Chapter Eighteen
Gavino
I didn’t have a good feeling about her old man. Too much shit wasn’t adding up. No evidence of him in the woods, a secret house, secret girlfriend, secret storage units, secret cash.
And, sure, he’d been working for me. But I could understand why he kept that from his daughter. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell her he bought a house that was basically in her backyard. Especially when that woman worshipped the man. That made no fucking sense to me.
Was Caitlin just looking at her father through rose-colored glasses? Had there always been some secrecy in their relationship that she didn’t notice? Or had something changed recently?
The gambling or possible addiction angles flew out the window when I saw how much money he was holding onto. If he was a gambler, he wouldn’t be able to help setting that on a table. If he was an addict, a huge chunk of that would be snorted or shot up by now.
I glanced over at Caitlin in the backseat of the cab. There was a sharp ache in my chest, realizing that whatever she was about to learn about her father wouldn’t be good.
Either he was dead or he was alive but not the man she believed he was. Either way, she was going to grieve.
“Hey, can you stop on the corner?” I asked.
“We’re not at your apartment,” Caitlin said, glancing over at me.
“I think you could use a pick-me-up,” I said, paying before sliding out of the cab.
I reached down to offer my hand, but didn’t let go when she moved out onto the sidewalk with me.
“A bookstore,” she said, smile warm even if it didn’t quite meet her eyes.
“They even have those fancy-ass sugar treats you call coffee,” I told her as we walked up to the doors.
“You know the way to a girl’s heart,” she said.
It was a throwaway comment. But there was a strange warm sensation in my chest as I followed her into the store.
“Are you a ‘no coffee around the books’ kind of person? Or a ‘sip and browse’ kind of person?”
“You can only be one?” I asked, leading her toward the back of the store where the cafe could be found.
I’d had enough coffee in the last week or so for half my blood to be replaced with it. But I ordered one just so she didn’t feel weird about getting one.
“Would you like to add a jumbo pumpkin spice cookie for just two dollars?” the barista asked.
“Yes, she would,” I said, saving her from having to pretend like she wasn’t dying for it.
“I thought they were exaggerating when they said jumbo,” she said a few minutes later when she had her coffee between her arm and chest so her hand was free to hold the cookie half the size of her head in a little parchment paper shell.
“Is it good?” I asked as she chewed.
To that, she made a moaning sound that brought me right back to the storage unit, the stairwell, the bunk of the tractor.
She held it out to my lips. And despite not necessarily being a fan of nutmeg, cloves, or pumpkin, I opened my mouth and let her push it in for a bite.
And it wasn’t bad. I didn’t get the all-pumpkin-everything craze, but could appreciate a decent pumpkin baked good on occasion. This was right below my sister’s homemade pumpkin pie when it came to that particular category of food.
But Caitlin was happy to eat the rest of it herself while walking about and pointing out books she’d already loved—or hated—with detailed reasons why.
None of them were even books I would have picked up, but I found myself hanging on every word, laughing with her, empathizing with her when she’d thought a book would be a five-star and barely got a three out of her.
Her enthusiasm was contagious enough for me to mentally jot down a few of her favorites of the year to pick up and read.
“Really?” I asked when she shoved her cookie wrapper into my pocket so she could pick up a book with some sort of cryptid embracing a woman on the cover.
“This is the definition of a hear-me-out book. Because even if he wasn’t a cryptid, this would still be a favorite. It’s beautifully written. And it touches on grief like I don’t think I’ve ever read before.”
“Alright. You sold me,” I said, picking it up.
“You don’t have to read it because I loved it.”
“I don’t have to, no. But I’m curious what you liked about it. Even if bringing this cover to the counter is going to be embarrassing as fuck.”
She laughed at that before twirling over to the new releases and grabbing two.
But whereas that would have been the point I hightailed it out of the store, my social battery overfilled to the point of explosion risk, I followed Caitlin as she checked out the puzzles, the bookmarks (she apparently needed a new one for each book, despite having cups full of bookmarks at her place…
and spare pieces of paper working just as well), then stopped to check out the bookish mug selections.
“No! You don’t need to buy that,” she said when I picked up the one that proclaimed I’m an inside cat under the image of a cat sitting with a stack of books.
“You need a mug at my place,” I told her, watching how she melted at that.
It was probably something I should have put a stop to right then and there, not fed into it. I wasn’t a relationship guy. I was barely a ‘spend the night’ kind of man. I didn’t do touchy-feely and warm and gooey.
That said, something felt right about her mug in my kitchen cabinet.
Her book on my coffee table.
Her body in my bed.
So I held onto the mug as she looked at a cozy blanket (which I picked up) and soft socks—or, as she called them, ‘reading chair’ socks. Whatever that meant. But I grabbed a pair of them. And a tote she touched on her way to the register.
She walked up and put her books on the counter, allowing me to walk up behind her and put the other purchases down in front of her.
“What is all this?” she asked, turning her head to look back and up at me.
“Pick-me-up shopping, remember?”
The smile she shot me was bright as sunlight.
And worth every overpriced item she’d inadvertently encouraged me to buy.
But then we took the tote and moved out onto the sidewalk and she fucking… launched herself at me, wrapping me up so tight it felt hard to breathe.
“Thank you,” she said into my chest as my arms lifted and slid around her, making that new sensation spread across my chest again. “I really needed that.”
“I know,” I agreed, giving into the very uncharacteristic urge to lean down and press a kiss to the top of her head.
What the fuck was going on with me?
“But now, food.”
She’d just eaten roughly fifteen hundred calories between her drink and the cookie.
But, yes, food.
As we sat at my dining table, she did keep reaching for the steamed vegetables to go with her noodles, though. So maybe I was rubbing off on her a bit.
“What’s the matter?” I asked after we cleaned up our food and got a pot of coffee brewing.
“I don’t have anything comfy to wear.”
“You not wearing anything isn’t a problem for me,” I said, getting an eye roll out of her.
“I can’t read naked.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know… paper cuts.”
“Fair enough. You can borrow one of my shirts.”
We could have gone back to her place.
I could have ordered an outfit to be delivered like I had with her fancy-ass syrup, creamer, and whipped cream. But I wanted her in my shirt. And I was just going to not analyze why that was.
“Fair warning,” she said as we sat down with our books and coffee on the couch, ready for some well-earned relaxation after a hectic few days.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m taking a long, hot bath in that tub of yours before I leave.”
If I let her leave.
“Well, I’ve lived here for a few years and it’s yet to be broken in, so I think it’s about time.”
“You seriously never take baths? With that tub?”
“Stewing in my own filth doesn’t sound as relaxing as people make it out to be.”
“How dirty are you?” she asked, shooting me a scrunched-brow look. “I mean, I shower after baths anyway. I don’t like to have soapy water on me after.”
“Then what’s the point of the bath?”
“The vibes.”
“Guess I can’t debate an argument as strong as ‘vibes.’”
She ignored that. “I haven’t had a bath in years.”
“You don’t have a tub?”
“I have a bath/tub combo. But it needs replacing and I don’t want to put my bare butt on it. Besides, it would be a leg-and-hip bath at best. Most of me would be outside of the water.”
“Just let me sit with that image for a minute.”
To that, she let out a little giggle before watching me with a scrunched look.
“What?”
“Why does your family make it sound like you’re such a jerk? You’re not a jerk.”
“It’s mostly because I choose not to socialize a lot of the time. Which is not normal in a big, Italian family like ours.”
“Can I say something without you getting offended?”
“Probably. Only one way to find out.”
“I wonder if maybe you’re so good about my anxiety because you have a touch of it yourself.”
“I don’t have those panic attacks like you do.”
“No, but that’s a panic attack. You can have anxiety without panic attacks.
Or panic without anxiety. Or you can be lucky and have both.
Like me. I just think it might make sense for why you find family dinners so overwhelming.
And then need to flee and go back to your own place.
It sounds a little like social anxiety. The one type I don’t really have. ”
I guess it wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities.
I guess my view of anxiety was a little narrow.
I really only had my little sister’s and Caitlin’s to compare it to.
Which presented in a more external way. But the way I felt in social situations did sort of sound the way Caitlin described how she felt—like the air was too thick to breathe, like there was a weight on my chest, like everything was just too bright, too loud, too close.
“Maybe,” I decided after thinking it through.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Actually considering it instead of just blowing me off. I had a boy…”
“You can say boyfriend. I know you weren’t a nun.”
“Right. Well, I had a boyfriend who was very obviously dealing with some significant depression. And he about bit my head off when I—very gently—brought it up.”