Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
TWENTY-ONE MONTHS AGO
“We made it,” I say, settling into the auditorium seat next to Rosalie. “She finally said yes.”
A scolding grin spreads over those pretty pink lips. “If you are going to talk about me like I’m not here, I’m leaving.”
I lift one shoulder in a shrug, acting nonchalant. “I’m just excited. It only took eight tries. Eight asks. Eight pleas to wear you down. I was certain it was going to take twelve.”
“You did not wear me down. I simply decided I was tired of listening to you whine, and I could use a free meal.”
I grin. “That sounds exactly like wearing you down.”
Rosalie scoffs, but I think she’s fighting a smile. “We could end this date right here and now.”
I hold up two fingers. “I will behave. Scouts honor.”
“Were you a scout?” she asks, eyes narrowed.
“I was not.”
And then that pretty girl laughs. Oh, how I love Rosalie’s laugh. Rosalie has been uncertain about dating me, or anyone, if Fran’s right. But while she has wavered, I’ve been certain. Certain since the day I met this woman that one day she’d be my wife.
The indie folk rock band takes the stage and Rosalie’s face lights up.
She stands as the crowd cheers the band onward and they start into their new song.
I will owe Peach Fuzz Bunny until the day I die.
Fran tipped me off that Rosalie loves this band, and just like that, try number eight was a success.
We’re halfway through the Peach Fuzz Bunny set list, and I’m standing, swaying next to Rosalie, when my hand maybe not-so-accidentally bumps hers.
She glances over, a Peach Fuzz Bunny grin lighting up her face. She looks at me and sings the chorus of a song I’ve never heard before turning her attention back to the stage.
So… I let my hand bump hers again. This time, I snag her little finger with mine.
Rosalie’s gaze draws from our hands to my face. She’s got one accusing brow raised. “Zevulun Hayes,” she says, moving her lips dramatically so I can make out her words over the music.
I look at her… innocently, then lean slightly to hear her better.
“Are you trying to hold my hand?” she asks, her lips near my right earlobe. “On date one?”
“No,” I lie. It doesn’t count—not when we both know it’s a lie. Not when it’s clear as the nose on my face that I am absolutely attempting to hold her hand.
“I don’t hold hands,” she says, her sweet breath tickling my cheek with her closeness.
“Noted,” I say back, turning my head just a little, her jaw and ear in my orbit. Still, my pinky stays fastened around hers.
And Rosalie doesn’t pull her hand away.
We walk side by side out to my car. I’m feeding this woman—I’m not letting this date end until she tells me I have to. “Only eight asks and hand holding. Wow. I gotta tell you, Rosalie, I had no idea you liked me so much.”
She shoves her hands into her pockets, not allowing my pinky to touch hers, and rams her shoulder into my arm. “You really don’t want a second date, do you?”
I laugh. “You know that I do. However, seeing that our first date is still in progress, I can wait for you to ask me out later.”
“Zev,” she groans through a laugh.
We climb into my car, Rosalie high on Peach Fuzz Bunny’s final song, me on Rose allowing me to hold even one of her fingers.
“You’re taking me to get dessert?” she asks.
“Anything you want. Dinner. Breakfast. Dessert. It’s yours.”
“That is a dangerous offer, Zevulun Hayes.”
I pull out of the parking lot, glancing once over at the girl in my passenger seat. “That’s just a fact, Rosalie. If you want it, I’m getting it.”
Before I can look away, her cheeks are pink, and I swear I see her lips twitch in the start of a smile.
“Okay then,” she says, her eyes on me. “I want… a second date.”
I refrain from grinning ear to ear. “Is tomorrow too soon?”
She smothers a giggle. “You’re traveling tomorrow.”
“You could come.” That sounds perfect to me.
“Except that I have to teach.”
“It’s true,” I tease. “I got the teacher to come out on a school night. That’s how good I am.”
“So cocky. You sound like Lucca. Are you sure you want a second date? Because I’m about to back out.”
“No backing out now, Miss Conrad.” I smirk and head in the direction of the restaurant.
The Sugar Pine Café is only a few minutes away from the concert hall.
I’ve never been there, but then neither has Rosalie.
I like the idea of us trying new things together.
“Can I ask one question?” I say, pulling into a parking space near the front.
“Go for it.”
“I like you, Rose. I think you might like me—”
“I am happy to explain to you what a question is, if needed.” She grins, her blue eyes sparkling, and I can’t help but grin back at her.
She opens the door and I follow suit. Side by side, arms brushing, we walk into the café.
“Not that I’m complaining. Believe me, I’d ask eight more times and wait four more months if need be. But can you help me understand why?”
“You really want to know?” she says. “Fran didn’t tell you?”
“Fran mentioned a bad breakup.”
“Okay, Zevulun Hayes, you asked for it.” She pulls in a breath. “Let’s get a table before I get in too deep and scare you away.”
Does she really not know? That isn’t possible.
We settle into our seats out on the empty patio of the café.
The September air is cool, but not cold.
Still, I wish I had a jacket to offer her.
Rosalie takes me up on my offer to buy her anything.
She orders hot cocoa, chicken Alfredo, cheese bread, and a chocolate lava cake. I’d happily buy this woman anything.
“I met Robert in college. His last name is Pattinson, and Fran immediately went to the actor who played the vampire in those movies a few years ago. We thought he was so funny and so cute, and we had this running joke about the vampire or the engineer. Now, she is just legitimately clarifying—because my Fran still very much likes the vampire. The same cannot be said for the engineer.” She lifts her brows.
“Anyway, Robert and I started dating. We spent more and more time together. Until—” She swallows.
“Until?” I say.
Rosalie tilts her head, her white-blonde hair tumbling like a waterfall down her left side. She offers me a sad smile. “Until I was utterly in love with the idiot.”
“Ah.” I nod. Yeah—not my favorite thing to hear about the girl I plan to marry one day.
“We’d been together two years, and I was pretty sure Robert was my forever person when I got my assignment to student teach.
I purposely stayed in Reno to be close to Robert.
He still had a year to finish his degree.
” Mindlessly, she opens a package of sugar and dumps it onto the table, then she swirls her pointer finger through the grains, drawing an R—I’m not sure if it’s for Rosalie or Robert, or if she even realizes she’s doing it.
“He’d visit me at the elementary school where I was student teaching.
I thought he was being sweet. Margo Kim was my mentor teacher, and she’d comment on how lucky I was every time he came.
” Rosalie sighs. “I didn’t even see it coming, Zev. I was so clueless.”
“You aren’t clueless,” I say, gripping the wrapped silverware in front of me. “You’re trusting and good and—”
She huffs. “Completely clueless.”
“He cheated then?”
Her chest fills with air and she nods. “Yes, he cheated. With Margo.”
“Your mentor?” I gasp.
“He’d come and she’d gush over what an attentive boyfriend he was, and I had no idea that they were seeing each other behind my back. It’s humiliating. It’s completely shameful.”
“No—”
“She was my friend, Zev. When a job opened up at that school, she encouraged me to apply.”
No. How awful can one human be? “Did you?”
“I did. I interviewed and I waited. I had interviewed at two other schools, and both had already come back to me with offers, but I was waiting for Clark Elementary. I wanted to stay. I wanted to work with Margo and everyone else I met at Clark.”
“I’m sorry, Rosalie.”
“That’s not even the worst part.” She licks her lips and pauses in time for our waiter to leave my lava cake and Rosalie’s dinner.
She pushes our drinks to the side and her plate of Alfredo into the center of the table. “We’re sharing this. You are not making me eat alone.”
“Never.” My smile is small, closed-lipped, and hopeless because I’m still waiting for her to tell me the worst part.
Her fork swirls around a thick noodle. “When the principal called me in to offer me the job, he asked if I’d be willing to accept it even with Margo and Robert now together.
I was confused. I was certain that he was confused.
I shook my head. I laughed. I accepted the job and told him he’d misunderstood the situation and there would be no problem.
But when I left his office, the secretary looked at me.
So did the kindergarten teacher standing in the hall.
Suddenly everyone was looking at me.” She takes the bite she’s been swirling and lifts it to her lips.
She chews, her face falling into a pleasant expression with the Alfredo in her mouth.
Rosalie hums out a small “mmm” before continuing.
“When I went home, I told Robert the whole story. He laughed with me.”
“He didn’t come clean? Not even then?”
“You’d think. If the man had any decency left inside of him, he might have confessed. But he didn’t. He let me turn down the other two job offers I’d been given. He let me accept the offer at Clark.”
“How did you find out then?” I say, my fork of Alfredo hovering, waiting for her next words. This is why Rosalie couldn’t accept my invitations. This is important.
“The following day, I told Margo the story, too. I couldn’t get those stares out of my head.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. I guess she was tired of the charade. She told me everything. She also told me that everyone in school already knew—the principal, the secretaries, the teachers, the custodians. Everyone. I’m guessing even my students knew.
” She sets her fork down and dabs at the corner of her lips with her cloth napkin. “See? Clueless.”
“He cost you a lot.”
“He did. But most of all, he cost me any and all confidence I might have had in myself. If I was clueless with Robert, then why wouldn’t I be clueless with you?
” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m not saying you’d ever do anything like that, Zev.
But I’m saying if you did, I’d be too blind, too clueless, too smitten to realize it before it ruined me.
” A shaky breath falls from her chest. “This is why I don’t date. ”
We sit, both of us staring at our hardly touched Alfredo. Both of us are quiet.
“I’m guessing this isn’t the first date you envisioned?” she says with a sniff, eyes on our noodles.
“You’re here,” I say, and she draws her gaze up to mine. “This is exactly what I wanted.”