9. How to Cut a Date Short
9
HOW TO CUT A DATE SHORT
Leighton
“But…but Birdie said you’re a chef!” I point out, my voice shooting toward the sky, as if somehow repeating Birdie’s words could erase the absolute horror of what Miles has just admitted.
And horror is on his face too. “I wish I were a chef! No, I’m not. What the fuck would make her say that?”
I point wildly in the direction of Fillmore Street, as if pointing to his grandmother. “She told me you were. She said not to bring up your job—that’s why I didn’t say anything. I was trying to be respectful.”
His eyes flash with frustration, but I catch a flicker of realization in them, too, as he stares at the ceiling for a beat, like he can’t believe this is actually happening. He looks back at me, finally. “And she told me not to discuss my job with you. She said nobody wants to hear about that on a first date. She said to talk about other things. Holy fuck—I should have told you what I did sooner. ”
He drags a hand across his brow, looking like he’s received the worst news of his life. And honestly, it kind of is.
“You’re…Miles Falcon,” I say, since I need to voice it out loud, and as I do, the truth hits me with full force. I didn’t put Miles the chef together with Miles Falcon the Sea Dog, because why would I? I legit thought he was a chef; I don’t study the pictures of the players on my dad’s team. I haven’t been to a game in a while, since I studied abroad the year I think he joined, and, well, I’ve been pretty busy in the last year too. “You don’t look like a hockey player. You look like…” I flap my hands at him, still adding up how the hell this misunderstanding has happened. “Well, you look like a chef. With the boots and the black and the glasses.”
He sighs heavily. “Yeah, well, I only cook for fun. I play hockey for work. And I thought you knew.”
“How would I know?” I’m nearly shouting. “I don’t memorize pictures of the players.”
Also, hello! He plays hockey. He’s not a movie star. But that’s rude to point out.
Miles holds up his hands in surrender, clearly frustrated with himself now. “I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought maybe you knew I played hockey and didn’t care. Or that you just…didn’t care what I do.”
“I didn’t care about what you do…until I found out you worked for my father,” I say, sputtering.
“Shit, shit. This is terrible.” He shakes his head, not even bothering with the spilled artichokes and glass on the floor. “I can’t believe I did this. I can’t believe I slept with the coach’s daughter.”
He sounds sick to his stomach. I feel sick to mine too. “I can’t believe I slept with one of his players,” I mutter, pacing around his living room, trying to untangle this mess and make sense of it.
My dad’s been the coach of this team for the last five years. Players respect him. The league respects him. He’s had a phenomenal career. And I can’t get involved with a member of his team.
“I didn’t know it was you,” I add quickly when I stop pacing and head into the kitchen because it feels important to make that clear. I don’t want him to think I’ve tricked him. “I really believed Birdie, and I’m guessing she told me you were a chef to protect you. She probably thought if she told me you played hockey that I might only be interested in you for that reason, since she obviously knew we were into each other.”
He laughs humorlessly. “Trust me, she knew I had it bad for you the first day we met.”
My stupid heart flips, but I don’t let myself linger on the feeling—it’s fleeting.
Besides, I want to impress this point on him. “I’ve been out of town. I went to college in Los Angeles. I even spent a year studying abroad in London. And since then I have been busy working on my career. I know hockey, but I don’t know every single player. I’m not one of those superfans who can rattle off each team member and recognize every photo of them.”
Miles just stares at me, stunned. “Did Birdie know who you are though?”
“I don’t think my last name came up. I’m not close with her. We just talked about photos, and that was all.”
He shakes his head, dismissing the thought of Birdie knowing his coach is my father, because why would she do that to her beloved grandson? “She wouldn’t have done this on purpose…She knows how much I admire your fa ther.” Miles lets out a pained sigh and drops his head into his hands. “Holy shit, your father saved my career. He fought for me to be on this team when I was struggling in Vancouver. He helped me get over a problem on the ice. He hooked me up with a sports psychologist. Your father is the reason I still have a career.”
“My father is the reason I have one good parent who cares about me…” I trail off, the weight of this whole mess pressing down on me.
We stand there in his kitchen, surrounded by a broken jar of artichokes, an open bottle of wine, and the ingredients he’d planned to make into our late-night dinner. A dinner that isn’t happening now. A second date being cut short. A third that won’t ever come to pass. Because it’s not a matter of who says it first; when we look at each other, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt we’re both thinking the same thing.
“This can’t happen again,” I whisper.
Miles nods, understanding immediately. “I know. Let me take you home.”
I shake my head. “I’ll catch a Lyft.”
“Let me drive you.”
“It’s not necessary,” I say.
“You’re right. It’s not. But I still want to do this for you. It’s all I can do right now,” he implores me, sounding more vulnerable than I expected.
It’d be silly to think either one of us fell hard in one day and night. And I’m realistic, above all. I believe in facts and hard work. I don’t believe in taking risks with my future. But even so, everything about today and tonight felt real and possible, and it’s hard to give that up. So, yes, I suppose his vulnerability makes sense after all. And I wouldn’t mind a few last stolen moments with this man. “Okay.”
He leaves the spilled artichokes on the tiled floor. “I’ll clean those up later,” he says.
“Shame. They’re my favorite,” I say as we return to his car.
He pulls out of his garage and into the night. I give him my address, and he plugs it into the GPS then navigates along the streets of San Francisco, now shrouded in a rare night-time fog. But that feels fitting.
He’s quiet for a long beat. Once we cruise along Van Ness Avenue, he says, “This is a massive line I can’t cross.”
“It’s a line for me too. I would never want to hurt my father or change how he might think about the team he loves coaching. The only thing he loves more than his team…is his daughters.”
Miles manages a tight smile. “I wish he’d called you and your sister by your names the few times he mentioned you. And she’s the only one he even mentioned coming to a game since I’ve been with the team.”
“She’s in high school so she still lives at home. And as for my dad…he’s a private man. He’s always been that way.” His reputation is pristine. The respect he’s earned from his players is well-deserved. I’m not going to ruin that.
A few minutes later, I’m at the front door of my building in the Mission District, a far cry from the Marina.
Miles sighs heavily, letting his head fall back against the seat. “I didn’t mean that last thing—about wishing I’d known who you were beforehand,” he says softly, then turns and looks at me with such longing in his eyes. “I’m glad I didn’t know who you were, and I don’t regret anything about tonight.”
“Me neither.”
With that, I leave the best date I’ve ever had in the past.
“Potatoes. Scrambled eggs. No butter, please—just oil. Well-cooked. Toast dry.”
Before our dad can finish his order, Riley and I chime in unison from across the booth, “And a cup of fruit on the side.”
The server at our regular café near Riley’s school laughs. “Someone knows your order, sir,” he says to my dad.
My father gives us a stern look, like he’s challenging my sister and me to just try it again. “And coffee?—”
“Black. No sugar, no cream,” Riley and I say together, since we can’t resist needling him.
The server chuckles, jotting it all down. “Noted.”
“And for you?” he asks, turning to me.
I order pancakes. After last night went sideways, it just feels like a pancake kind of morning. “With extra syrup,” I add.
My dad tilts his head in curiosity, studying me. “You always order eggs with artichokes and mushrooms.”
A pang hits me in the chest, sharper than I’d like. Artichokes feel off-limits today, tangled up with the memory of Miles mentioning he’d make them for me last night. Then the jar breaking at his feet. The thought feels too fresh, too close .
Riley jumps in. “She usually does, but she mixes it up way more than you. You’re a creature of habit, Dad.”
“Nothing wrong with habits. Especially good ones,” he says.
“True. But I need pancakes today, Dad. Maybe even whipped cream,” I say, pushing the memory of last night away. I’ve been doing that all morning long. I feel like I’ll be doing it longer than I’d like.
The server nods my way, like we’re kindred spirits. “I hear you, girl. Some days, you just need all the extra sugar.”
Yeah, like after you sleep with one of your dad’s players.
But I try to shove that thought of Miles out of my mind. His hands, his ink, his eyes, the way he talked, the way he listened…I sit up straighter, focusing on keeping my hands still. I won’t be seeing him again. My dad will, though—in two hours when he gets on the team bus, then boards the team jet as they head to their first pre-season game.
After Riley places her order and the server takes off, my dad turns his attention back to us. He’s dressed for travel today, so he’s wearing a charcoal suit with a light green tie that Riley and I gave him for Christmas last year. All his ties come from his daughters. “So now that you’ve mocked me for ordering the same thing?—”
“Which you do every time,” Riley interjects.
“It’s breakfast. Breakfast is supposed to be the same. Mornings are for routine. You get up, exercise, eat a healthy breakfast,” he says, like it’s a mantra.
“And you already ran three miles, right?” Riley asks.
He rolls his dark blue eyes at her—we get our eyes from him. Our mom has brown eyes. I can’t say it bothers me that Riley and I look more like him than the woman who barely wants to know us.
“Yes, Riley. You saw me come back from the run. You still live with me, you sass monster,” he teases.
That’s mostly true—that she lives with him. She also stays with his parents, who live next door to them. When our mom left nearly a decade ago to ostensibly focus on her handbag line, but actually to shack up with Dad’s agent, he became our primary parent. He built a house for his parents on his property in Mill Valley so they could help raise us. I was fourteen then, Riley was six, and Mom had moved to Miami.
She did launch the handbag line with the money she protected in the prenup, and she’s still running the wildly successful Simply Grace. But Michael, the guy she cheated on Dad with? Pretty sure he’s been out of the picture for a long time. Well, she always loved accessories more than anything so I suppose her exit strategy worked out for her. It also taught me a valuable lesson—it’s best if I depend on myself.
I focus on the most important people in my life—my father and little sister. Dad, however, is already focused on me. “So, what’s on tap for today, Leighton?”
“I’m assisting a fashion photographer,” I say, then tell him about some of the work I’m doing with a local designer. “And later this week I’m taking some dog pictures for a Bark in the Park event.”
“Nice,” he says, his tone proud. “And you had a shoot yesterday. How’d it go?”
I mentioned it when I last saw him, so it’s only natural he’d ask. Only now, I feel like a complete traitor lying to him, maybe for the first time. “It…sort of fell apart.”
“What happened?” he asks, and I’m sure he’ll be ready to dole out advice, too, on work and how to handle setbacks. Normally, I like his advice. He knows what it takes to collaborate, manage big personalities, and work with a huge team. Obviously.
Think fast.
“The model canceled, and then the client canceled,” I say. Since he’ll never know Miles stepped in, I add, “So it was a bust.”
He sighs. “What did you do instead?”
Got absolutely wrecked on a chaise longue by one of your fifty-goal scorers. The guy you saved after an injury. Filthy mouth. Big heart. Smart too. Basically, a perfect date. “I just shot some self-portraits,” I say, knowing nothing will shut Dad up faster than the thought of me in lingerie. He knows I’ve been playing around with that type of shot, but not that I want to build a business shooting boudoir.
Riley sits up straighter, then nudges me, her gaze drifting pointedly down to her hands. They’re below the table. She signs, What did you wear? Can you take me shopping for something pretty?
I laugh, then say out loud to her, “Anytime.”
Dad clears his throat. “I do know ASL too.”
We all know American Sign Language, even though I don’t need it now—I can hear them all well enough and everyone else—clients, friends, neighbors, strangers. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly have to use it. But my high school offered it, so I took it just in case. Riley and my dad decided to learn it too. Someday I might need or want to use ASL to communicate with them, even though I know I could also use conversational captioning tools on my phone. Either way, the future can barrel down on you. So I choose to be practical .
I turn to Riley, smiling as I say to my father, “You know it, but only if you can see it.”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s just mean.”
I shrug. “You’re a girl dad. We’re going to have secrets from you.”
“Get used to it,” Riley adds.
“Daughters,” he says with an over-the-top sigh then he moves on, turning to Riley. “And you have a chemistry test today.”
“Which she’ll ace,” I add because she’s a genius STEM girl.
“I don’t know about that,” Riley says.
“You kind of ace everything,” I say, grinning.
“You do,” Dad agrees, and when the server returns with his coffee, he thanks him. We chat more, carefully sidestepping any mention of hockey until Dad studies me for a long beat, then says with a chin nod, “Where’d you get that locket? Is it new?”
Oh. Right. I’m still wearing it. I stupidly couldn’t bring myself to take it off. My cheeks flush as the lie slips out. “Oh, this? Just grabbed it at a thrift shop.”
“It’s pretty,” he says.
“Yeah, I might have to steal it sometime,” Riley teases.
I smile, but beneath it, guilt knots in my stomach.
The food arrives a minute later, and I’m grateful for the distraction. Before everyone digs in, I take a picture of Riley and my dad—a candid here at the table. They’re so used to me snagging pics like this that they just keep talking as I frame the shot and snap it. Then, it’s selfie time for all of us. They lean in close and I take the pic. I want to capture all life’s moments, big and small. I want to experience everything, and sometimes that means being able to look back and remember a moment that’s passed you by.
“The camera eats first,” my dad says, faux grumbling.
“And the camera is very hungry,” Riley adds with a huff.
“Please. You both love my pics,” I say. “I’ve seen your smart hubs.”
Riley rolls her eyes but bumps my shoulder—her subtle acknowledgement. As for Dad, I get his acknowledgement nearly every day. I gave them both digital photo frames for Christmas last year and they eagerly display the pics on them that I upload to our family album. And nearly every day my dad takes pics on his phone of the pics the frame scrolls through and texts us notes like “Remember that day?” or “That was fun!”
It’s so meta, I love it. But I love, too, that the pics make him happy.
When breakfast ends, I have some time before I meet the other photographer, so I make a quick decision—I can’t hold on to this necklace. It feels like it belongs to someone else. I take a bus to the Presidio and hike along Tennessee Hollow Trail until I find the lockbox I visited yesterday with Miles.
I try to remember the code, but he found it through an app. Dammit. I don’t even know what app he used. Crouching by the stream, I go to the app store and search for geocaching apps. There are five.
I sigh, downloading them one by one, and after ten minutes of setup with the first one, I plug in the location and find the cache. Well, lucky me on that count.
I click on the info and there it is—the code. I punch it into the lockbox as a curl of hope rises up in me. Maybe he left something for me this morning. A note? A trinket? A small token that would show yesterday mattered to him.
Stop it, Leighton. This is so ridiculous. I’m not that girl—the one who hopes for gifts from guys.
“Just move on,” I mutter.
I yank the box open…and it’s empty. The bracelet is gone. My heart sinks heavily, but really this is fine. This is so fine. The bracelet didn’t matter that much to me anyway.
But the necklace? It feels like it could have meant a lot. Like yesterday did. It’s a day I don’t want to forget. I have pictures of Miles and me in the studio, but none geocaching of course. That would have been too much to capture. I don’t want to forget it though—how I felt when we were together. Effervescent, hopeful, heady. Like everything was possible. I run a finger over the heart locket, tracing the grooves and ridges of the metal before I take my phone out and snap a picture.
Something to remember yesterday.
Then, I let it go so someone else can have it.
I take off the heart locket and set it inside the box, its weight lifting from my skin. I close the box, leaving the necklace—and Miles—behind.