Chapter Eighteen #2
By the time we pull into the crowded parking lot that’s basically an open field, sweat makes my hands clammy. Gemma helped keep me distracted from facing the two people who I probably have no right to be nervous around, but now that we’re here, the nerves are back in full force.
And, once again, Bodhi knows it. His large palm comes down on my thigh and takes up a vast majority of it. “You’ll be fine,” he promises, shooting me a wink when I look over at him.
“Come on, Daddy!” Gemma urges, unbuckling herself from her seat. “Puck wants to go on the slide and then get candy apples!”
Amusement crosses Bodhi’s face as he glances over his shoulder at them in the back seat. “He does, does he?”
His daughter nods. “He told me so.”
Bodhi hums with a big smile on his face as he shuts the car off. “All right. Let’s find your grandparents before we run off and do anything else. Okay?”
As soon as I see him take her out of the car, adjust her jacket, and ruffle her hair, I find myself feeling…
a lot. Happy. Sad. Anxious. Excited. It’s easier to separate Bodhi Hoffman the dad from Bodhi Hoffman the hockey player.
It’s even easier to separate those two versions of him to the Bodhi Hoffman I met at the bar all those years ago.
They’re all so different, yet so him at the same time.
When he catches me staring, he extends his hand. I stare at it for a second in confusion before realizing what he wants.
“Do you…?” My hand twitches at my side, as I look between his palm and face. “Do you want to hold hands?”
Without verbally answering me, he steps up and threads our fingers together. His other hand is holding Gemma’s. “Don’t want you running away,” is the reason he gives me.
But we both know I’d have nowhere to go.
I don’t point that out, though.
And when we find Joe and Helen Doran, they both smile warmly as they see us walking toward them hand-in-hand like…
Like we’re a family.
*
Four hours at a pumpkin patch with a six-year-old turns out to be exhausting.
Thankfully, I don’t need my EpiPen during this trip.
I do, however, wish I wore pants with a little more stretch.
That part is thanks to the massive amounts of baked goods that Bodhi continued to purchase from various vendors.
It started with the pumpkin donuts and apple cider from the first booth, followed by the kettle corn that came in a bag almost the same size at Gemma.
Then he decided that the homemade sourdough booth looked too good to pass up.
And, I’ll admit, the cinnamon sugar swirl loaf does smell delicious.
“There’s no way you can eat all of this,” I tell him incredulously, glancing at the assortment of food stuffed into the bottom of the stroller that Gemma hasn’t used once. Do six-year-olds even use strollers? “Not before it goes bad or you get a serious tummy ache.”
Bodhi chuckles, popping another handful of kettle corn into his mouth. “A tummy ache, huh?”
As much as I love sugar, too much of it makes me sick. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen what you can eat.” And boy, can this man eat. I’m almost jealous. If I so much as breathe next to a slice of pizza my butt grows an inch. “But this is…excessive.”
“I’ll send some of it back with Joe and Helen,” he tells me, watching as they entertain Gemma by the large slide set up on a stack of haybales. “Are you having fun?”
Fall is one of my favorite times of year. The weather is nicer, which means less boob sweat and leg chafing. I can layer up in jeans and sweatshirts without boiling alive. And there’s nothing quite like the ambiance of yellows, oranges, and reds littering the trees. It’s a beautiful season.
“I am,” I tell him, smiling as I watch Gemma slide down to her grandpa and then giggle as he chases her back to the ladder that leads up to the top so she can do it again.
“One of the things I missed about living in New York was the fall colors. Chicago had them too, obviously, but it felt…different.”
It’s hard to explain to him. I’m not sure I even understand it myself. But New York, despite how excited I was to get away from it, was always home to me. It was a place I missed. A place I enjoyed visiting when I lived in Illinois with Max. I thought being back would be a hard blow, but it’s not.
“I like Chicago,” Bodhi tells me, no longer watching his daughter, but me. His eyes scan my face. “It’s hard to believe we were there at the same time during the season. Do you think we ever crossed paths?”
My mouth goes dry, and it’s hard to swallow.
He shakes his head. “I would have remembered you,” he says, more to himself than to me.
It’s a punch to the gut.
Because we did cross paths.
We did more than that.
We sat at a table in a crowded bar and talked for hours.
He asked me questions. He vented. He flirted.
“Hard to believe an attractive girl like you is here alone,” were his exact words.
They were slurred, but bold as his eyes roamed over the top half of me that he could see over the tabletop.
To which my reply was, “I’m not here alone. ”
I’d felt guilty for not turning down his compliments, and for flirting back. It’d been innocent enough, but I was married. I shouldn’t have spent so much time with a man who wasn’t my husband. As soon as he locked in on me, I should have told him I was married, hailed a cab, and went home.
But I didn’t.
I would have remembered you.
Inevitably not.
Wetting my lips, I say, “Bodhi, I think I should tell you something. I—”
“Daddy!” Gemma bellows, running at full speed to her father and giving him barely enough time to catch her when she lunges for his arms. “I hate boys. They won’t let me play with them and their toys in the corn pit.”
Bodhi’s arms cradle the little girl with a caring, protective expression on his face. “Do you want me to talk to them? I’m sure we can get them to share their toys.”
She buries her face in the crook of his neck but shakes her head.
He rubs her back and looks at me apologetically. “I think she’s ready to go home.”
Joe and Helen join us, looking sympathetically at their granddaughter.
“She’s getting tired,” Helen agrees, brushing hair away from Gemma’s face.
After we make our way to our vehicle, Helen turns to me and sticks her hand out.
“It was lovely to meet you, Honor. I’m sure we’ll see you around.
I’d love to hear more about your photography.
I have family looking to hire someone for a wedding next year. ”
Surprise has me blinking. “Oh.” For a moment, I don’t know what to say.
Helen asked me how I liked working for the team, and we started talking about art.
Apparently, she’s an avid collector of paintings.
While it’s a different medium than what I do, it’s nice speaking about something I don’t often talk about.
“I’d love to talk more about it next time. ”
I don’t know when next time is, or if they’ll even be one. They seem to be sure that there will be, but they’re probably except to see me at games.
I take her hand with a smile that’s much less anxious than when I first shook her hand. “It was great meeting you too. Thank you for letting me tagalong with you guys.”
Helen and Joe share an amused look.
It’s Joe who says, “Anytime.”
They say their goodbyes to Gemma, who looks seconds away from falling asleep. I feel her. This is the first day I’ve been out and about since getting sick, and the fatigue is still lingering.
When we’re on our way home, Gemma talks about what shape she’s going to carve into her pumpkin. Apparently, last year was a cat. This year, she wants to carve out a dog. She falls asleep petting Puck, her hand resting on his side as we drive down the interstate.
“Still glad you came?” Bodhi asks.
I nod even though my stomach still feels heavy from the truth I haven’t admitted to him. “I can see why parents are so tired all the time. She has a lot of energy.”
He chuckles. “She does. She’s usually a little more laid back when we’re at home, but this is her favorite time of year.”
My smile comes easily. “Mine too.”
He looks at me briefly before dipping his head once, as if he’s letting that soak in. His eyes go back to the road. “You do realize you’ll have to come carve pumpkins with us now. Gemma won’t allow us to do hers unless everyone is there who picked out a pumpkin.”
The one I chose is small and cute compared to the ones everybody else picked. I’m not sure there’s even enough room to carve anything cool out of it. “I’ll have to figure out when I’m free in my busy schedule,” I joke.
He grins. “You should know that Gemma will pretty much tell you what to carve. I haven’t been able to make a choice on what my pumpkin looks like in the past two years. She also chooses which candles go inside, which are always hot pink. Not exactly scary.”
I laugh lightly. “Sounds like her, though.”
“She has fun with it,” he agrees. “So, what do you say? Will you come over and do pumpkins with us? I make pumpkin snickerdoodles after we’re done, and let Gem have way too much candy, so it should be fun.”
“Is now a bad time to tell you I’m not a fan of pumpkin flavored anything? I know, I know. I fail at being a stereotypical millennial girl who loves pumpkin flavored coffee. I also never owned a pair of Uggs or danced to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” at any middle school dance.”
Mostly because I didn’t attend any dances, but I doubt I’d be coordinated enough to follow along anyway.
Bodhi’s tongue clucks as his smile spreads. It meets his eyes, making them glimmer. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I hum. “I really should be.”
“You never answered me,” he points out after a minute of silence. “I’d love to have you. I won’t make you eat the pumpkin snickerdoodles. I can make a regular batch just for you. No pumpkin added.”
“That seems a little excessive,” I reply easily.
“I like baking,” he reminds me. “I may even start my sourdough journey. My dad jokes are getting better, so naming the loaves something punny should be easy.”
I roll my eyes. “You would.”
He waits expectantly, making me realize I still haven’t given him an answer. “I’ll come carve pumpkins. No cookies necessary. Although, I do like that you think food is an easy bribe to get me to do what you want.”
“Isn’t food the way to everybody’s heart?” he counters skeptically.
“Is it the key to yours?”
The thoughtful noise he makes is long and drawn out. “Food, hockey, pretty ladies. I suppose I’m not picky.”
“So if a pretty lady showed up to your house in full hockey gear holding a tray of cookies, you’d propose marriage right then and there?” I ask sarcastically.
His eyes meet mine for only a brief moment, but there’s a flash of something in them I can’t quite read. “If that’s your way of volunteering, I may have to start ring shopping.”
Oh my God.
My heart gallops at the thought.
“Unfortunately for you,” I tell him, looking out the window and ignoring the burst in my chest, “I don’t know how to bake cookies without burning them and I don’t own any hockey gear.”
That doesn’t seem to bother him. “If they come from you, I’d eat them anyway.”