Chapter Sixteen #2
“I’m not a senior.” He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation over a store-bought rotisserie chicken, a salad, and mashed potatoes that came out of a box.
“Well, you can’t go on Tinder,” Ellie said. “My friends will see you.”
“You have friends on Tinder?” He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Yeah.”
“You’re not on it.” He didn’t phrase it as a question but waited for her answer anyway.
“Gross.” Ellie made a gagging noise.
“She doesn’t need Tinder, she has Trevor,” Madison teased.
“I don’t have Trevor.”
It was James’s turn to gag.
“You should ask Maddie if she’s on Tinder,” Ellie tossed out.
James snapped his attention to Madison.
“She’s lying. I don’t even want to date.”
That made him feel better.
“Everyone wants to go to prom. And for that, you need a date,” Ellie said.
All James could do was sit back and watch his girls argue.
“I don’t need a date date. I can take a lavender date.”
James felt a headache coming on. “What the hell is a lavender date?”
Ellie looked at him as if he were an idiot. “It’s when you take your gay friend. Or a friend who is your bestie but not your date.”
“Oh.” He liked the sound of that.
Those kinds of dates didn’t end up in hotel rooms with condoms.
“What are you doing if Trevor doesn’t ask you?” Madison asked.
“I’ll ask him.”
“No,” James barked.
“Dad, it’s 2025. Women ask men out all the time.”
He pointed his fork at Ellie. “If Trevor isn’t man enough to ask you out, he doesn’t deserve you.”
“Dad . . . ‘man enough’? Really?”
He shook his head. “I know. I’m not being PC, or this century, or whatever you kids call it. I don’t care. You don’t lower the bar. If Trevor wants to take you to prom, he needs to ask. And he needs to show up at this door and shake my hand.”
“Why?” Ellie asked.
So that I can squeeze the fuck out of it and remind the punk that it’s my daughter he is with, and if he does anything I don’t approve of, he’ll have hell to pay. In short, so James could intimidate him. “Because that’s how it’s done.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Besides, when I was in high school, plenty of girls went together.”
“Cringe,” both girls said at the same time.
“I was just on a cruise where there were more women on the dance floors dancing with each other than with men. And they were having a great time.”
“Did you get out there?” Madison asked.
He instantly remembered Mari laughing as he spun her around. “A few times.”
His girls went silent.
James shoveled up more potatoes. “And I did the asking.”
For the next half hour, James was lectured on how things were different now.
And by the time dinner was over, his girls reminded him no less than a dozen times that he was old and completely out of touch.
“I miss you.”
Mari pushed aside the laundry she was folding and sat on her sofa with her phone tucked close to her ear. “You saw me yesterday.”
“Entirely too long ago.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, James.”
“You know what made it worse?” he asked.
“No. But I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“I couldn’t talk about you. When the girls drilled me on who I met, I had to blow off their questions and pretend that nothing and no one special came out of the trip.”
Oddly, Mari felt the same way. “It’s for the best. We hardly know each other.”
“That was changing by the hour.”
Mari made a humming noise in the back of her throat. “Thank you for keeping your promise.”
“I will never do anything to lose your trust.”
“That’s a big promise. And hard to keep when you don’t know what would make me distrust you.”
James huffed. “Lying to you would destroy your trust.”
“True.”
“Walking into your restaurant today and kissing you would blow your trust.”
Her eyes widened as that image passed through her brain. “That would be a big mistake.”
“Exactly. Seeing me walk down the street holding another woman. Or even hearing that I was seeing someone else would destroy your trust.”
True, but . . . “Just because I haven’t seen anyone since Paulo doesn’t mean I’m naive to the dating world. I have no hold on you. We haven’t promised to not see other people.” And by we, Mari meant him.
James hesitated. “Do you want to see other men?”
She laughed. “Of course. A new man on Friday, another on Saturday . . . maybe I can squeeze you in on Tuesdays when the girls are at school.”
James’s laugh was entirely too confident. “What did your late husband do with your sass?”
Mari smiled into the memory of Paulo placating her. “He would call me cara, pat my hand or whatever he could touch, and then go on like I said nothing.”
“And did that work?”
“Yes.” Every time.
“Great. Thanks for the tip,” he said. “I’m not a kid, Mari. I have no intention of dating other women. If you see me with someone, I promise you it isn’t romantic.”
His assurance was comforting. It was strange enough to enter into this . . . whatever this was they were doing. To think of him measuring her against different women was an image she didn’t want to entertain.
“Are you still there?” he asked.
“I am. Thank you.”
A moment passed. “This is where you tell me I’m your Mr. Saturday.”
She sighed. “Sorry, James. Leo is my Mr. Saturday. And he sleeps in my bed.”
He laughed. “I can’t compete with a grandchild.”
“No. You can’t.”
“If that’s my only competition, I’ll take it.”
“I’m unsure how you and I work. The last thing I would do is invite anyone else into my life,” she assured him.
“I’ll give you a few days to settle in. After that, expect me to start pestering you for a few hours of your time,” he warned.
“That’s fair,” she said.
“Good. Now, I have one more question before I let you go,” he said.
“I’m listening.”
“What does cara mean?” James asked.
“It’s an Italian endearment. Like dear or hon.”
“All right. I suppose I’ll learn Italian one word at a time.”
She laughed. “You’ll be fluent in no time.”
A moment passed. “Good night, Mari.”
“Good night.”
Mari held the phone in her hands, looking into it as if James sat inside.
Cara.
Paulo had always called her cara.
Thinking of the word in her head sent a familiar vibration through her soul. A ripple of her husband’s presence.
A whisper of his voice in her ear.
The months following his passing, Mari literally saw him in every corner of her life. In the apartment she sat in now. The restaurant. At the market, or in the square.
Like the smell of him, eventually, those images faded.
Physically, his presence was moved along.
From removing his clothing to throwing away his favorite chair when the cushions were beyond repair, Paulo evaporated.
Only now, she felt him. Or at least she thought she did. A scent that was his . . . but different. His voice . . . only a note too low to match him perfectly.
Logically, she knew dating James wasn’t a betrayal of her marriage.
Then why was there a sense of guilt? Misguided guilt, but guilt nonetheless.
Mari pushed off her sofa, disregarding the laundry that needed folding.
She was tired and needed sleep to wash away her conflicting emotions.
Perhaps seeing James was the closure she needed. He was a good man, and if something about them didn’t fit, Mari would have at least made good on her husband’s dying wish.
She would try.
She owed Paulo that.