nothing remarkable about her. She just blended into the woodwork.
The restaurant wasn’t hard to find, but she was about twenty minutes early, so she drove around for fifteen minutes.
Madisonville had changed a good bit. The hospital was bigger than she remembered, and there were a few more restaurants and stores.
There were several new churches too. They were building something near the high school, and she wondered if it was a new junior high.
Her truck rolled into the restaurant’s parking lot with five minutes to spare.
She didn’t see Kyle’s truck, but that was okay.
She was sure he’d be there. When the hour came up, and then five after rolled around, she started to get concerned.
At ten after, her phone rang and she checked it. “Hello?”
“Hey. I had a flat. I just got it changed, so I’ll be there as fast as I can get there. I’m about five minutes away.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, but I had to go back home and change clothes. I was filthy.”
“It’s okay. I’m just glad you called. I was starting to think you’d stood me up!” she said with a nervous little twitter.
“Nope. I would never do that. I’ll be right there. See you in a few minutes.”
“Okay. Be careful. Bye.” Well, that explained it. Gina went on inside and got them a table. It wasn’t horribly busy, but it beat sitting in the truck.
Sure enough, five minutes later, the door opened and he rushed in.
After looking around for a second or two, he spotted her as she waved to him from the back and almost ran to the table, then practically dropped into the booth.
“I’m so, so sorry. I was early so I was just driving along and felt something, and then it blew, and I got out to change it but the jack wasn’t working right, and I—”
“Stop! It’s okay, Kyle! I’m not upset. I’m just glad you called me and told me what was going on.
Oh, hang on a minute.” She picked up her napkin, twisted it to a point, dipped it into her water glass, and smiled.
“Lean in.” When he did, she wiped his cheek with the napkin, then turned it to show to him. “You had some grime on your face.”
“Thanks. I just … This was not how I wanted our first date to go.” He seemed sad, and she hated that.
“It’s good. Now I know you’re a stand-up guy who’ll call if something happens. It’s fine, really. But you’re bound to be hungry.”
“Hungry? I’m starving.”
Thirty minutes later, they were devouring two sushi rolls and a bowl of fried rice. “So what is this again?” Kyle asked as he stuck a piece of sushi into his mouth.
“It’s a red and white roll. Red tuna, white tuna, spicy tuna, and masago, with eel on top and eel and sriracha sauces over it.”
He smiled as he chewed and swallowed. “It’s really good. I didn’t know what to expect. A little fishy, but—”
“You’ll get used to that. But overall, do you like it?”
“I do. It’s … different.”
“Sometimes I start craving it and that’s all I think about until I get some. They have several places over in Fort Campbell that have good sushi, all made by Japanese people, so it’s authentic.”
“We should try some of those sometime. Do you like Vietnamese food?” he asked, eyeing another piece of sushi.
“I do! And Thai too.”
“Yes. I like Thai food.”
“Where did you learn to eat all that?”
He laid his fork down—the chopsticks had been a disaster—and smiled. “Becky. She loved eating stuff from other cultures. We went to Florida on our honeymoon. She loved the Cuban and Haitian cuisine down there. We ate our way across St. John’s County.”
“Oh! You went to St. Augustine? It’s really pretty.” She remembered well from her childhood. Her parents had taken them there, and it had seemed like a magical place.
“Yes. It is.” He stopped for a second, then added, “Guess that’s awkward, me talking about my honeymoon with my late wife.”
“No. It’s not. She was a huge part of your life. You can’t act like she just never existed. It’s okay. At least yours isn’t in prison for being an asshole,” she said, muttering the last part.
“That’s true.”
“So, tell me more about Myla.” That turned out to be a good request. Kyle’s eyes lit up as he talked about his little girl, and she could tell he was a great dad.
It sounded as though everything he did was for Myla, and she started to wonder if he’d have room in his life for anyone else. “She sounds amazing.”
“She is. Of course, she doesn’t remember her mom, but we have pictures of her. She looks just like Becky.”
Do a little digging here, she told herself. “It kinda sounds like you wouldn’t have much time for a relationship with somebody else.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I just need somebody who understands what it’s like to be a single parent. I actually think I’d have plenty of time if I weren’t alone, trying to do everything for her myself.”
He was right about that. “That would probably help you out a lot.”
“I think it would.”
“So where is Myla?”
“She went to my mom and dad’s for the night. I just asked if she could stay there. She likes having sleepovers with them.” When she nodded, he asked, “Where are Hadley and Briley?”
“Hadley’s with her best friend. They have a house on the lake, and they take the girls for the weekend sometimes. Briley’s at a tournament in Tennessee. One of the lakes down there.”
“Lake? Tournament? Skiing?”
She laughed. “Nope! Fishing! He wants to be a professional fisherman. He won a tournament last year. A thousand dollars or dinner with one of three professional anglers.”
“Yeah? What did he choose?”
“Wasn’t a what. It was a who. He went to dinner with Terrance Boldry.”
“The guy from Paducah? The bass fisherman?”
“Yeah. He’s Briley’s idol. They were at the restaurant for like three hours.
He had a great time, and the man seems very nice.
Said he was impressed with Briley for not taking the money, and because he was so polite and asked such good questions.
He asked for Briley’s tournament schedule for the year, and there are three they’ll be doing near each other, so he promised Briley they’d get together.
So far, he’s made good on his word—they’re getting together for lunch at this one, and Briley is super excited.
Terrance goes to a tournament every year where they have pros matched with junior anglers, and Briley’s hoping Terrance will ask him to be his partner for the event. ”
“That’s would really be cool! What a nice guy.”
“What does Myla like to do?”
“She loves her dolls, and she likes to draw. She likes to garden too. She actually asked for a grow light last year for Christmas, and she gets her little seedlings started right after the first of the year so they’re ready to plant when it gets warm out.”
“Growing what?”
“Flowers, mostly. She loves tomatoes, so she has a few tomato plants. She told Constance she wants a grape tree,” Kyle said with a laugh.
“Constance?”
“My sister.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. She calls Myla Mylanta sometimes, and Myla calls her Aunt Cornie. But sometimes Myla calls her Aunt Constipation.” Gina snickered. “They pick at each other all the time.”
“That’s fun though.” Gina looked around the restaurant. “They’re starting to get busy. We should probably give them their table back.”
“Yeah. I think you’re right. We should probably go.
” Kyle stood and helped Gina push her chair back.
As they moved toward the front door, she felt his hand on the small of her back, and the warmth sent an unexpected chill running through her body.
God, she needed to have another adult touch her!
She loved her kids, and their hugs were awesome, but another adult, especially a man … That would be so great.
He reached for the door handle on her truck and opened the door for her, but when she turned to face him, he was wearing a very different expression than she’d expected. “Can I tell you something?” he asked, staring down and dragging the toe of his boot through the gravel.
“Sure.”
His head rose and then his eyes tipped up to meet hers. “I don’t want this to end. I really, really like you.”
Gina closed her eyes. Did she dare be that vulnerable? Something about Kyle told her he’d never intentionally hurt her, and for once, she wanted to go with her gut. “You know, I don’t either.”
“You could come to the house. I can pop some popcorn, we can watch a movie—”
“Oh, Netflix and chill, huh?” she asked with a grin.
“Yeah! I have Netflix! We could—”
“You have no idea what that means, do you?” she asked, and she knew her grin was going from calm to wicked.
“Uh, watching a movie?” he asked, giving her the side-eye as his brow fell toward the bridge of his nose.
“No. You’re not around teenagers. It means something completely different.” With that, she waggled her eyebrows up and down.
“Oh. Oh! Yeah?” She nodded and watched him grin, his cheeks pinking up. “Uhhh, I’m obviously disconnected from the teen world, huh?”
That made her laugh aloud. “Yeah! But seriously, if you know what that means, how do you feel about it?”
He stepped into her space, rested his hands on her hips, and lifted one eyebrow. “What do you think?” Then he leaned in and kissed her just as he had the time before.