Chapter 11
“Y ou remember the mythical god who rescued Jesse?” Delilah asked Roxanne on the phone later, after the boys had showered and changed their clothes and were playing with Legos in Jesse’s room.
“Yeah, what about him?”
“He asked me out.”
“ Shut. Up .”
Roxanne reacted with such astonishment that Delilah couldn’t help thinking that her initial thought had been right—nobody as hot as Quinn Monroe could ever take an interest in her.
“You don’t have to be quite that surprised,” Delilah said.
“Well, I’m not,” Roxanne lied. “But … it’s just … you said he was really, super hot. Smoking. And I just …”
“You just thought that a guy that super smoking hot could never want me. That’s what you meant.”
“Oh, Delilah. No, I didn’t.”
Delilah felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and she chided herself for it. She hadn’t meant for the conversation to go this way. She’d called her sister for advice, not so she could dissect her own worst, most painful insecurities.
“You’re amazing,” Roxanne went on. “You’re beautiful, and smart, and caring, and—”
“Stop.”
“Look.” Roxanne assumed a stern tone, as though she were scolding a child. “I didn’t mean anything by it, and you know it. Don’t you think that when Lisa Bonet told her friends she was dating Jason Momoa, they might have been a little excited?”
Delilah smiled a little, despite herself. “I suppose.”
“Just because Mitch told you that you were worthless, doesn’t mean you are.”
Delilah felt the tension build in her chest at the mention of her ex’s name. “Can we please not talk about Mitch?”
“Okay. I’d much rather talk about you. What did you say when he asked you?”
“I said I’d think about it.”
“What’s to think about?! He’s hot and he saved your son’s life. You owe it to him to go out with him. And you sure as hell owe it to yourself.”
Roxanne had reached peak outrage at the idea that Delilah might not accept the date, and her tone combined both shock and disappointment.
“He didn’t save Jesse’s life. Jesse wasn’t even hurt. And even if he had, does that mean I owe him sex?”
“We’re not talking about sex,” Roxanne said. “At least, I wasn’t.”
But Delilah was, which meant she’d been thinking about it.
She’d have to be an idiot not to think about it.
Lacking any other argument, she fell back on the one she’d used with Quinn. “I don’t have anyone to watch the boys.”
“Oh, come on. Surely they have babysitting services out there, with all the hotels and everything. Somebody bonded and with references.”
“That’s exactly what Quinn said.”
“Well, there you go.”
“You make it seem simple,” Delilah said.
“It is simple. You don’t have to get into a relationship with this guy. You don’t have to fall in love. You don’t have to sleep with him. Just go out with him as a way of ripping off the Band-Aid. Just … you know. Dip your toe. You have to start somewhere, so you might as well start with a super hot guy who saved your kid.”
“Just dip my toe,” Delilah repeated. “Or rip off the Band-Aid. You really need to pick a metaphor.”
“Don’t try to distract me. You need to do this, Delilah. I mean, why not?”
Because it might not be as simple as dipping her toe. If she got involved with Quinn—if she just dipped her toe—she worried that the rest of her would get pulled in until she was over her head.
Quinn tried not to think about the invitation he’d left standing between himself and Delilah.
Usually when he asked a woman out, he got an answer in the affirmative. It wasn’t that he’d never been turned down or put off—of course he had—but it happened rarely enough that he was out of practice.
Either she would say yes or she wouldn’t. And if she didn’t, it wasn’t the end of the world. She was just another woman. Just another attractive female who’d caught his eye, like many before her and like many more would in the future.
Except that was bullshit, and he knew it.
His thoughts regarding Delilah—he couldn’t even call them feelings yet—weren’t the same as his thoughts about other women.
Usually, when he was attracted to someone, he thought about her in terms of sex. What they would do together and how much fun they both would have doing it. But with Delilah, it was different. Yes, he thought about having sex with her—he thought about touching her and tasting her, God yes—but he also thought about talking to her. Spending time with her. Getting to know her.
Even worse, he wanted to get to know her kids.
When you were interested in getting to know someone’s kids, you were thinking about things like being a family. And that was something he’d carefully and successfully avoided up until this point.
He didn’t want to change that now.
Except, he did want to know her kids. They seemed like great kids.
You’d better hope she says no, he thought. You’d better hope she takes her massive load of baggage and goes somewhere else.
In the days following his offer, he put it aside and focused on other things. He worked on his salmon fishing article, which was starting to take shape. He moved on to the Bedrooms section of the furniture website. He took a group on an overnight hike to Vicente Flat campground in Big Sur.
And he tried not to think about Delilah.
By the time a week had passed, Quinn was so tired of not thinking about Delilah that he decided to try thinking about her instead.
He’d just finished the first draft of the fishing article and was taking a break on his front deck, drinking a soda from the can and watching the midmorning dog-walkers go by, when he decided to text her.
Are you done thinking yet?
He sent the text, wondering if it was flirty enough or amusing enough or casual enough. And since when had Quinn ever worried about his game with women?
The response came back a moment later.
Not quite yet.
Oh, for God’s sake. He needed to push for an answer, if only so she could put him out of his misery.
While you’re thinking, why not have a meal with me? Thinking goes better on a full stomach. So I’m told.
He sent the text and waited, a half grin playing on his features.
A white-haired woman walked by with a sheltie on a leash, and Quinn gave her a friendly wave.
You’re pressuring me, she wrote back.
Just a little. And it doesn’t have to be a big thing. It’s just dinner. Or lunch, if you’d rather.
He waited while another dog-walker came by, then a jogger. He waited as a bank of clouds rolled in and brought the temperature down a few degrees. He waited as the mail truck stopped at his house, then passed. He waited until he was certain she had no intention of responding.
Then his phone pinged.
I’ll see if I can find a sitter.
Once Delilah had said yes, she began second-guessing herself immediately.
But that was just stupid. Roxanne was right—she needed to dip her toe into the water. Her recovery from the collapse of her marriage wasn’t going to happen quickly or easily, God knew, but if it was going to happen at all, she needed to take the first steps.
Delilah’s goals for the date were simple: She wanted to get the whole first-date-after-the-divorce thing over with so she could begin to get used to the idea of putting herself out there again. She wanted to make one tiny bit of progress toward being a person instead of a divorcée.
What she didn’t want was more complex: She didn’t want a new relationship—not right now. She didn’t want a fling, because she wasn’t ready for that. She didn’t want to complicate her life even further, and she didn’t want to involve her boys in something that wouldn’t last and that would inevitably leave them disappointed—again.
It was probably important to lay all of that out to Quinn in the interest of openness and fair play.
But for now, she just needed to find a babysitter.
She started with Dolly, reasoning that if it didn’t work out, she could try the babysitting service Quinn had mentioned to her.
As it happened, that wasn’t necessary. Dolly was thrilled with the idea when Delilah and the kids brought it up at her house the next day.
“Oh, it’s going to be so much fun!” She clasped her hands together, looking at the boys as though she couldn’t wait to pinch their cheeks and kiss the tops of their heads. “We’ll bake brownies. Or would you boys prefer cookies?”
“I like brownies,” Jesse said.
Gavin nodded vigorously, his thumb plugged into his mouth.
“Stop sucking your thumb, Gavin.” Jesse scowled at his brother. “Only babies do that.”
“Oh, now, Jesse, it’s his thumb, and I imagine he’s got a right to do what he wants with it,” Dolly said.
To Delilah, that was a good sign. She herself had decided that if thumb-sucking was the worst way Gavin acted out in response to the divorce, then he was welcome to it.
The fact that Dolly had taken a stand in Gavin’s favor boded well.
“I still don’t know which night it’ll be, exactly. I have to work it out with my… friend.”
“Well, that’s fine,” Dolly said. “What else have I got to do? Just tell your friend to pick any evening he chooses.” The way Dolly said the word friend indicated she knew exactly what kind of friend they were talking about.
When they left Dolly’s place, Delilah sent the boys across the street to Otter Bluff and hung back a moment to talk to the older woman.
“I really can’t thank you enough,” she said.
“Honey, is this your first date after the divorce?” Dolly asked gently.
Delilah hesitated. “I didn’t say it was a date.”
“I know you didn’t. But you’re not answering my question.”
Delilah figured that if Dolly was going to put herself out to do this favor, she at least was entitled to the truth.
“Yes. It is.”
Dolly smiled encouragingly, then took Delilah’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I figure you deserve a little fun after all you’ve been through.”
Delilah thought so, too. So far, though, this wasn’t fun. It was an anxiety fest that felt more like gearing up for a root canal.
She hoped the actual date would be less painful.