16. Respectable Gentlemen
DARREN
“I’m not that na?ve girl anymore. I understand the difference now between someone being nice and when there’s real interest there. Your father…” she falters, and I stay quiet, holding my breath as I give her time to finish.
“He saw in me something that I needed, something I was desperate for.” She shrugs. “There wasn’t anything inappropriate, Darren.”
“Maybe I wanted to see something bad in him,” I admit. “Because if there was a fault, I could justify my anger.”
It’s not just my anger at the situation, it was my anger with him by creating this shadow that was impossible to step out from.
“But that’s the thing. We all have faults. Perhaps he didn’t spend enough time at home, put work first, didn’t go to your little league games, or expected too much from you. Those are his faults. Being unfaithful wasn’t one of them.”
I shrug and turn away from her, looking out at the woods. “I wasted so much time being angry, when he’s not the one I should have been angry with.”
I run a hand over my jaw and feel Evangeline touch my shoulder.
“I wish I had known you,” I say, turning around to face her.
“Don’t be angry at your father for lying to Langley that you’re how we knew each other. You know why he did it.”
“I’m not, I just wish I did know you, because maybe…”
“I think we both know you’re no knight in shining armor,” she teases.
I chuckle and raise an eyebrow. “You’re right about that. I just sometimes wish I could be that person.”
“What kind of person?” She furrows her brows.
“The one that saves someone instead of having to be saved.”
“I don’t need saving, Darren,” she protests. “I made a choice to do what I did for a living, and if I had to make it all over again, I would, because that’s what you do for the people you love.”
I place a hand to her cheek and feel how cold it is. “I have never wanted to be the kind of person people look up to, but you,” I brush my thumb along her lower lip, “make me ache to start.”
“So, what are you going to do about that?” she challenged.
“I don’t know.” I scratch the back of my neck. “I only know what I haven”t done about it, and I can’t watch while everyone else’s life moves on. Even Alistair has a fucking job,” I scoff.
“I know what that’s like,” she offers.
“When we were viewing the Declaration of Independence…”
“Is that what you call it?” she teases, her cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink.
I laugh a little bashfully. “You said, this is your Emerson, and I had never thought of it in that way before.”
With those words I had felt seen. I wasn’t in the shadow of someone who was larger and greater than me, I had stepped into the light.
“Sometimes we can’t see ourselves the way other people can.”
“You’re a very observant person.”
“Occupational hazard,” she teases.
“I’m gonna take the Bar in February,” I blurt out, like ripping off a Band-Aid, as if it were something to get through rather than savor. “It’s barely enough time, and if I want to pass, I’ll have to spend all my time studying, but, Evangeline,” I pause to take a breath, “I feel really good about this.”
“You’re going to take the Bar?” she asks in shock.
“Don’t look so surprised. I can be a respectable gentleman of society,” I tease, but she just narrows her eyes at me seeing right through my bullshit.
“Why now, Darren? What’s changed?”
“Everything.” I kick at an innocent rock. “Fate and legacy have caught up to me. I can’t run anymore.” I peer at her, wondering what she’s thinking. “What am I going to do with my life? Because this isn’t working for me anymore,” I gesture to the house. “My parents aren’t coming back. It’s time I lived up to my potential, to take what’s mine.”
I take her hand and even through her glove, it burns through me.
“I want more, Evan.”
* * *
Ileave Evangeline asleep in bed to start a pot of coffee. Thank God this house has a regular machine and not one of those fancy ones that only a barista would know how to use.
I woke up feeling better than I had in a decade, like a weight had been lifted off me, even though deciding to take the Bar should be more pressure than I could handle. It’s given me something to work towards, and I haven’t had that in a long time.
The deceiving blue sky causes me to step onto the deck where I smell the burned notes of a fire from a nearby chimney, along with pine needles and everything that says fall is coming to an end and winter is closing in fast – along with my balls shriveling up and trying to climb back inside my body to get away from the cold.
“Shit!”
It’s like participating in the polar plunge where people skinny dip in the middle of winter for reasons I can’t fathom. I shiver and curse, trying to think of why I was so stupid to come out here in the first place, when the front door bangs open. I turn around to see Alistair standing in the doorway where he drops his luggage, and his eyes drop to my flaccid cock.
“Well,” he heckles, pointing at me. “It doesn’t look like you’re happy to see me.”
“Jesus fuck, Alistair,” I move into the kitchen and grab a dish towel to cover myself. “I was just outside and it’s fucking cold.”
“Why are you here so early anyway? I said to come the day before Thanksgiving.”
“Have you been so busy fucking Evangeline – poor thing – to know what day it is?” He makes a tsk noise while trying to peer over the counter as I wave him away angrily. It dawns on me, today is the day before Thanksgiving. I palm my face, nearly dropping the towel.
Evangeline appears from the hallway with sleepy eyes, dressed in the long underwear that we picked up in town.
“Did I interrupt something?” she muses, looking at the dishtowel I’m holding in front of me and back at Alistair.
“No. Jesus,” I grumble.
From behind Alistair, Cleo appears, her leopard print bag hanging at her side. “Darren, now I know you didn’t invite me here for an orgy.” Her other hand is at her waist. “That costs extra,” she snickers with a wink.
“Oh my God!” Evangeline runs towards her. “What are you doing here?”
The timing may not be optimal, but the look on Evangeline’s face is worth standing here with a flaccid cock that may or may not have frostbite.