Chapter 30
Thirty
“The boys would love this car,” Gina said as Parker held the door for her.
“I’ll take them for a ride any time they want.” He closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.
“You wouldn’t want them in here. They leave a mess wherever they go.”
“That wouldn’t bother me.”
“You say that now, but when you’re digging a peanut butter sandwich out of your stereo we’ll see what you think then.”
“That has not happened.” He still wanted to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t imagining this. Gina was really in his car and not just in his dreams. “You’re making that up.”
She turned to him. “You know they come with the package, don’t you, Parker?”
“Of course I do.” He reached for her hand. “I know that.”
“Will you forgive me if you don’t actually see them for a while?”
He glanced over at her. “Don’t you want me to meet them?”
“I do, but I’m not bringing anyone new into their lives until I know it’s going to stick. They’ve been through enough without getting attached to someone who’s not going to be around in a couple of months.”
He wanted to protest. He wanted to tell her that wasn’t going to happen. But what he said was, “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I’m trying to.”
“It’ll be complicated.”
“It’s already complicated—for me at least.”
“I thought I remembered how handsome you were.” She trailed a finger over his jaw. “But my memory failed me.”
He captured her hand in his so he wouldn’t drive off the road. “That’s funny, because I thought the same thing about you when you answered the door.” He glanced at her and then back at the road. “Do you know who my father is?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Is that going to be a problem for you?”
“I can’t see why it would be.”
“You’d be surprised at the many ways it can be a problem for me.”
She squeezed his hand. “I don’t want you for what you have. You certainly know better than most people that I don’t need it. You saw to that.”
“Has he been honoring the agreement?”
“To the letter. The check arrives on the first without fail, and he sees the boys exactly two nights a month—and not for one minute longer than he has to.”
“That must be hard for you. You never get a break.”
“I’m lucky to have my family and a lot of good friends who help me. It’s much easier now that the boys are older.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting them—that is, after I prove to you that I’m going to stick.”
Amused, she asked, “And how do you plan to do that?”
“You’ll see.”
Ted kept an arm around Caroline as they walked to his car. “I’m sorry it’s so late. I’m trying to pinpoint the exact moment when this day spun out of control.”
“It’s no problem. I knew you were busy.”
“All I wanted was to get back to you. I had trouble keeping my mind on what I was doing. In fact, I even got taken to task by a parent, which doesn’t happen very often.”
“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I’m causing you all kinds of trouble. I hate that.”
He leaned her against his car and hugged her. “You’re causing me all kinds of happiness. That far outweighs the rest.”
“If you say so.”
“Honey, come on. Let’s put this behind us and go have a nice dinner somewhere. What do you say?”
“I don’t know if I could eat.”
“You have to try. Besides, I’m starving. I never did get to have lunch.”
“All right,” she said as he held the door for her. “Did you get a chance to check on your grandmother?”
Ted nodded. “She’s as feisty as ever and annoyed by the whole thing, which was a relief.”
“That’s good. Since she’s the only one pulling for us, we need to keep her healthy.”
He laughed. “That’s true.” He took her to one of his favorite restaurants in Boston where he managed to convince her to at least have a salad while he wolfed down a steak.
By the time they had finished eating, Caroline was starting to come around.
Her eyes, which had been dull and flat with shock after his mother’s outburst, had brightened a little, and she’d even managed to smile a few times over dinner.
He poured her another glass of wine and reached for her hand across the table. “Are you all right, baby?”
“I will be. How are you?”
“As long as you’re here with me, I’m great.”
“What are you going to do about your mother?”
“I’m sure I’ll see her tomorrow when I visit my grandmother in the hospital. I’ll talk to her then.”
Caroline fiddled absently with his fingers.
“It’s all going to be fine, hon. She just needs some time to absorb it. There’s no way she’ll let a rift form between us, not after what she went through with my sister.”
“What happened to your sister?”
Ted told her about Tish’s years of drug abuse and the terrible strain it had put on their entire family.
Caroline was amazed. “I’m trying to picture Tish as an addict. She seemed so together and so happy with Steven.”
“She is now, but you should’ve seen her ten years ago. It was a total nightmare.”
“I’m sorry. That must’ve been awful for you.”
“It was.” Ted almost choked on his wine as Parker walked past their table, hand-in-hand with a woman as they followed the maitre d’.
When Parker noticed Ted his face lit up with a smile, and he said something to the maitre d’.
Caroline gasped as Parker came toward them.
Parker stopped short when he saw who was holding Ted’s hand.
For a long awkward moment no one said anything. Then Parker seemed to recover enough to remember his manners. “Gina, this is Ted and Caroline.”
Ted stood and shook hands with Gina. “Pleased to meet you.”
“You, too,” Gina said.
Ted glanced at Parker, who made a concerted effort to avoid eye contact with him. “Parker . . .”
“We’ve got to go,” Parker said. “They’re holding our table.”
“Let me explain,” Ted said.
“Not now.” Parker put his arm around Gina and led her away.
“Son of a bitch,” Ted muttered as he sat back down to find Caroline’s face once again devoid of color.
He signaled for the check.
“Parker? What’s the matter?” Gina asked after they were seated.
Parker tried desperately to absorb what he had just seen. “He’s one of my best friends.”
Her expression was skeptical. “It didn’t seem like that to me.”
“I’m sure it didn’t. I’m in a total state of shock right now.”
She reached for his hand. “What’s wrong? I don’t understand.”
Parker took a long sip of his water. “The woman he was with?”
Gina nodded.
“She was our friend Smitty’s girlfriend until this past Sunday.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Everything suddenly made sense to Parker—finding Caroline on the stairs Friday night when she was alone in the house with Ted, his preoccupation with something—which he had blamed on work—and Smitty’s abrupt departure for Australia.
Oh, Jesus. Smitty knows. That’s why he left the way he did.
Parker’s mind raced. Ted lied to my face when I asked him about what happened Friday night.
They both did. They were together, and I caught them when I came home early. Oh my God.
“Parker? Are you all right?”
He forced himself to focus on Gina. “I’m so sorry, honey,” he said, taking a deep breath and trying to shake off the shock.
“You don’t have to be sorry. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“I don’t want to bore you.”
“Parker, you’re obviously very upset. Talk to me.”
Overwhelmed by the need to share it with her, he took another rattling deep breath and told her the whole story.
After dinner Parker drove Gina past his house on Beacon Hill. “Now that you know where I live, you’ll have to come visit me.”
“I don’t get into the city very often, but now that I have a good excuse . . .”
As he pulled up to her house just after eleven, he was amazed once again at how she had managed to salvage their evening by helping him through his shock at running into Ted with Caroline.
“You can come over any time you want to. Or you can come by my office, or call me in the middle of the night, or call me in the middle of the day. Whatever you want.”
She turned to him and smiled. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Thank you for saying yes.” Her face hovered inches from his in the tiny car, but he refrained from moving closer to her, reminding himself that she was setting the pace.
She put him out of his misery when she reached for him.
With her hands on his face she pressed her lips to his.
The kiss was sweet and gentle at first—until she sighed with pleasure, his heart skipped a beat, and he tipped his head to delve deeper.
Her hand fell to his leg, and she tugged him closer as the kiss went on and on.
He finally pulled back and stared at her, amazed by the desire she stirred in him.
“Do you want to come in?”
“I don’t think I should.”
“I think you should.”
“Gina . . .” he said with a grimace. “I’m trying to show some restraint here.”
“Don’t.”
“I have to.”
“Why?” She trailed her finger from his face to his throat and down to his chest.
He closed his eyes for a moment to absorb the overwhelming storm of emotions. “If I go in with you, I’ll make love with you. And if that happens, I’ll never be able to let you go, because I’m already desperately in love with you.”
Tears sparkled in her eyes. “Come in with me.”
“What about the boys?”
“They’re staying at my mother’s tonight and going to my sister’s house to swim in her pool tomorrow.”
He looked at her for a long time to make sure she knew what she was asking of him before he finally got out of the car and walked around to help her out.
Inside, she turned to him. “Do you want something to drink?”
“No, thanks.”
She pushed his suit coat off his shoulders and hung it on the banister. Taking his hand, she led him upstairs to her room.
Unable to believe how the day he’d so looked forward to had unfolded, he held her close to him for a long time.
“I want you to know I never slept with him in this bed, Parker. After he left, I got rid of everything in here. I’ve never slept with anyone in this bed.”
“I haven’t slept with anyone since I met you.”
Her fingers, which had been busy unbuttoning his shirt, fell still. “You aren’t serious.”
“I’m dead serious.” He unzipped her dress and nudged it down. “How am I doing with proving to you that I’m going to stick?”
“Good,” she stammered as he caressed her breasts through her lacy bra. “Really, really good.”
He replaced his hands with his lips and urged her down to the bed. “Yes, it’s going to be.”