Chapter Three
One Month Later
“So, what is this, date sixteen? Seventeen?”
“I am not keeping count,” Hawk said, packaging up the pasta salad he’d made, along with the pieces of fried chicken that were cold from the previous night’s meal.
Sarah was hanging out at their parents’ again. He had a sneaking suspicion that between her and their parents, Sarah had an agreement to constantly check on him. She seemed to stop by way too many times for comfort.
“They are not dates.”
“No, you just go and hang out at Palmer Gifts for fun?” Sarah asked. “Come on, everyone is talking. If you’re not at the shop, you’re at the diner. People are talking.”
“People can fuck off,” Hawk said.
“Don’t get that temper up.”
“I’m not angry. Look, I like hanging out with Katie, and you know, the shop is pretty cool.”
“I even heard you sold some kind of owl lamp the other day.”
“That I did. There was a guy who wanted to take a memento home with him, and he talked nonstop about how an owl kept him up the first couple of nights. So, an owl lamp would be a perfect reminder that he quit real life and took an experience in nature.”
“Wow,” Sarah said. “You know, I was thinking this might have something to do with the fact that growing up around Katie, you became tongue-tied. Isn’t that why you often slapped her books down on the ground?
Isn’t that why you bumped into her as well?
You didn’t know how exactly to talk to her, so bumping into her kind of broke the ice, even if she only looked at you with a glare and said, ‘Hey!’”
“Don’t you have a life?” Hawk asked.
“Yes, it’s meddling in my big brother’s, and you know what, this is a lot of fun.” His sister had that taunting grin.
“Go away,” he said.
“That didn’t work growing up, and it’s not going to work now. So come on, am I close, or were you just a dick in high school?”
“I was a dick.” And he was not about to admit to his sister that when it came to Katie, he didn’t have the first fucking clue what to say to her. He had been tongue-tied.
Katie hadn’t even been out of his league. He had cheerleaders falling all over him, lining up around the corner wanting to ride him and all that shit, whereas Katie didn’t even give him the time of day. She gave him nothing. She was never mean, but he also knew she didn’t notice him.
“Yeah, you were.”
“And I’m not a dick anymore, and I like hanging out with Katie. She doesn’t make me feel like I’m sick.”
The smirk left Sarah’s face. “Hawk, come on.”
“No, you think I don’t know what our parents’ game is? You think I don’t know you’re stopping by to keep an eye on me?”
“They’re worried about you. We’re all worried about you.”
“You don’t need to be, okay?”
“Hawk, honey, you died.”
“But they brought me back. I’m back, and I didn’t argue with Dad.
I’m taking a break, and I’m not getting involved in my company.
I’m reading the fucking emails giving me the rundown of everything that is happening.
I’m doing what is asked of me. I don’t need a babysitter, and I don’t need people to make me constantly remember how bad it fucking was.
” He grabbed the bag he’d packed his and Katie’s lunch in and stormed out of the house.
He still hadn’t purchased a car for himself, and was still taking out the old truck he used when he was a kid.
Putting the lunch box on the seat beside him, he turned over the ignition and pulled out of the driveway.
The moment he cleared the main road, he couldn’t help but slam his hand on the steering wheel, feeling a little pissed at himself for arguing with his sister.
He was not going to forget that kind of pain anytime soon. It had been the worst feeling in the world and was going to be impossible to forget.
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, he pressed his foot to the gas, but he didn’t break any traffic codes or speeding regulations. He kept calm, although he couldn’t help but think of how his life was at the beginning of the year.
Some chick had pulled him into her and kissed him, even though it had been the first year in his life that he hadn’t really felt the joys of the New Year.
Did he have an idea of what was going to happen then? That his life by the middle of the year would be totally different?
He parked the truck in one of the available spaces outside of Palmer’s Gifts, grabbed the lunch bag, and made his way inside. Katie was at one of the window displays, complete with a dustcloth, vacuum cleaner, and polish.
“Hey, Hawk,” she said.
For the past month, he had spent every available moment he could with Katie. Stopping by the shop, taking her to lunch. It hadn’t extended to dinner or dancing, or to anything. Just two friends chatting, catching up, and it was not what he wanted. He wanted so much more.
“Hey,” he said.
Katie looked around from the display. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
She climbed out of the window, pushing some of the hair off her face. “You don’t look all right.”
“I just ... I got in an argument with my sister. She’s around all the time.”
“She worries about you.”
“I know. I know our parents put her up to it, but I don’t need people around me twenty-four-seven.” He ran a hand down his face. “Sorry, I’m sounding like a total dick.”
“No, no, you’re sounding like a guy who ... wants a little space. I get it.”
He frowned. “You don’t think I’m being a total dick?”
“You might be. I remember you mom coming in here, and she just burst into tears. She was sobbing about how close it came to nearly losing you. With Adam, I have come to realize there are two sides to each story. There is your side, as the person who was sick in the hospital, and then there is the side of those trying to deal with it. Like your mom, dad, and Sarah. Just like with me and Adam.” She shrugged.
“It’s hard for both sides. They love you, Hawk.
They want the best for you, and they weren’t there when it happened.
” She moved toward him and put a hand on his arm.
“I was there when Adam got his diagnosis. Both times. Your dad was the one who got the call. I can’t imagine how scared your parents must have been. ”
“Fuck, now I feel like a prick.”
“But I know how I felt when the doctor told Adam he had cancer, and I remember that feeling when he told us it had returned. I know that feeling, but I also know Adam was terrified. He knew it was coming, but he was also scared. How did you feel?”
Hawk looked at her.
No one had asked him that. Everyone had told him what he’d been doing wrong. No one had asked him how he felt, or what it all meant to him.
“I was terrified,” he said. “It was something I had never felt before, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do. The pain was ... it was pure agony.” He looked toward her.
“Adam told me it was like having your future taken from you. That was what it felt like to him. That the world seemed to stand still but also keep moving. Every second felt rushed, yet at the same time, it was like he couldn’t make it stop. It drove him crazy.”
“I was given all these warnings. If I continued, then it was going to get worse. I have medication now to help. I have to make lifestyle changes. The high-stress working environment I once thrived in was killing me. It’s a change I struggle with.
Even now, I wake up at four-thirty, without an alarm, and my first thought is to check my emails.
To see what job needs handling first. Instead, I don’t touch my phone.
I lay in bed, look up at the ceiling and just wonder where I went wrong. ”
“You didn’t go wrong.”
“I mustn’t have done something right. I was a dick in high school. I didn’t donate to enough charities. I wasn’t kind. I don’t fucking know.”
“Some things just happen.”
He looked at her and smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I noticed you didn’t correct me about the whole ‘dick in high school’ part.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Hawk. You were a dick in high school.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. You know, Adam told me the best way to deal with everything was to take it one day at a time, and if that wasn’t enough, then a few hours, or a couple of minutes, and to just keep pushing forward.”
He looked into her brown eyes, and he just didn’t want to wait any longer.
“Will you go out with me Friday night?”
****
“What do you think?” Katie asked, looking toward her mother.
“Honey, you look gorgeous in whatever you wear.”
“Mom, I don’t know what to wear to a bar for a .
.. date.” Her other dates had been in restaurants or cafes.
Some had been online dating, and they hadn’t exactly gone as well as she had hoped.
Dating had been a bit of a nightmare. Most men were more interested in what was going to happen at the end of the night.
Katie wasn’t interested in just having sex.
“And with Hawk Masters of all people,” her mother Ana said.
“Yeah, it is a shock, but he has been around the shop and I don’t know, he asked, and I said yes.” She blew out a breath. “But maybe I should call him and cancel?”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Mom, I’ve not exactly been big on the dating game.”
“And that doesn’t matter. So you were a little unlucky, and it has changed a lot since you and Adam were together, but it’s just a date in a bar on a Friday night.” Ana smiled at her. “Hawk is a good guy.”
“Mom, stop it.”
“No, you know I always said he was going to do well.”
She rolled her eyes. Her mother had always admired Hawk.
Katie had never come home and complained to her mother about what a dick he had been, or the fact he’d pushed her or barged into her.
There was just no point. It wasn’t bullying, but it kind of was, she wasn’t sure how exactly to describe it. Now, she was going on a date with him.
They were much older now. They had experienced life. Both had experienced different kinds of pain.