Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
AVERY
There’s something about the way that Josh looks at me that has lit a fire in my belly.
I’m a little afraid of it burning out of control, but I’m not ready to douse it either. Kissing him is so good that I can’t stop wondering what else he might be good at. It was not an easy feat to keep such naughty thoughts packed away during Playgroup this morning, especially when Josh tossed Percy up in the air, making his muscles bulge deliciously while the little boy giggled adorably.
Now, while I plug away at data entry for CPR’s fall classes, my imagination replaces Percy with my torso and shifts Josh from his feet to his back. I’m straddling him and he drags his hands from my rib cage to my breasts. When he pinches my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, I grind into him greedily.
“You going to answer that?” Leia yells from inside her office.
“Yep!” I call, blinking back to reality. “Just had to finish… this.” Not that I actually finished anything. That’ll have to happen later. In my bed. With my favorite vibrator.
“This is Avery,” I say after snatching up the phone before it can ring again, my voice a little breathless.
“Hello, Avery. This is Frieda Harmon. How are you?” Josh's mom asks.
“I’m fine, thanks, but how are you ?” It’s been several days since the accident, and Josh told me that his mom had returned from the hospital, but in the crush of Playgroup, I didn’t get many details.
After assuring me that she’s on the mend, she says, “I understand that neither my husband nor my son paid you for babysitting Mabel and Percy the other day.”
Suddenly the make out session outside their house feels even more like teenagers sneaking around. But if I’m the babysitter, who is Josh in this scenario? The dad or my boyfriend who came over when he wasn’t supposed to?
“Are you still there?”
“Oh yes, I’m sorry, Mrs. Harmon.”
“Please call me Frieda, honey.”
“Sure, um, Frieda. Anyway, I was just being a good neighbor. You don’t have to pay me for that.”
“If it were an hour, I’d agree. But you took responsibility for my grandchildren for almost eight hours. Please let me do something to show our appreciation.”
“Really, it’s not?—”
“What, dear? I’m sorry, Avery. My husband is saying something. Oh, that’s a good idea. He said we should give you a gift certificate. Is there a place where you get your nails done?”
I laugh. “I’m afraid manicures don’t last long at my job.”
“There must be something you’ve been wanting to splurge on. How about a restaurant? Treat yourself to a nice meal.”
“Oh, that’s really not?—”
“Hang on, Avery. Oh, that’s perfect, Bert. Josh will take you to that new little Italian place over in Coxsackie.”
By the time I hang up, Frieda has extracted my schedule from me, made a reservation, and promised that Josh will pick me up the following evening at seven. She was probably going to offer to take me shopping for a dress to wear if I didn’t disconnect when I did.
Telling myself that Josh has had as little control over this scenario as I have, I keep my expectations low even as I spend a ridiculous amount of time getting ready the next evening. Applying the makeup Van gave me in a way that makes me look sexy without looking like I made an extra effort takes time, after all.
Choosing an outfit that says, I’m just wearing this because it’s a nice restaurant, not because I want to seduce you, is even more of a challenge. Especially after I reject colors not on Van’s swatch samples.
It’s tough to read Josh's expression when he shows up at my door at exactly seven o’clock, but he’s clearly caught unawares when my mother sidles up next to me to ask, “Who’s this?”
“Josh Harmon, meet my mother, Patricia Mills.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Mills.”
As they shake hands, my mother says, “You didn’t tell me you were going to dinner with a young man, Avery.”
A high-pitched giggle bursts out of me. “Josh isn’t a young man, Mom. He’s a dad in Playgroup.”
When my mother raises a single brow, her expression is very easy to read: Then why are you going on a date with him?
“And he’s doing some work at the rec center too,” I add.
A second brow joins the first. “Really? What sort of work?”
“I work for Trede, ma’am,” Josh says. “We are funding some changes at the center and I’m working with the staff to facilitate. But I’m taking Avery out tonight as a thank you for stepping in to take care of my kids the other night when my mother had an accident.”
Luckily, this snags my mother’s interest. After Josh reassures us both that his mother is expected to recover fully, I say, “We’d better get going if we’re going to make that reservation.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Mills,” Josh calls as he guides me toward his car, catching my elbow when I stumble on the uneven sidewalk in front of my parents’ house.
“Okay there?” he asks.
“I think you’d know by now that this is par for the course for me,” I say, my voice all high and breathy again in response to his touch. “I suppose this sidewalk could use a few repairs.”
He gazes up at the beautiful old tree in our front yard. “Unfortunately, this tree's roots are likely causing the damage.”
“We’re not chopping down a tree to save the sidewalk!”
He winces as he opens the car door for me. “It can be a tough choice. Especially if the tree is old enough that it’s in danger of falling.”
As he crosses around to the driver’s side, I’m reminded of the topic we continue to avoid: what’s on the chopping block at Climax Parks and Rec. I need to make my priorities clear so he won’t ruin my job, but I don’t want to ruin a date with a man I can’t seem to stop fantasizing about. If it even is a date. His mother set it up, but he did say he wanted more.
More what, I wonder?
On the way to the restaurant, I try to keep my nerves at bay with small talk about food, from the fact that the restaurant makes its own pasta and sources its ingredients locally to the hugely popular new reality show, Yes, Chef! By the time we’re seated at a two-top in the candlelit dining room, my stomach’s rumbling but my heart continues to skitter from one worry to the next.
Until the waitress shows up with a bottle of wine and a big smile on her face. “I hear we have a special occasion tonight.”
“We do?” Josh asks.
Unable to resist the impulse, I grasp his hand and make Let’s play along and see what it gets us eyes at him. “Oh, honey. Of course we do.”
“Well,” Josh says, a ghost of a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know if I’d call a third anniversary special.”
“Whoever made this reservation thinks you deserve to be spoiled, I’d say. They ordered the chef’s tasting menu.” She begins the uncorking process. “Which includes this very nice bottle of wine.”
“A whole bottle?” I wince. “We have to get back to Climax tonight.”
Her eyes go wide. “Uh…”
I slap my hands to my face and Josh laughs before clarifying. “To the town of Climax.”
“Ohhh,” the waitress says, her face red. “Sorry, I always forget about that place.”
Josh's smile grows, but it’s all for me.
“Anyhoo,” the waitress says. “Don’t worry. If you don’t finish the wine, we can recork it and you can take it with you to finish your, uh… celebration at home. In Climax. I’ll stop talking about that now.”
After explaining the vintage using a bunch of fancy wine words, she pours a tiny bit and offers it to me to taste. I try to get Josh to do it, but he insists, so I do my best. “Tastes like wine!”
“That’s good.” The waitress grins as she fills our glasses. “As long as there are no food allergies or aversions, we will proceed with the tasting menu.”
I rub my hands together. “Sounds amazing.”
Once we’re alone again, Josh leans across the table to whisper, “I’m sorry. My mother can get a little carried away.”
“I’m excited. I’ve never had a tasting menu. I’m not even sure what one is, exactly. And who knows, if they think we’re celebrating, we might get some free stuff.”
I’m doing my best to play it cool, but I’m not only worried about work stuff. Fancy restaurants make me nervous, which makes me even klutzier than usual. I inevitably knock over a glass or trip on my way to the bathroom or bump into a waiter carrying a tray full of steaming hot food that ends up in someone else’s lap.
That only happened once, thank goodness, but Peter never let me forget it.
This place isn’t intimidating, though. It’s probably expensive, but it’s also homey. There are only three people working the place, and just ten tables. The food turns out to be deceivingly simple. The green salad has the usual cucumbers and tomatoes, but pickled onions and a charred onion-feta dressing make it so tasty that I’m fighting Josh for the last forkful. When the pasta course arrives—cacio e pepe—I almost tell him he can have it all, because my bum doesn’t need any more padding.
“Cacio e pepe is a traditional dish from the Lazio region,” the server explains. “The phrase means ‘cheese and pepper’ and that’s precisely what it is. Our fresh pasta is tossed with locally made butter along with imported Parmesan and Pecorino. Buon appetito.”
Josh won’t take a forkful until I do, however, so I twirl a few strands onto my fork and push the plate toward him before putting it in my mouth. But when my tongue wraps around the unexpected explosion of flavor and velvety texture, I can’t contain a moan of pleasure.
Blinking my eyes open, I find him staring at me, his expression wolfish. “Still want me to eat it all?”
I grab the edge of the plate and pull it back toward me. “Who gives a flying fish about calories.”
We don’t quite end up nose to nose with the last strand of pasta ala Lady and the Tramp , but it’s close.
The rest of the evening goes by in a flash. Everything’s so easy between us that I almost forget about all the complications, from the sticky situation at the rec center to the fact that he’s a grieving widower. But on the drive home, he goes quiet, and it’s not one of those comfortable silences. I’m bouncing back and forth between the impulse to let him off the hook versus the very real desire to kiss him again, when he clears his throat. “I’m sorry, Avery.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know about you, but this all feels like a setup.” When he glances over, confusion must be written all over my face because he adds, “I don’t think she broke her ankle on purpose, but everything that followed… my mom’s matchmaking came on pretty strong.”
“What if I didn’t mind?”
He shoots me a skeptical look. “You don’t mind being dropped into the middle of my chaos like an unprepared understudy?”
“The last thing I’d want to do is try and replace your wife. Your children’s mother.” My face heating, my heart pounding, I press on. “But I can’t deny that I’d really like to kiss you again.”
His gaze doesn’t waver from the road ahead, but his fingers grip the steering wheel so tightly that I can see his biceps bunch inside the sweater that stretches across his broad chest.
“But if it’s too much too soon, I totally get it,” I blurt when he doesn’t say anything else.
“It’s not that.” In the dim interior light of the car, I can just see his mouth twist to the side. “It’s just that it was so easy to pretend with you tonight. I felt—feel—more connected to you after knowing you for just a few weeks than I ever did with Lisa. And that seems really fucked up.”
“Oh.”
He glances over with a wince. “Not what you were expecting to hear, I bet.”
My mouth twist mirrors his from a moment ago. “Do you… want to talk about it?”
“It’s so complicated.” He lets out a long, heavy sigh. “But long story short, Lisa and I were never in love. We got pregnant by accident and decided to try and make it work.”
Pregnant twice by accident? is the first thing that pops into my mind, but that’s where I keep it, because he’s right, it does sound complicated.
“She was a brilliant woman,” he continues. “And kind. But she had mental health challenges that I didn’t learn about until postpartum depression exacerbated them.”
My hand flies to my mouth, hoping she didn’t end her own life.
“Her death was an accident,” he says, either hearing my gasp or reading my mind. “According to witnesses, she was reading on her cell phone and just stepped in front of a city bus.”
“Still, that must have been awful.”
“She died instantly, so she didn’t suffer.”
“But for the rest of you?”
“For those of us left behind, yes, it hasn't been easy. Percy was only months old, so he doesn’t remember her, but Mabel…” He drifts off but before I can think of anything comforting or understanding to say, he adds, “She lost her mom to depression and then lost her all over again to that fucking bus.”
We’re quiet for the last few minutes of the drive. Even after Josh pulls up in front of my parents’ house and turns off the engine, neither of us speaks.
“Maybe we should?—”
I break off when I realize he’s saying, “I’d still like to?—”
He stops mid-sentence. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
I turn to face him, feeling warm all over. “I’m torn. I feel a connection with you too, but…”
“I have a lot of baggage,” he finishes for me.
My own baggage wraps my gut in a viselike grip, the lovely meal we shared now like a boulder in my stomach. “Yeah, well, join the club.”
He turns to face me, but before he can ask anything else, I blurt, “What if we just see where this goes? If you’re worried about the kids, we can keep it on the down low. No one has to know but us.”
He tips his head to the side. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
My gaze falls to his lips, and my history floats to the box in the back of my brain where I usually stuff it. “I just really want to kiss you again.”
“That’s funny,” he says softly, his arm snaking along my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
I’m not sure who moves first, but when we meet in the middle, I’m instantly intoxicated. Like I drank the whole bottle of that wine instead of one glass. As he teases along the seam of my lips and grasps the back of my skull, I scrape fingernails along his scalp. When I open my mouth to let him in, I’m swimming in sensation, inside and out, needing to get closer, feel more of him.
When we break for air, panting as our foreheads rest against each other, he chuckles.
Realizing I’ve crawled halfway across the console, I begin to retreat, but he doesn’t let me go. “I’m just laughing because I feel like a horny teenager all over again. Fogging up windows while I make out with a girl in front of her parents’ house. Hoping her dad doesn’t show up with a flashlight.”
“Or a shotgun?”
He snorts out a laugh. “Exactly.”
Tracing a fingertip along his firm jaw, I say, “I guess we’ll just have to get creative.”
“Or we could just take advantage of being adults with credit cards and camp out in a hotel room.”
“As long as it’s not one of those rent a room by the hour places,” I say with a grin. “I’m in.”
“Are you kidding me?” he scoffs. “By the time we racked up the hours in one of those places, we may as well have rented a room at the Ritz.”
It’s my turn to snort out a laugh. “Okay?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, I’ve definitely lost my game. What I meant to say is, I’d love to spend a weekend away with you.” Cupping the side of my face with his warm palm, he whispers, “Because I want to get to know every inch of you.”