Chapter Fourteen
Emerson
“Hey!” Patch says as he approaches the table. His face is flushed, eyes bright. “I’m glad you could make it.”
I want to say are you, but then I also want to give in to the fluttering, excited feeling low in my stomach.
I watch hungrily as Patch removes his jacket and hangs it over the back of the chair.
He pushes up the sleeves of his jumper as he sits down, and for a second too long, my gaze lingers on his forearms.
I ended up texting him on Sunday, while Jamie was out at dinner with his friends.
Nick fell asleep on the sofa and so I was sitting there for a while, considering calling Cate because her perspective on this whole thing might have helped me out, and then before I knew it, I was sending Patch a message that we should meet up sometime this week.
It’s Monday now. Not even twenty-four hours since I texted him, but I can’t mock his eagerness, not when I’m inexplicably feeling it myself.
And my heart hurts for Jamie as well. Not because I feel bad about spending time with Patch, necessarily, but that I want him here. I can’t explain that, either. Just that I feel I should turn my head and he’ll be sitting here with me. With us.
“This is a nice place,” Patch says, clearly a little nervous at my silence. “I’ve been here a few times. Not on dates. I mean, not really on dates, just—”
“Patch,” I say, and he falls silent. “I want to be here. I really wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“Good. That’s good.” He grins and picks up the menu.
God, he really means it. I force myself to push thoughts of Jamie aside. He wants me to do this, and I have to believe him, have to trust that he knows himself. I shake off all that and pick up my own menu, even though I got here twenty minutes early and have already looked through it three times.
We’re out for a late lunch at a cute café that seems to be about halfway between where Patch and I live. I order a coffee and a sandwich with chips when the waiter comes over. Patch orders a burger and a milkshake, and as soon as the waiter is gone, all his attention is back on me.
“Didn’t have to work today?” he asks.
“My hours are pretty flexible,” I reply.
I feel kind of bad about the pretence I’m maintaining regarding work, but I really don’t want any of them finding out about my social media stuff.
There’s a reason I keep my face out of videos.
I’m proud of the work I do, that I’m trying to find something deeper, but I know from bitter experience that most people don’t see it that way and I hardly know these people at all.
“What about you? Are you at the pub tonight?”
“Nah. That’s three nights a week—I basically picked up Dax’s shifts when he left. I do the odd job here and there for friends of mine, but I don’t have, you know, like a career.”
“Lots of things are more important than that.”
“You’re telling me.” He grins. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
Dread faintly strangles me for a moment, though I’m careful not to let it show on my face.
It never mattered. Not that I was going to inherit everything; my older brother, Gideon, was groomed to be my father’s heir.
Just that it was a given that I would study economics or politics and then use all those connections from school and university and my parents to get a well-paid job doing absolutely nothing of use.
I like to think of Dad spinning in his grave, sometimes. But he knew what I was going off to do the moment I graduated. I made sure of that.
“Uh, not sure,” I say. I search my mind for something. Anything. “Maybe a vet?”
“You like helping animals?”
“I like animals. Not sure I would have ever made it through all of that, though. Seems a lot sadder than most people like to believe.”
Patch sighs in sympathy. “True.”
“What about you, then?”
He grins again. “Firefighter, for sure. But yeah, I think only the kind that rescued kittens from trees for little old ladies.”
I laugh. I can imagine him doing just that—or in a firefighter’s uniform, or half out of it. My mouth goes dry. “Well, doubt we’d have ended up here if we both followed our childhood dreams.”
“Maybe not, huh.”
Our food comes, and talk progresses to Dax, and then Patch’s sister, Millie, and her family.
The smile Patch wears when he talks about his nephews makes my heart race.
I’ve never thought about kids of my own—why would I, with the cold, distant childhood I had—but I’m struck by the image of Patch with some little rugrat on his shoulders, and for a second, I can hardly breathe.
“So what did Cate say when you told her you were moving away for a while?”
The food is finished, and I’m onto my second coffee. Patch has a water, though I’m still eyeing his empty milkshake glass—it looked incredible, and I think I want to order one.
“She was mad about it. Is mad about it.” I shake my head when Patch frowns. “It’s justified. Think about her like your sister. What would Millie say if you just took off because you thought you might get a better job opportunity?”
Patch winces. “Yeah, okay,” he concedes. “She hasn’t called at all?”
“It’s only been a week. I’m going to talk to her tonight, anyway.” I need to, after this, but I don’t say that part aloud. “She’ll be fine. I think. She gives me shit but only when I deserve it.”
“I guess it’s good to have a friend like that.”
I snort. “Does Dax not do that to you?”
“Way too nice,” Patch says, shaking his head, but he’s smiling again. “Well, he has his own way of going about it, I guess. And Vince is a terrible influence.”
“Really?”
“Nah. They’re perfect for each other.”
He says it so easily that I’m honestly surprised. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone say two people were perfect for each other, or at least, not like that. Like it’s a fact. Like it comes as easily as breathing.
“You think so?”
“I know—” Patch cuts himself off quickly. “Yeah, I do.”
“Huh. Well, that’s good. They seem happy together.”
I’ve actually never seen a couple quite like them. If they hadn’t said on Saturday how long they’d been together, I would have assumed years, maybe decades, even though they’re both clearly in their thirties. They’re so… in tune with each other.
I chance a look at Patch, who’s looking right back at me. Do I have a chance like that with him? Fierce longing grips me, one that I’ve never experienced before.
Do I have a chance like that with Jamie?
I feel suddenly out of my depth. Maybe this was a bad idea, after all. Maybe I should have listened to my intuition. I believe Jamie could want me to go, but I could still say no because it won’t lead anywhere good for me.
Patch reaches carefully across the table. His fingers brush mine. Despite my sudden doubts, I don’t move my hand away.
I reach for him instead, and he lets out a shaky breath when our fingers tangle together. I swallow hard. I can’t explain it either, only this is perhaps the most chaste way we could touch and yet I want no one else to see the intimacy of it. I grip his fingers a little tighter.
“This was a good idea, right?” I ask. I need the assurance, need to be certain that I’m not wrong. “Coming out on a date together?”
“Yeah, of course. Did someone make you think it wasn’t?”
“No. No, I—” I let out a breath, releasing some of the tension with it. “I’m in my own head, I think. It’s been a while since I went on a date.”
“Well, I’ve had fun,” Patch says. He signals for the bill with his free hand, the other one never letting go of mine. “Can we do it again? Soon?”
I laugh at his eagerness, but it’s not mean, and he seems to know it. I’m caught up in him again, giddy and excited, but there’s still that voice in the back of my head—sounding much like Cate—telling me to slow down, take it easy.
“Yeah,” I say and push that feeling to the forefront. I have work to do. I don’t want to ruin the friendship I’m developing with Jamie or Nick. “Next Monday?”
To his credit, Patch doesn’t look disappointed that it’ll be a week before we see each other again. “It’s a date.”