Chapter Twelve
Gwen
“B ut, Mom,” Nate whined through the phone. “Dad already bought tickets!”
I ground my teeth and dropped the paint roller in the tray.
When we’d separated, Jeff and I had agreed to fifty-fifty custody, because neither of us liked the idea of being away from our son for a full week. My therapist had recommended we try a 5-2-2-5 schedule. This meant I had Nate on every Monday and Tuesday, and Jeff got him every Wednesday and Thursday. We alternated weekends, which bled into our regular days, giving us each two five-day stretches with him per month. It had been a tad confusing at first and taken some getting used to, but it’d been over a year now. There was no way Jeff had magically forgotten our schedule when he’d purchased two tickets to a Monday night Yankees game.
It wasn’t the first time he’d pulled this crap, either. Jeff was a habitual line stepper who would rather berate me for being “crazy” and “selfish” than simply ask for permission before making a commitment to our son. He had nothing to lose. I, on the other hand, was forced to either be the bad guy and tell Nate no or give up a day with my son.
I shifted the phone, pinning it against my ear with my shoulder, and used both hands to refill the paint tray with more primer. “Sorry, bud. You’ll have school that day.”
“No, I don’t! Me and Dad looked it up and it’s spring break. Nanny and Papa are coming into town too. He has to work on Tuesday, but he said as long as it’s okay with you, I could stay with them on Tuesday night since it’s been so long since my family was in town.”
Oh, look. He’d made plans for Monday and Tuesday, using his family as an excuse to manipulate me into saying yes rather than just asking. Oh, and it was not lost on me that Nate had used the term ‘my family.’ It wouldn’t surprise me if Jeff was holding up cue cards during this call.
“Mom, please. Please. Pleeeeeeease!”
Thankfully my son couldn’t see me, because I rolled my eyes so hard it probably would have registered on the Richter scale.
Yes, this was a gross overstep on Jeff’s part, but, after all the shit he’d pulled, a father-son trip to a baseball game was the least of my worries.
“Just let me think about it, okay? Maybe I can talk to Dad about trading days with me or something.” Right after I wasted my breath talking to him about boundaries and respect.
“Woooohooo!” he shouted.
“Don’t start celebrating yet. I did not say yes.”
“But you will, ’cause you’re the best mom in the whole wide world.”
“Okay, now you’re just sucking up.”
“Maybe.” He laughed wildly and it filled my chest with happiness. Little moments like that were what kept me going—no matter how hard things got.
“All right, buddy. I have to get back to painting. I’ll see you on Friday, okay?”
“Okay. I love you. Infinity times infinity.”
My grin stretched. “Oof, that’s a lot. But I still love you more. Infinity times infinity times infinity .”
I waited, knowing exactly what was coming. I’d laughed so hard the first time he did it it’d cemented itself as part of our routine.
He rushed out with a giggled, “Plus one. I win.” Then he hung up without so much as a goodbye.
Grinning like a fool, I put the empty primer can down and slid my phone into the pocket of my paint-stained yoga pants. I’d never been more eager to get back to work on The Rosewood.
Yes. It was finally The Rosewood.
In a miracle of all miracles, the contractor had fulfilled his promise and The Grille was officially gone.
The kitchen had been gutted.
Linoleum floors peeled up.
Wallpaper torn down.
Just my luck, we’d discovered water damage in the kitchen that had seeped into the dining room. Lucille had negotiated me a sweet discount, but I’d still had to dig even deeper into my shoestring budget to have some of the studs and sheetrock replaced.
And that wasn’t the only expense that had snuck up on me. The ventilation system needed a total overhaul to bring it up to code, and the walk-in cooler didn’t get cold enough to meet food safety standards.
How The Grille hadn’t been shut down at least a dozen times, I would never understand, but it was my pain-in-the-pocketbook now.
Despite the fact that I’d padded the budget for the unexpected, that pocketbook had emptied far more quickly than I’d prepared for. Unless I wanted to kick off entrepreneurship in a mountain of debt, I was going to have to use some good old-fashioned elbow grease and finish the renovation on my own.
Needless to say, there would be a lot of YouTube tutorials in my future.
Snagging the empty primer can, I walked to the parking lot to toss it into the dumpster. The company my contractor had rented it from was late hauling it away, so I was making the most of it.
“Shit!” I yelled as I turned the corner, slamming directly into Truett’s chest.
I hadn’t been positive he’d take me up on my invitation to come back. There was a part of me that hoped he wouldn’t. But I also knew a different part of me would have marched down there and dragged him out of that damn house by his ear if need be.
I ached knowing he’d locked himself away from the world. Solitude had always been his go-to coping mechanism, but all these years later? How was that even possible?
I’d spent a lot of time over the last week, revisiting the past, both consciously and in my dreams. Sometimes we were kids again, young and carefree. Others, we were fighting; his silence making my ears ring as I begged him to talk to me.
Much to my own frustration, I’d thought about him over the years—birthdays, anniversaries, and such. How could I not? Nobody forgets their first love.
Unfortunately, the same could be said for their first heartbreak too. It didn’t matter that it had been over eighteen years since he’d served me with divorce papers. The pure disdain I felt for that man had kept my thoughts of him fleeting and extinguished all curiosity of where life had taken him.
But deep down, I’d assumed life had taken him somewhere .
Now, as he stood there on Wednesday night, his face blank, no reaction, and his eyes glued to the remnants of The Grille hanging out of the dumpster, I wasn’t so sure.
“Jesus, True. You have to stop scaring me all the damn time.”
Emotionless, he looked down at me. “Technically, you scared me last week.”
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Mr. Personality to point out the semantics. “Why are you out here? I left the door open so you could come inside tonight.”
“You gutted it?” he asked, his voice timid as if he didn’t want the answer.
I tossed the primer can into the dumpster. “If you’d have seen the mess we pulled out of there, you’d be asking me why I didn’t set it on fire and collect the insurance money.”
“It’s gone? All of it?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “That depends. Who are you?”
His eyebrows drew together. “Huh?”
“Who are you tonight? The nice guy sitting on the porch, cracking jokes, or the one who slammed the door in my face?”
His lips thinned. “I guess that also depends. Is Cooter here?”
I couldn’t help the smile that stretched my mouth. “You call her Cooter? With a straight face?”
“I don’t call her anything, but that’s how she introduces herself every damn time she sees me. And let’s be real, the woman is a loon. Cooter might be the only name appropriate for her.”
“Touché,” I replied.
He scrubbed a hand over his bearded jaw. “But to answer your question, I don’t know who I am any night, Gwen. Especially recently.”
“Why recently?”
“You mean besides the obvious?” He gave me a pointed head-to-toe that I assumed was supposed to be teasing, but for reasons I refused to acknowledge, his scrutiny caused my face to heat.
Okay, that was a lie. My whole damn body heated.
Quickly turning away before he could see the color in my cheeks, I started toward door and waved for him follow. “Lucille isn’t here. But consider yourself warned, she is working for me now. I had a long talk with her the other day, so she knows to keep her mouth shut from here on out.”
“Appreciated,” he mumbled, his footsteps sounding behind me.
I stopped at the door and turned to meet his gaze again. “Look, if you can play nice, so can I. Deal?”
As soon as he nodded, I swung open the door and stepped aside to allow him a clear view inside.
His inhale was sharp as he froze in the doorway, beautiful disbelief etched on his face.
I’d been there every day for a week, so I was used to the changes already. I tried to imagine seeing it through his eyes. The space appeared smaller now that it was empty. The bare concrete floors and half-primed walls only added to the illusion of desolation, yet in the corner, a single booth stood as the lone beacon of familiarity.
“Gwen,” he rumbled, so much packed inside that single syllable it caused chills to pebble my skin. “You kept it?”
I popped one shoulder. “What kind of host would I be if I invited you here and then expected you to sit on the floor?”
He didn’t move for a long second, his dark gaze locked on the booth. As his breathing sped and the muscles at the base of his neck swelled, I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or terrified.
Nerves erupted in my stomach as I suddenly felt like I’d done something wrong. Shit, had I kept the wrong one?
“Truett,” I prompted.
“Thank you,” he choked out. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
Wasn’t that the damn truth.
Fortunately for him, compassion didn’t require understanding.
“You’re welcome.” I reached out and gave his forearm a lingering squeeze.
His palm covered mine so fast it was as if our hands had become magnetized. We were north and south, total opposites, connecting together in the most natural way possible.
I hated that it felt right.
I hated that I’d craved that connection for the majority of my life.
But most of all, I hated when he let me go—in the past and the present.
Slowly, as if he were afraid it was nothing more than a mirage, he walked over and trailed his fingertips across the tabletop. A gentle laugh escaped his throat, a sound both tender and bittersweet, as if he were welcoming home an old friend. The reunion felt so personal I debated if it was wrong to watch. However, as Truett slid into the booth with a profound reverence, I found myself unable to look away.
He drew in a shaky breath, his head lolling back as if he were absorbing a necessary nutrient he’d long been deprived of.
And then in the most confusing moment of my life, I was struck by a thought so rancid it burned my throat.
In that booth, Truett seemed at home.
A place he had once found with me.
Nope. Nope. Nope. I was not going there. I was doing a good deed, not driving a bulldozer into the past. I needed to remember that—for both of our sakes.
I shook my head in a frenzied effort to dislodge whatever insanity had caused garbage to spew all over my frontal lobe. “Is it going to bother you if I paint?”
His eyes popped open, and for a brief moment, he appeared disconcerted. “Where? In here?”
I pointed to the full paint tray a few steps away. “That was kinda the plan.”
His eyes shifted from side to side. “Oh. Yeah. That’s fine.”
But he didn’t say it in a tone like it was fine at all. He said it like he was disappointed.
And because the past few weeks hadn’t been enough of a colossal mindfuck, I was somehow disappointed that he was disappointed by the idea of my presence in my own damn restaurant.
Sweet baby Jesus in a manger. I needed to schedule an appointment with my therapist ASAP.
It was already after six and my aching muscles had a hot date with my bathtub and a glass of wine before bed. I didn’t have the time to analyze Truett’s emotional grid. Paint was drying and my brain was rotting. Time to get back to work.
The next hour was strange. Actually, strange was a gross understatement. It was epically strange. Twilight-Zone -meets- Black-Mirror strange.
I put my earbuds in and blasted my favorite early 2000s R&B playlist, effectively ending any possible conversation, but out of the corner of my eye, I watched him.
Fidgeting.
Shifting.
Closing his eyes.
Opening them.
Shaking his head.
His lips moved with mumbled curses, and he cracked his neck, wrists, fingers, and everything else with a joint.
He was so obviously uncomfortable, and I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just leave.
And then I’d catch him watching me.
Eyes soft.
Body relaxed.
An almost imperceptible smile lifting one side of his mouth.
There was something so undeniably beautiful about that man’s smile, no matter how slight it might have been.
I tried to focus on the task at hand, but more than once, I found myself painting over the same area while spying on him with my peripheral vision.
Me watching him. Him watching me. Me watching him watching me. It was a ridiculous cycle of Peeping Toms, trying to out peep each other.
Eventually, I ran out of primer and went to grab one from the storage room.
When I returned, his booth was empty.
His quiet departure should have been a relief. We didn’t have to do the whole awkward goodbye where we stood there, debating between the hug or handshake before landing on a curt nod and uncomfortable smiles. But I would have taken awkward any day over the hollow ache in my chest as I stared at that empty booth.
I glanced at my watch.
7:01 and Truett West was a ghost all over again.