CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE #2
Naomi said back in her seat and nodded. Her foot beneath the table found mine and started to playfully rub back and forth. I’d never played footsies with anyone before. The cheeky glint in her eyes and half smirk on her lips said that maybe she hadn’t either.
Lola returned with our drinks and calamari. We placed the rest of our order. I was going to have the seared Cajun salmon with quinoa salad, and Naomi ordered the crab cakes and coleslaw.
Cammy and Squid continued to just paddle around below us, drawing quite the crowd from other diners and people passing by. Eventually, someone bought some herring or something from Willy and started throwing it into the water, which Cammy greatly appreciated.
“Dinner and a show,” I said. “It’s like I planned this or something.”
Naomi’s small, coquettish smile made my body warm. “Yeah …”
Reaching for her hand across the table, I ran my thumb across her knuckles. That just made her beam even brighter as she sipped her lemonade. But then, as if a big gust of wind just blew through and snuffed out a candle, her face dropped and her glow disappeared. She also pulled her hand away.
I craned my neck around to see what had caused such a sudden shift in her behavior. “What just happened?” I asked, unable to see anything out of the ordinary.
Her eyes darted to the left and behind me, and she brought her voice down to a whisper. “The pointing and whispering of those people over there.”
I continued to gawk around, then leaned in across the table. “You mean the table of four over there?”
“Yes. Those are parents at the school. Their kids are in the same grades as Honor and Austin. I don’t like the way they’re looking and whispering. Shaina even pointed when you reached for my hand.”
My jaw grew tight, and I sucked in a sharp breath before turning to face them. They all glanced away in the most ridiculously conspicuous ways. “Hey, folks,” I said, giving them an enthusiastic and friendly wave. “Nice night for a date, huh?”
The two men and two women all awkwardly waved back at me and nodded.
“Your kids are … Jream, Jrake, Mary, and Michael, right?”
They all nodded again.
“Great kids. You’re doing fantastic jobs raising such polite, kind little humans. Keep up the good work.” I offered them an even bigger grin before turning back to Naomi. “Murder their asses with kindness. It always throws them off.”
Her cheeks were bright-pink, and she made herself small by shrinking down into her chair.
Did I just fuck up? I thought I was making it better.
“I understand why you did what you did,” she murmured. “And I appreciate it. But I’m not sure it’s going to land the way you think it will. They’re going to judge me more than they will you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m older. And that double standard still lives and breathes in society. It’s fine for a fifty-year-old man to date a twenty-year-old woman. But flip it around and the murmurs of disapproval will deafen you.”
“Did Gabrielle face backlash for dating Maverick?”
She shook her head. “No. But Maverick is a celebrity, and Gabrielle carries herself with this air of ‘fuck with me and find out what happens.’ That kind of frightens people.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” The sudden shift in her mood saddened me.
The last thing I wanted to do was have her sit there, unable to be her radiant, charismatic self.
“Do you want to take our dinner to go?” I asked, hating that our beautiful evening was turning sour because a few people decided to judge and gawk at something they had no clue about.
We were both consenting adults, and despite our age difference, we had a lot in common and a lot to talk about.
I never grew tired of our conversations, and we never seemed to run out of things to talk about.
She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head, unable to stop herself from glancing back over at the McJudgersons and their friends, the Judgensteins. “No. We deserve to be here and enjoy our date, just as much as they do.”
I wanted to reach for her hand again, but refrained. “Good. Because I am thoroughly enjoying showing my girlfriend off in public.”
She tried to hide her smile by sipping her lemonade, but the twinkle in her eyes betrayed how much she enjoyed me calling her my girlfriend. I really liked saying it out loud.
Lola brought our dinner, and we dove in.
“So … I was thinking about ways that we could be together and have it not be in the back of my truck,” I said after swallowing a bite of my perfectly cooked salmon.
She chewed her coleslaw and lifted her brows.
“Friday … what if you ducked out for like an hour from work and met me at my house on my lunch hour? It would be quick because I’d have to get back to school. But we could actually be in a bed.”
“Are you proposing we have a Friday nooner quickie?” she asked.
“If that’s what you want to call it?”
Nodding, she used her fork to wedge off a piece of her crab cake. “I kind of like the idea of being sneaky. I mean, I guess you could come to my place too, but with Mabel at Gabrielle’s with Damon, they might see your truck.”
“She knows we’re having sex.”
Her eyes widened in horror.
“My kid and I have no secrets from each other. She asked, and I said yes.”
“How’d she take that?”
“She asked if we were being safe.”
Naomi’s cringe was cute. “Oh god.”
“It’s all good. She’s happy that I’m happy, and that I found someone who makes me happy. Even though she’s thirteen, she doesn’t act like it.”
“Yeah, I’m beginning to see that more and more.”
The McJudgersons and the Judgensteins got up from their table to leave. The women’s eyes fell on Naomi again, so much ridicule shone in their gazes. They had to pass our table.
The taller of the two men, the one with blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a pink polo, stopped next to me. “What year were you born, Mr. Paul?” he asked, unable to hide the rude amusement and satisfaction he felt as he smirked and glanced between myself and Naomi.
“The Year of the Dragon,” I replied before playfully growling. “Why? What year were you born in?”
His head reared back in surprise that I would ask him such a question. “Uh … 1990.”
I thought for a moment, then nodded. “Ah, the Year of the Horse. That’s a good year. Unless you were born before January 27, then you’d be born in the Year of the Snake. Also a good year.”
For her entire fourth grade year, Mabel had been obsessed with the Lunar New Year and memorizing everything and anything she could about it. A lot of those details had apparently stored themselves somewhere deep in my brain.
I’d perplexed the man, and he had no comeback. Scratching at his blond scruff, he murmured for us to have a good night, then let his wife tug him off the floathouse.
Lola had been clearing their table and overheard our exchange. She snickered and smiled at me. “I was born in 2010. What year is that, Mr. Paul?”
“The Year of the Tiger,” I confirmed, not sure how I was able to recall the order of the animals with such ease. What other things that my child had briefly become infatuated with did I retain useless information about? Did I also know the Latin name for almost a thousand birds?
“Cool.” She finished clearing the table of judgement, then headed back inside.
“I’m not bothered by our age gap,” I said to Naomi, reaching for her free hand again. “Are you?”
“I wasn’t …”
“But you are now?”
Staring at her plate, she pushed her coleslaw around with her fork, but didn’t put any in her mouth. “You and Mabel have already had a rough start to your new life here on the island. I don’t want to add to that by adding another target on your back.”
“You think being in a consensual adult relationship with a woman I care deeply for is adding a target on my back?” I asked, genuinely surprised at her metaphor.
“Because I think it’s the greatest thing to ever happen to me.
I think meeting you, falling for you, and being so openly welcomed by your family has changed mine and Mabel’s lives for the better in every way.
You’ve given us the village and community I never thought we’d find.
I don’t see you as a target on my back, I see you as …
a breath of fresh air. As a bright, shiny ray of sunshine that chased all the dark clouds away. ”
She blinked at me a few times, and her lips parted.
“I’m not sure we’re at the point of saying the ‘L’ word to each other yet—”
Her eyes went wide, and I could tell she was trying hard not to emphatically shake her head.
“But I feel myself heading in that direction. So if this relationship ends, it will be because you end it. Not me.”
“You’re getting really good at this wooing thing,” she said after a moment of sitting there in stunned silence.
I smirked and speared an olive from my quinoa salad with my fork. “I’m trying.”
“Maybe we should get this meal to go.”
My head snapped up from where I’d been looking at my plate, but the shimmer in her eyes quickly subdued the panic rising inside of me. “Yeah?”
“We could go eat this in the back of your truck on the property?” She bobbed her brows.
“You don’t want dessert?”
“Silly rabbit, I am dessert.”