Chapter Three #2
They shared lunch. The Silver Spur Café had set up a booth. And in honor of the Dinosaur Center, the booth offered brontosaurus burgers. Kenzie and Finn each ordered one of those, with fries and icy, delicious stegosaurus shakes.
They joined Oscar and his dad, Jesse, at one of the picnic tables. Kenzie introduced Finn to Jesse. A few minutes later, Barrett and his fiancée, Nina Sanchez, joined them. Kenzie spotted her friend Lauren Dalton with her twin four-year-old daughters and waved them over.
Lauren and her girls joined the rest of them for a little while. But the cute redheaded twins didn’t care much for sitting quietly while the grown-ups talked.
“We’ll be back,” Lauren promised as she herded them off to get dino dirt cups, which were made with pudding, crushed cookies and candy “dinosaur” eggs. They returned a few minutes later and sat down again.
Kids from the team kept dropping by to talk to “Coach.” Finn was good with them, Kenzie thought. He listened when they spoke. His replies were thoughtful and kind…or lighthearted and sometimes funny, depending on the subject.
It would be so easy to imagine Finn as a dad. But Kenzie shook off that thought. Partly because it hurt to imagine the dad he might have been if their baby had survived. And also, well, it was one thing to like kids and know how to interact with them, but quite another to raise them.
And then she almost laughed…at herself. She was hardly an expert on parenting.
How could she judge Finn’s fitness for fatherhood?
Yeah, she had experience with children of all ages.
For a couple of years she’d worked in a pediatrician’s office there in town, helping to treat kids from birth to age twenty-one.
When the pediatrician closed her office and moved her practice to Billings, Kenzie had hired on at the high school.
Now, she interacted with teenagers every day.
But that didn’t necessarily mean she would be a great mother when her own baby came. Time would tell about that. What she did know was that her little girl would grow up safe and secure in her mother’s love.
And as for Finn’s potential as a dad, who cared?
It wasn’t as if she was hoping to marry the guy or anything. That ship had sailed fifteen years ago.
Finn laughed at something Jesse Abernathy had said and then swiped a french fry off her plate.
She elbowed him in the ribs. “Hey. Get your own.”
He put on what she used to call his puppy-dog face, all sad and needy. “I had my own but then I ate them all.”
“And in what way is this my problem?”
“Share, Kenzie.”
She snort-laughed at his pouty face. “You’re just looking for trouble.”
“I cannot deny it.” He leaned closer. “And at least you’re smiling now. You looked way too serious there for a minute. What were you thinking about, anyway?”
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I’ll never tell.”
Across the table, her friend Lauren was watching them. Kenzie met Lauren’s eyes and mouthed, What?
Lauren replied with an easy shrug and a soundless Later.
* * *
For Finn, the day turned out to be just about perfect—once he got through the speech and the schmoozing. He had a great time hanging out with Kenzie, eating bur-gers and joking around with friends.
He’d turned off his phone when he left his house and he didn’t turn it on again all afternoon. So what if he lost a sale? He had Kenzie at his side and they were just hanging out, being together. The hours sped by much too fast.
They didn’t climb back in his pickup until seven that night. Halfway to her house, his stomach growled.
She heard it, too. “What? A brontosaurus burger, fries and a stegosaurus shake not enough for you?” she teased.
“Hey, that was lunch. We haven’t had dinner. You hungry?”
“Well, I…” She hesitated. He knew she was thinking that she should ask to be taken home. But the look on her face told him she didn’t want the day to end any more than he did.
“How about Mexican?” he offered.
She gave it up. “I could eat a chicken taco or two from Castillo’s—I mean, if you’re going to twist my arm.”
“Consider it twisted.” He turned onto Central Avenue and parked in the lot behind the popular restaurant. “Eat in or takeout?”
She met his eyes across the console. “Takeout at my place?”
“Done.”
They went in together. Castillo’s was packed. They put in their order and stood around by the door until the food was ready, exchanging greetings with friends and neighbors as they came in and went out.
More than one acquaintance stopped to tell him how excited they were for the Titans this year and how much they’d loved seeing him up there on the amphitheater stage at the Dinosaur Center that afternoon.
Kenzie leaned close and whispered, “You’re the man of the hour, for sure.”
He chuckled, then leaned close and confessed, “We both know I’m a hopeless extrovert, but at this point, even I’m getting a little tired of all the attention.”
She unleashed a full-out laugh at that, her head tilting back. “Get used to it. It’s not going to stop.” He wanted to grab her close and kiss her right there in front of half the town.
But, no. She’d made it way clear that they were just friends. If he tried to get too close too fast, he would lose what ground he’d gained with her. The ideal would be for her to make the first move.
But was that ever going to happen?
Well, if it didn’t, he might be tempted to cross the friends-only line and make the move himself. That would be dangerous. The chances were too high that she’d gent-ly inform him—again—of how she only wanted his friendship and maybe it would be better if they cooled it for a while.
No.
Uh-uh.
He wasn’t ready to take the chance of blowing it completely.
Not tonight, anyway. Tonight, they were just good buddies sharing take-out tacos at her place…and maybe honesty, too.
If she didn’t want anything romantic with him, at least she might welcome the truth from him.
After all, friends should be straightforward with each other—especially involved friends, the kind who had history.
If he couldn’t have her in his arms, he would really like to be able to talk frankly about the past.
At her house, she led him through the living area to the kitchen. They ate at the big oak table in there. He devoured a couple of excellent tacos and chugged half of his Topo Chico Sabores orange soda before he felt ready to bring up the past.
And by then, she was on to him. “Okay.” She set down the remaining half of her second taco. “Just tell me. What’s on your mind?” She grabbed a paper napkin and wiped the taco sauce from her fingers.
Now that the moment was actually upon him, he didn’t know where to start. “Well, I, uh…”
She sipped her red hibiscus soda. He watched her smooth throat move as she swallowed…and still had no clue how to continue.
When he remained quiet, she set down the old-fashioned soda bottle. “This can’t be good.”
“What do you mean?”
“You look… I don’t know, stricken, maybe? And you are never at a loss for words.”
He glared at her. Because right then, it seemed easier to get pissed off than to admit how damn nervous he was. “What is that?” he grumbled, pointing at her mouth. “You’re grinning. I can’t find the words and you think it’s funny.”
“Well, Finn, that’s because it kind of is.”
“Right. Twist the knife, why don’t you?”
She frowned and leaned closer across the oak table. “Are you actually angry at me right now?” Her voice had turned cautious.
He blew out a hard breath. “Oh, hell, no. I just don’t know where to start and I feel like a complete fool, so I’m being a jerk about it.”
There was a silence. Finally, she nodded. “Ah.”
“Ah, what?” he asked, and instantly regretted how impatient he sounded.
“Ah, I get it. And it’s okay. Take your time. I’m listening.”
He almost reached for her hand but thought better of it. This was a confession, not an excuse to cozy up to her. He coughed to clear the tightness from his throat and went for it. “Breaking up with you was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”
She sat back in her chair—probably to get some distance between them. Her expression gave him nothing. “The way I remember it,” she said in a painfully reasonable tone, “that day you dumped me you said right to my face that you didn’t love me anymore.”
He hesitated. Suddenly it seemed like a really bad idea to go digging through the ruins of the past. But he’d started this conversation. The least he could do now was give her the unvarnished truth. “Yeah. Well, when I said I didn’t love you…”
“What about it?”
“I lied.”
“Why?” The single word came out of her mouth on the faintest husk of sound.
“Because I didn’t know what to do.” He pushed away his empty plate, rested his forearms on the table and folded his hands together.
“I thought a new start for both of us would be the best thing. But I couldn’t tell you I still loved you and then say I was leaving you anyway.
I knew if I said I loved you that you would say it back. And then I wouldn’t be able to go.”
Her gaze was steady now, holding his. “Your dad,” she said flatly. Those two words said it all, but she elaborated, anyway. “He was riding you, pushing you, wasn’t he?”
“Kenzie, I—”
She put up a hand. “Never mind. We both know that he was. And I still have more to say.”
“Go on, then.”
They stared at each other some more. Finally, she continued, “Your dad had all those big dreams for you and he’d made no secret of how deeply he resented me for all the ways I was holding you back, keeping you from moving on and living up to your ‘true potential.’” She air-quoted the two words.
“He just knew I was going to tie you down. And he must have been so relieved, must have seen my losing the baby as a way to finally get you to leave me behind.”
Reluctantly, he gave her the truth. “Yes. All of that is true.”
Her eyes were so sad right then. “But still. It wasn’t your dad who made the final decision.”
“You’re right, Kenz. I did. I wanted my big dream as much as my father did.”
“And yet you felt guilty about that, didn’t you?”