34. The Messy Me
34
THE MESSY ME
Elodie
I walk Amanda and Eliza to school, and the girls do what girls often do—speak in their own language with acronyms and did you see this , and I have to show you that . Eliza is telling Amanda she can teach her to make soap, which leads to them bent over phones, watching time-lapse soap-making videos, then Amanda tells Eliza she can take her to the pottery studio again that afternoon, then Eliza asks if she’s heard from the art school.
“Just a few more days,” Amanda says, and I can tell she’s trying to be stoic but she’s barely hiding real nerves.
“I can’t wait to celebrate,” Eliza says, ever the cheerleader.
Amanda’s school comes first, so I wave goodbye to her—hugs are verboten—and then I echo, “Just a few more days.”
She offers a hopeful smile, then says to Eliza, “Ally and I are getting boba after school. Want to come with us?”
Eliza says yes so fast.
Over the next eight blocks, Eliza’s a chatterbox. I barely get a word in edgewise, but I don’t need to since she’s rolling on, telling me about a new TV show she found to stream, then how someone in her class got a hedgehog and named it Gary, and then there’s a new glove she wants for softball, and before we know it, we’re at her school.
I offer to take them again the next day so Gage can run with his friend a second time, and it’s chillier today. We look up at the swollen clouds in the sky. “Do you think it’ll snow?” I ask.
“That would be so cool,” Amanda says.
“We could have a snowball fight,” Eliza says.
“Or make snow angels,” Amanda suggests.
“Or more hot cocoa and warm up by the fire,” I offer.
“Yes! I swear I am not tired of hot cocoa even after Sundays,” Eliza says.
“Facts,” Amanda agrees.
Once we drop off Amanda, Eliza rappels right into another conversation, screw the preamble. “I want to learn to make chocolate too. Like Amanda. Does she make chocolate or is that just you? And where do you make the chocolate? Do you have a chocolate factory in your store?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “My store’s small batch. We make everything in house in the back of the shop. I’m not big enough to have a factory. That’s for bigger shops, like?—”
Eliza growls, curling her little fingers into claws. “Like our mortal enemy’s.”
“Yes,” I say, but I’m really trying not to linger on that guy. Besides the bargain basement sales and the clear copycatting, Sebastian’s been relatively quiet in recent weeks. He hasn’t come by my store or the pop-up shop. It’s been peaceful to have him out of my life. When he slithered into my shop that day, I tried so hard to be calm as he spewed trashy words. Like when I had to be the steady, stable one when my parents came home drunk. Often, it was a relief when they ignored me as a kid. I feel like that with Sebastian now, grateful to be ignored at last.
“But enough about him,” I say to Eliza. “Why don’t you tell me why you started doing the beach cleanups? I’m more interested in you.”
With wide eyes and the confidence of a fearless eleven-year-old, she shares the things she’s learning in school about the oceans and marine life and plastic, and how she just wants to make the world better by doing her part.
“You have a good heart. You’re a lot like your dad and your grandma.”
Her green eyes look up at me, like she’s wrestling with something, then she pins it. “I really liked Kylie, but I like you better. She never asked me all these questions. She was fun and everything, but it’s more fun talking to you. Does that make sense?”
That last question is such a thing people say these days when they’re uncertain. Eliza’s hardly ever unsure. Gage has spoken broadly to me about his past relationships before. Rather than lingering on the differences between Kylie and me—since, really, they aren’t that important—I focus on giving her what she needs.
Reassurance.
“I like listening to you,” I say genuinely, even as my heart aches for the future. Come January will I even have the opportunity to listen to her stories? To wonder about the bright and curious mind of this young person? My heart climbs into my throat as I curl a hand over her shoulder and squeeze it. “Now, have a good day at school and come home and tell me more stories.”
“I will.”
She heads inside, and since I’m not due at my shop for a couple hours, I walk back to Zane’s home, logging into my banking app as I go. A warm, glowy feeling spreads in my chest as I see the loan balance shrink more and more each day.
I made this happen. All by myself. With no role model, no guidance, no handbook.
Though I didn’t do it alone. I did it with a partner. I wouldn’t have seen the uptick in business without Gage.
That fizzy feeling expands as I reach the house and head inside, following the clink of a ceramic mug against the counter, then the glug of coffee being poured.
My heart thumps harder, as I head into the kitchen. There he is at the counter, holding a spoon over a mug. Pouring his coffee probably. His dark hair is wet, slicked back, the ends curling up at the back of his neck. He’s freshly showered from his run, wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt. He’s so handsome, my chest hurts.
Immediately, I want to know everything about him. All the things I don’t know. Like his favorite book, if he still longs to play baseball, what his next tattoo would be, and why he makes soap. Why didn’t I ever ask him these things before?
I need to know them. Now. I need to discover every detail of Gage before time runs out.
I walk right up to him from behind, wrap my arms around his waist and rest my head against the back of his shoulder, inhaling the clean, soapy scent of his neck.
Setting down the mug and spoon, he spins around, catching my mouth with his.
A soft kiss that makes my knees weak.
Strong hands wrap around my hips.
Bright eyes look into my soul.
My heart stutters.
I want to know, too, if he likes the real me, the messy me, the me that’s not the happy-go-lucky, flirty, dirty girl he met at Sticks and Stones. The one who had to pick up the pieces after her parents died, and take out a loan, and raise a kid with no handbook.
“What’s your favorite book?” I ask impulsively.
His lips crook up in a lopsided grin. “ The Joy of Sex .”
I swat his chest. “For real.”
“That’s a trick question.”
“How is it a trick question?”
He lets go of me, then answers. “If I say something literary, I sound like a douche. If I say something by a dead white guy, I sound patriarchal. If I pick something by a celebrity, I sound star-obsessed.”
“Are those your favorites?”
“No,” he says with that familiar twinkle in his eyes.
“Then why don’t you just tell me your favorite book?” This is important. I need to know him.
“The truth? The one I’m currently reading,” he says, and honestly that’s a pretty good answer. He reaches for his mug and I expect him to take a sip, but instead he hands it to me.
“I don’t like—” I swallow the word coffee because it’s a vanilla latte.
“I know,” he says with a smile. “I made you a vanilla latte. Just the way you like it. With two shots of vanilla and extra foam.”
Oh. My chest warms, a little tingly now. He was making a drink for me. Like we’re having a coffee date. He picks up a cup of coffee. He must have poured that before I came in.
I take a drink and my taste buds dance. “Stop making such great lattes,” I tease.
“Not likely to happen,” he says, then takes a swallow of his coffee. “And you? What’s your favorite book?”
“The next one my friend Hazel writes.”
“Good answer,” he says with a chin nod.
“Do you miss baseball?”
He pauses, giving that some thought before he nods. “I do. But I think I always will. And I’m okay with that. I loved it madly as a kid, as a teenager, then in college. It was my whole entire heart growing up and it’s gone.” He gives a wistful shrug. “But at least I got to play. And I played at the highest level—one year in the majors is nothing to sneeze at.”
“One year is amazing. And it was an incredible season,” I say, since I researched his stats. “I even saw some of your videos on YouTube.”
His grin is nothing short of magical. “You did?”
“I looked you up. Watched some clips of you on the mound. You were ice.”
Impossibly, his grin grows even wider. “Best compliment ever.”
“You looked good. You looked great,” I say.
“It was a good year. I try to remember that. I achieved my dream.”
“You did.” I hesitate but ask the next question anyway. “Is it hard watching your brother play?”
Without a second thought, he shakes his head. “It’s one of my favorite things. I love rooting him on. You really need to see him play. We should go to a game.”
He doesn’t say next season . But I flash back to when we first moved into this house a few weeks ago. He said he wanted me to meet his brother, and right now it’s all I want. This time I answer him a little differently. “We should.”
It’s not quite a promise. More like a hope.
“What about you?” he asks. “Do you miss…your parents?” It’s said so gently, without any judgment in case the answer might be no.
“I wish I missed them more,” I say, sadly.
He runs a hand down my arm. “I understand. I do.” He lifts his cup again and swallows, then meeting my eyes, like he’s trying to figure me out, he says, “You’re awfully curious today.”
“I had a nice chat with Eliza this morning,” I admit, then take another drink of the latte.
He lifts one brow, inviting me to say more. “What did Miss Chatterbox talk about? She’s been telling me how much she wants a snow day. She’s never had one.”
“She mentioned that to me too. Amanda hasn’t either. But she also…” Should I mention Kylie? Gage and I haven’t really talked about exes in detail. But I am intrigued by her comment. Kids see things we don’t. “Eliza said that she liked the way I listened and maybe she compared me to somebody else who she didn’t think listened as well,” I say, but once the words land, I wish I could take them back. Comparison is the thief of joy. I wave a dismissive hand. “Ignore me. I sound like I’m fishing for compliments.”
I take another drink of the latte, not only because it’s good but maybe to hide my face.
When I set down the cup, Gage links our fingers together. “You don’t sound that way. But you deserve compliments. And the truth.” He pauses, then continues, “Kylie was my last real relationship. We were together for a year and she was fun and outgoing, but Eliza’s right. Kylie was a little caught up in herself. She was in love with her career. She got a job in New York and she left. That was that.” With a thoughtful sigh, he scrubs a hand across his jaw. “But maybe I was caught up in myself too—at least caught up in my own obsessions about the future.”
The Gage picture is becoming even clearer. “That’s why you think things don’t work out. From baseball, to marriage, to romance.”
“Way to see inside my soul,” he says dryly.
“I just want to know you,” I say feeling desperate, feeling ravenous. I look at the clock on the wall. I need to go to work soon. Time is running out. This temporary marriage is like a rich, decadent chocolate bar that makes me feel all the things , and I’m not going to leave a single piece of it in the wrapper. “When we went to Vegas you were thinking about the first time you got married,” I begin, returning to something that’s stayed with me.
“I was,” he admits, studying me, waiting for me to say more.
“And you said you were sure of this .” I drop our hands, gesture from him to me. “What we were doing.” I pause before I ask the hard thing. “Were you not sure of things with Hailey?”
His sigh is heavy, full of the weight of sadness. He leaves his coffee on the counter. With a hand on my back, he guides me to the table, sits me down, gathers my hands in his. “We got married because of the pregnancy. Did I love her? Probably. But we weren’t a great fit. That became clearer as we went on…and when it ended,” he says, then stops.
I’m on the edge of my seat.
He lifts his chin, like he’s girding himself. “She’d asked for a divorce.”
My jaw falls open. I’m frozen. A statue. Finally, I whisper, “I had no idea.”
“I’ve never told this to anyone except my therapist. She was really struggling, Elodie. She was never diagnosed but I suspect she suffered from postpartum depression. She was giving me primary custody of Eliza. She said she needed some time alone to sort out her thoughts. And when she went away on a trip—just for herself, something she needed—that’s when she died all of a sudden. And I never told her parents what had been going on. The custody, the separation. I never told anyone.”
My throat tightens, like a hand is gripping it. My eyes sting with tears. “Oh, Gage. You’ve carried all that for a decade?”
“I had to. What choice did I have?” He leans back, eyes flickering with the shame of secrets. “But people treated me like I was this noble widower and that was awful in its own way too. Truth is, I didn’t want her family to know or to think differently of her. She had an aneurysm. It was unpredictable. It was unexpected. She was so young, and I felt confident that even after we divorced, she’d have realized that she still wanted to be a mom. That she’d have become involved again with Eliza. She just didn’t live long enough to make that choice,” he says, and his voice is rough, full of hurt for the mother his daughter will never know.
Tears trickle down my face. His protective streak is so much deeper than I could ever have imagined. “You were protecting Hailey after her death. You were preserving a memory for her family.”
“And for my daughter,” he says quietly, that guilt resurfacing. “So I lied.”
No. No. No!
I shake my head, firm, adamant. Holding his hands tighter. “It wasn’t a lie. It was a gift,” I say, fiercely. “Her family didn’t need to know she was trying to find herself. It’s okay that you kept her secret. It’s an act of love. An act of protection. It doesn’t mean she wasn’t a good person or a good mom. It just means she was in a really hard place,” I say, this close to breaking apart. But this isn’t my story to wallow in. It’s his hurt, his pain, and all I want is to help him see he doesn’t have to carry it. “And you helped her after death. And your little girl.”
He lifts a hand, swipes the tears from my cheek. “I hate to see you cry, baby…but I kind of love it too,” he says, almost sheepish as his eyes well with tears.
“Why do you love it?” I ask, laughing lightly.
He presses a palm to my chest, covering my heart. “Because I like your heart. You have the biggest heart I’ve ever known.”
And I let go of a fear I’ve been carrying. “I was worried for a long time that you wouldn’t like the real me,” I say, and it’s my turn to be relieved.
“What? Seriously?”
“The messy me,” I add with a shrug.
“I like all of you, messy and wild and even with morning breath,” he says.
“Do not ever speak of such horrid things.”
“But I will. I like you when you wake up, and when you fall asleep, and when you’re frustrated, and when you’re worried, and when you need a hug. I like you when you’re upbeat and flirty and outgoing. And I like you when you’re honest and open.”
My feet aren’t touching the floor. I’m sure I must be floating. He clears his throat, his gaze vulnerable, like it costs him something to say the next thing. “Have you been in love before?”
Right now I think I am .
“Not before ,” I say carefully, then since he likes the real me, I don’t hide my romantic heart this time. I open up to him, flinging open the windows on a sunny day. “But I like romance. That’s why I liked your proposal so much by Cupid’s Span. That’s sort of what I always imagined someday. Someone who was wildly romantic and who wanted only me. And I was always drawn to men who seemed romantic. Who made big gestures of flowers and wine and weekends away.” I lock eyes with Gage, my heart beating like a hummingbird. “But never anything like marrying me to protect me.”
He lifts his chin, a proud and deservedly so smile on his face. “Maybe that makes me the almost romantic.” He kisses my cheek, kissing away the remnants of my tears.
“Or more than romantic,” I posit as he pulls back.
“Perhaps I am.” Another kiss. Another embrace. Another stroke of his hand along my hair.
I’m shimmering under my skin. I’m about to ask if he wants to do this again the next day. But he beats me to it. “Want to meet again tomorrow like this? A secret date in the morning? Just you and me?”
And now I’m glowing. “Yes. I can take the girls to school. You can run. We can meet back here before work.”
“Yes. We can.” He runs his knuckles down my cheek. “My more than romantic wife.”
Yes, I’m definitely floating. Or perhaps, falling.
Trouble is, the landing is going to hurt so much. Especially when he sends a bouquet of yellow roses to my chocolate shop that afternoon.
And a note with the words, Like the ones you carried down the aisle.