Chapter 17
Megan
Tonight was by far something out of a fairy tale, between the candle-lit dinner he planned at this small restaurant that I clearly never would’ve found on my own, to the flowers sitting at the table already waiting. Black and red roses to be exact. They smelled amazing, part of me wanted to cry at the sweet gesture and the thought and time he put into this date in literally a few hours. It’s been a long time since I had something like this done for me.
“This place is beautiful; how did you find it?” I ask him as the waitress brought over our drinks. Both of us clearly wanted to have a clear head tonight, we both went with water for now. He thanked her with a nod and gazed back at me.
“My dad found this place back in the day. Are you ready to order?” He watched me flip through the menu as I took in all of the options, and the prices.
“I’m not sure what I want honestly, everything sounds so good,” I remark, the menu wasn’t huge by any means, but it had everything I loved on it which made it so hard. Chicken parmesan, steak and fries, barbeque chicken, bacon mac and cheese. Everything sounded so great, but also very filling.
“May I order for you?” He asks at my clear hesitation to order. I look up at him and slowly nod. I was used to being ordered for when I went out, so I relented and let him. My thoughts drifted back to having a salad ordered for me while Ryan would order steak and lobster. I needed to watch my weight, was always his excuse. Great, asshole is invading my thoughts again. I sighed and closed the menu, waiting patiently to hear what he chose for me.
“I’ll take the steak and potatoes, mid-rare for the steak. For her,” he paused and smiled at me. I forced a smile to my face as my thoughts kept circling the drain. “An order of bacon mac and cheese and the steak and potatoes as well. Is mid rare okay?”
My jaw half dropped to the damn table. Did this man just order me a steak?! I quickly had to gather my composure, so I didn’t look like a dumbstruck idiot. “Um, yes please. Can I do fries instead of the mashed potatoes?” I asked him.
He chuckles a little, “Well, you heard her, fries and mid rare. Can you make the fries the garlic parm fries. You’ll love them, actually can you make mine the same fries too?” The waitress smiles, nods at us, then heads off to the kitchen humming a little tune as she walks.
“You look like someone just flashed you. What’s going thought your head?” He cocks his head to the side, a half-smile on his face show s slight dimple I didn’t notice earlier.
“Just not used to that,” I sip my water before continuing, “I’m used to a salad with tuna or bland ass chicken being ordered for me.” The look of outrage that flashed across his face was brief but, I still saw it.
“Did you prefer a salad? I can always change the order,” he teased, regaining his composure. I scoff at the thought of that, which makes him laugh.
“Hell no,” I look at my glass of water and sigh. I should’ve gotten tea or something with some flavor.
“Everything okay?” His question was like an invitation. One I wasn’t sure I wanted to open. I could express that by one sentence he set my thoughts running rampant or I could lie and tell him it’s nothing. I decide the truth is better than a fabricated lie.
“When you asked if you could order for me, it reminded me of when I had no control over what I was allowed to eat when I went out with Ryan. I know I shouldn’t be thinking about it, and I was trying not to but, it was my life for the past several years. Certain things are going to trigger me, I just didn’t know someone ordering a fucking meal for me would send me mentally spiraling. I’m sorry,” I kept my eyes focused on a spot on the table as I spoke. I was very good at avoiding eye contact, eye contact was a warning a shot in the dark that would never end well for me.
“Megan, look at me,” he commands, my eyes still trained on a speck on the tablecloth. I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I knew he wasn’t Ryan but, it didn’t make things easier for me. I had trained myself to be this obedient fucking shell. “Look at me.” The command in his voice forced my eyes to look up, warning bells ringing in my head to run.
He looked disappointed in me, like I was supposed to be something different. He put his hands palms up on the table in front of him reaching toward me. “Let me see your hands.” I hesitated but did as I was told. His hands were rough, like he was secretly a construction worker moonlighting as a cop. They were rough, but they were also warm and gentle. “I understand the fear of something new. I understand walking on eggshells for your sanity and safety. I understand being with someone who has a fucking hair trigger for flying off the handle. I’ve been in your shoes. I let someone walk all over me. So how about this, I’ll tell you about my last relationship and you can tell me about yours, if you want.” He caressed the back of my hands with his thumbs. I take a deep breath and nod.
“Okay then. I told you about Sandra, but I didn’t tell you everything that happened. We were engaged, not that my family liked her. I was blind to a lot of the emotional damage she was causing. We had mutual friends and then there were her friends. My friends couldn’t come over, I wasn’t allowed to go to a guys night because that meant I was going to the strip clubs in Philly, when in reality all we wanted to do was go to one of the guys houses and play Call of Duty or Halo, sometimes we’d play Magic the Gathering. I’m a nerd at heart. Anyways, I would always have to say no. It didn’t matter what they were doing, she automatically assumed that I was going to cheat on her with someone else. God forbid I had a call where I had to deal with a woman. She would always be the female responding officer to all of my calls, then would come up with a scenario in her head that I was flirting with the woman. It was intense,” he pauses and looks at me. I can see that he’s worried about unloading it all on me, but I’m just trying to process the fucking insanity that this woman was.
“She sounds like a basket case,” I huff. He laughs a little, I’m not sure I want him to continue to bare this to me. He shouldn’t have to relive it. “You don’t have to relive this if it’s too much.”
“It’s okay, I want you to know the baggage I carry. Sandra and I had been on again off again since high school. I wanted to settle down and finally have a family since I am getting older. I thought she was the one, never really considering that she was far from it. Anytime I dated someone when we were off, she would show back up in my life like a fucking tornado and the girl I was seeing would leave me. So, I figured if I can’t find someone else, that she was definitely the one. My dad told me I had Stockholm syndrome and needed to get as far away from her as possible. When I proposed, my dad said he wouldn’t come to our wedding because it would be the biggest mistake of my life,” he let out a deep sigh. “Sandra didn’t care what bridges got burned in my life, as long as she was the center of my attention. Towards the end of our relationship, she would get mad at me over a dream. She’d dream of me cheating, so that was a sign that I was. I woke up to her trying to choke me out because of it one morning. I never struck her or got violent with her. But that was the second to last straw. I couldn’t go on living with someone who blamed me for everything they did. I called my dad and told him I was going to break it off after my shift. That day, however, I lost my partner Ronnie.” He took a deep breath.
“We had been partners for three years, friends for five. We got a call for a domestic violence occurring at a residence, we didn’t know it was a set up. We were the first on the scene, gunshots rang out before we even got our doors closed. Ronnie got shot and died on the scene, I tried to save him, but with bullets flying it wasn’t easy. Backup got there shortly after, but it was too late for him. My captain gave me the rest of the day off to grieve.” He paused to look at me. Gauging my response, which I’m pretty sure was not a good one. I could feel the hot tears slowly sliding down my cheeks. This man has been through so much.
“I went home after calling my dad and telling him what had happened. I was hoping just once she would give a shit about my feelings and care about me. Joke was on me though, I got home, and her partners car was in front of the house. I thought he was there to tell her that I was involved in the shootout. Instead, he was there fucking her in our bed. To say I wanted to kill them both is an understatement. I kicked her out right then, tossing her clothes and uniform on the front lawn and locking the door. Clearly I had to let her back in because she was a resident and I had to formally evict her, but I haven’t looked back since. However, she’s trying hard to get me to take her back, not fucking happening,” He took a sip of his drink, and the timing couldn’t have been better. The waitress came over with our food and set the plates down.
“Do you guys need anything else?” She asks us, politely ignoring me batting away tears from my eyes. This poor woman probably thinks I am bring dumped right now.
“Can I get a sweet tea please?” I say, then look at Max. “And a shot of Jack for him please.” She nods and heads off.
“What’s that for?” He asks me looking puzzled by my order.
“You just spilled your guts about your crazy ex, and you don’t think you need a shot?” Hell, I might need a bottle when I’m done. I didn’t like Sandra from the first time I met her. The way she talked to him at the hospital set me skin crawling.
“Why didn’t you get yourself one? I can’t be the only one taking a shot,” his teasing came so easily, and I didn’t mind it.
“I’ll get a shot when I’m done. Want to eat before I open my luggage and lay it out for you?” I try so hard to be funny but, it just sounds so cringy. He just laughs a little, which makes me feel so much better about it.
“How about we eat as you talk, unless you don’t think you’re up for it,” this man is too good to be real.
“I can,” I take a deep breath to prepare myself for the onslaught of emotions about to come bubbling to the surface. I can do this. “Well, Ryan is definitely not my high school sweetheart, and I curse my friend Gwyn for introducing us to this day. To be fair, she met Ryan through her cousin, and Ryan played the nice guy really well. She had no idea he was the way he was until much later on.” Max’s gaze focused on me, the look on his face questioning my friends sanity. “She feels bad for ever introducing us so don’t give her shit if I ever let you meet her.”
“I make no promises. I may give her a little shit,” he retorts while shoving a piece of steak in his mouth. I popped a French fry in my mouth, holy shit! This is fucking heavenly! Savory with just the right amount of parmesan cheese, okay he was right.
“Anyway, I didn’t give Ryan the time of day at first because I was in the throughs of grief after the death of my soul mate,” a twinge of pain flicked my heart as I thought about Matt. I probably should’ve chosen my words a little better, I watched Max’s face drop when I said the words soul mate. “Look, Matt was my life. I thought I was going to marry him. We planned out wedding, my parents loved him. One night he went out to get us dinner and never came back. An officer came to our door a few hours later to tell me he was involved in a robbery gone bad. Someone stabbed him several times and left him bleeding in an alley. We still don’t know who did it.”
“What was his last name?” Max’s only question, short and sweet.
“Morrison,” I reply as I eat a few more fries. I eyed the mac and cheese, deciding against trying it because if it’s good, I won’t talk anymore. “It’s been quite a few years since it happened. Anyway, Ryan convinced me to give him a shot and took me out to a baseball game for our first date and things were good for the first year. Once we moved in, my world turned upside down. He started telling me how to dress, saying things like, that outfit doesn’t fit your body right or are you looking for attention. Little things that got me self-conscious of what I was wearing, so I would wear older looking clothes, so I didn’t upset him. Then started the controlling of what I ate, no chocolate, no cakes, no sweets of any kind, not even for special occasions. His mother bought me chocolate covered strawberries for my birthday one year and he told her I was allergic to chocolate so she wouldn’t do it again. The screaming and hitting came about six months later. The first time he hit me was when I found out my dad was in the hospital. I grabbed my keys to go to be with my dad, instead he grabbed my hair and threw me down on the floor, hitting me over and over again because we had dinner plans that night. My dad ended up having surgery that night, he’s good now but it was touch and go for a bit,” I stopped talking as the waitress came back over with his shot and my drink. “Thank you.”
She nods, leaving as quickly as she came. This woman must have the worst impression of our date. I took a sip; it wasn’t as sweet as I’d prefer it but whatever. “From that moment on, anything I said or did was cause for screaming, yelling, things being broken, me being hit over and over. I managed to get myself out of a few of those situations but, as you know, Delaware is a no self-defense state. It was all his word against mine, I just stopped calling the cops. It was a waste of time. The bruises and cuts didn’t show up until a day or so later. There was one officer who tried to offer me help but Ryan convinced him that I had done the damage to myself by slipping down the front steps, wearing heels coming home drunk from a party. I smelled of booze because he smashed a beer bottle on my head. It was enough for the cop to believe him though.”
“When was this? What was the officers name?” He was white knuckling his knife and fork at this point. I’m now regretting opening my mouth about this.
“It’s been awhile, I don’t remember,” I confess and decide now is the time to dive into the golden bowl of goodness in front of me. The cheese was creamy and there was a fantastic cheese pull! It was a mouthful of heaven as well, who the hell was the chef here? They could be making food for celebrities. They’d probably pay whatever price the chef listed for this deliciousness.
“Good huh?” Max asks me and I make a yum sound in response. I push the bowl toward him ushering him to take a bite. He hesitates for a moment then sees it as what it is, a temporary change in subject. He takes a small forkful and then acts as if he’s going to take my bowl and run.
“That’s mine!” I say teasingly as I reach for the bowl. He pushed is back to me and goes back to his steak, the saddest look on his face. I scoop a few forkfuls onto his plate and smile at him. “I can share. I still have all this steak left.”
His smile is warm again, no hint of the rage I saw there only a few moments ago. It’s a lot to talk about this kind of thing with someone you know. Let alone someone you’re trying to get to know. But it’s best that we start off whatever this is completely honest and open. “Thank you,” he says as he digs into the golden goodness.
“I finally had my breaking point the day you found me in that parking lot. He came after me with a knife and that was it. I knew if I didn’t get out he would kill me. I didn’t want to die. I don’t want to get into the amount of times he cheated on me, telling me he was going off with friends when in reality he was hooking up with chicks from a dating app. If he couldn’t find someone to go fuck, he would force himself on me,” I just let the words flow out of me as if I was talking to Ally or Gwyn, not someone who could potentially be something more to me than just a friend.
“He fucking did what?!” Max roars, the anger in his voice so red hot, the pounding of his hands on the table has me shrinking back into myself. I now regret being so honest. “Fuck! Megan, I’m sorry.” He moves from his side of the table to kneel next to me, forcing my chair back so he can place his hands on my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to do that. I lost my temper. Not at you. Never at you. He fucking hurt you in more ways than one and I want his fucking head on a silver platter right now. Please look at me,” he begs me to look at him but if I do the tears I’m not holding back will free fall down.
“I can’t,” I choke out, I don’t want to be afraid of those kinds of outbursts anymore. I don’t want to react like this when someone gets angry. The manager comes scurrying over to check on us and I panic. I can’t do this. I’ve done this enough at so many restaurants in the past.
“Is everything alright miss?” Oh, dear god this woman must think he’s going to hurt me. Fuck. I need to pull myself together. I look up at the older woman, her golden blonde hair neatly pulled into a high ponytail, her beige manicured nails, her minimalist makeup, she reminded me of my mother when she was younger. I took a deep breath.
“Everything is fine. He was just proposing to me, and I might have freaked out a little,” I plaster a soft smile on my face as she looked down at Max who is still kneeled on one knee before me.
“Oh! My apologies then! Pardon my intrusion,” She nods once and turns on her heels to head back to the lobby, saying something to our waitress. I looked down at Max still on his knee in front of me.
“I’m sorry, I kind of panicked,” I stumbled over my words feeling like they were rushing out of my mouth. I really should’ve come up with something better than a damn marriage proposal. Why am I so stupid?! Someone just strike me down where I stand.
He laughed, like a deep throaty genuine laugh. Well, that is not at all what I was expecting. “Baby girl if you want a ring on your finger, then so be it.” He stood up and walked back over to his seat, eyes light with humor.
“Umm, excuse me?” I choked out. Surprise and confusion etched into my brows. I could feel it. What the hell was that all about.
“You’re the one who just said I was proposing to you,” he smiled wickedly at me. Fuck. Me.
“You were on your knee; I just said the first thing that popped into my damn mind! What else should I have said, we were talking about my past and you lost your cool?” I bit my tongue immediately, looking down at my hands. Shut up Megan, don’t argue. Shut up!
“Well, you wouldn’t have been lying if you did. I lost my cool, thinking of him forcing himself on you isn’t something I would expect anyone not to be upset about. I do, however, like that you immediately jumped to me proposing to you. I should warn you though, my dad proposed to my mom here, the owner was only a waitress here at the time. Her parents owned the place back then, I can only imagine what she’s trying to put together for us now,” He leaned in and fucking winked at me.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know! I can tell her that I am breaking your heart and not saying yes if that will help,” I spew out. I can’t believe I just put him in that position.
He laughs, and fuck if that laugh alone doesn’t do something to me. “Hell no, we are running with this.” My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach.
“What do you mean, running with this?” I ask. He stops laughing, giving me the most serious of looks. I watch as his eyes glide over the low cut of my dress, moving to my lips as he licks his own, then finally landing on my eyes.
“You and I will give this a shot. You want a ring baby girl. Deal. You just have to earn it,” his voice was deep, commanding and sultry all at fucking once and I wanted to melt in my panties for this man.
“What if I say no?” I push back, I don’t want to say no, but I need to know what he will say to that. I need to know that I can challenge him.
“If you say no, I will court you like a normal lovestruck idiot until you give me a proper shot,” he replies so full of confidence. I need a fucking drink.
“Fine, one shot. Don’t fuck it up,” I look over at the waitress who has been intensely watching us since she dropped off our earlier drinks. She perks up and heads our way, I offer her a small smile as she reaches us. “I don’t mean to be a both, but can I get a rum and coke and a shot of jack please?” She looks at me as I order and smiles. Glancing over to Max who is now sitting back in his chair with a smug smile of victory on his face.
“Would you like another shot as well, sir?” She asks so politely; he nods at her without taking his eyes off of mine. She turns on her heels and heads over to the bar.
“I hope you’re ready for the time of your life,” he paused, smiling at me, “future Mrs. Carter.” He’s fucking teasing me. I roll my eyes, pulling another deep laugh out of him. My heart flutters at that laugh, he kind of reminded me of Matt. Mainly in the personality, maybe I could take the dare and see where this goes.
The waitress brought our shots and my drink out, placing them before us. I offered another smile and thanked her.
“Here’s to hopefully this being the best time of our lives,” I said as I raise my shot glass to him, “future Mr. Monroe.” I smirk. He laughs as he clinks his glass to mine.
“I see we’re going to have to work a few marriage details out soon huh?” He chuckles and finishes off his meal. I follow suite, downing my glasses and finishing off probably the best meal of my life. Tonight is going to be a great night. I’m making sure of that.