Chapter 10 #2
My heartbeat quickens, and I find myself leaning forward too.
“All this attention isn’t just about you, is it?” When I shake my head, she continues. “It’s because you’re here with me?”
I nod. “I … haven’t been on a date in a good long while.”
“Since you moved here?” she guesses.
“It’s honestly been more like … years. And the few first dates I had didn’t go anywhere. DDOAs—date dead on arrival.”
I wonder if she hears the unspoken words, the ones I’m keeping close to the vest still, the hope that already, I think this might be more.
Her hands are gentle on mine, and it feels as though all of my body’s focus has narrowed onto that point of contact.
My blood is pumping in that direction and an electrical charge zips along my skin toward the place where her fingertips are lightly stroking the backs of my hands.
Such a simple touch, and yet sleeping sensations are stretching to life inside me. I’m a little afraid that even this is too much.
I’m both disappointed and grateful when Rose gently releases my hands and leans back in the booth.
“Same. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know if it was because I wasn’t ready or if dating again felt too awkward or …
” she pauses now and takes a sip of water while I wait, my breath held tightly in my chest. “Or if maybe I just hadn’t met the right man. ”
I watch a pink flush spread over Rose’s cheeks as she smiles shyly. And then, just as I’m trying to find something to say, she adds, “Until now.”
We end up closing down the diner, talking about everything and nothing and somehow still leaving so many subjects untouched.
Every answered question sparks a new curiosity.
By the time we’re ready to go, there are no other patrons.
Which is a good thing, as I think they were hoping to watch us finish up and then follow us out.
I think Big Mo sensed this too, as he and Nan started ushering everyone but us out the door.
“Take your time,” Big Mo says when he drops off the check and our to-go boxes.
Rose, having her back to the rest of the diner, cranes her neck to glance around. “Oh! We’re the only ones left! We should go. I feel bad.”
“No worries,” I tell her. “I think they were trying to help us out. But it might be a good idea to leave through the back door.”
“People are really that nosy?”
“Haven’t you noticed the way Sheeters thrive on being involved in everyone else’s business?” I ask.
But when she bites her lip, I feel bad for asking. “I haven’t really had time to settle in, you know? I’ve just been so busy trying to get the bakery in order.”
I’m surprised by the twinge of regret in her voice and something else I can’t quite pinpoint—shame? longing? anxiety? It makes me want to reach across and take her hands the way she did mine earlier. But hers are in her lap. And maybe I’m not feeling quite so bold. Yet.
I do make a mental note to circle back to this later. And maybe to ask Winnie if she can help Rose get more connected with the women in town. Or make sure she’s got a Neighborly account.
“I’ve got this,” I tell her, placing enough cash for our food and a healthy tip on top of the check.
“Thank you, Theo,” she says, and something in me lights up at hearing her call me by that name. Though she asked about it before, she’s still mostly been calling me Tank. I’m not particular and will take either one, but I like when she calls me Theo. It feels … special.
“Are we really going out the back?” she asks with a giggle as I start down the back hallway toward the rear exit.
“Yup. I figure this will buy us … about three minutes of time in case anyone is waiting out front.” I grin, holding open the door.
As Rose brushes by me, I catch the scent of sugar and something a little more subtle, a spicy note to balance out the sweet.
It takes a whole lot of willpower not to lean closer and breathe her in.
Patience, Tank, I remind myself. The last thing I want to do is rush. Even if every impulse is warring with this wisdom.
It’s almost like once I allowed myself to really consider Rose in a more than friendly way, that tiny crack damaged the infrastructure of whatever mental and emotional dam I’ve built over the years. The tiny crack fissured into a gaping hole, releasing a deluge.
Waiting has never been my strong suit.
Pat may have the family reputation for impulsivity, but he didn’t get that from his mother. Nope, that quality came straight from the man who bought a small Texas town. And, more recently, a dilapidated shack that’s going to cost as much to renovate as it did to purchase outright.
I think because, over the years, I learned to move with more caution, most people don’t see me like they do Pat. While some of my self-control came with maturity, as I’m sure it will for him, much of it came when I lost Michelle.
Fear crept into my head, an invasive and noxious gas, permeating every corner of my life. If I could lose her, everything else was on the line. My finances. My home. My family.
I’m not sure even James remembers how—or who—I was before she died.
Or the dynamic between his mother and me, where I was always pushing boundaries and she was wisely drawing them back in.
Not to say that Michelle dampened my spirit or something, but more that she added a healthy sense of look-before-you-leap.
Then, she died, and I became almost too structured, too careful.
Only in recent years have I started to loosen up, little by little.
Buying Sheet Cake was actually a step toward reclaiming a substantial part of myself I felt like I’d lost.
When I told Pat, the first and obvious choice because of his own nature, his doubts about this decision echoed my own. The ones I fought against when deciding that yes, I did want to purchase an entire town and take on such a huge unknown project.
I’m sure all my kids thought I’d lost it.
Except Harper, who said something about me needing something to focus on now that they were all grown and moving on with their own lives.
That’s also true, but the main reason for me was recognizing that I no longer wanted to live in the clutches of fearing loss. I needed to reclaim risk.
Rose, somehow, feels like an even bigger risk. And while that’s not a bad thing, I’m no longer certain of how to maintain balance.
Surely, balance could include holding hands?
With my heart trying to beat its way right out of my body, I reach for Rose as we start to make our way out of the back alley and onto Main Street.
And though in almost immediate hindsight an alley isn’t the ideal place for holding a woman’s hand for the first time since Michelle, as Rose gives me a shy smile and lets me link our fingers, I have zero regrets.