“Well, he’s good friends with Stewart.”
Is she that naïve? “Make no mistake, he came here because of you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Trust me. He’s using this as an opportunity to reconnect. He missed your beautiful face.” Just like I will.
“Well, that’s too bad for him, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “Anyway, I’d better go help them.”
My eyes remained glued to her as she walked away, but I stayed on the swing with Theo. I had only a limited view of the garage from here.
At one point, as Felicity walked from the garage to the house, Matt stopped her. They talked for a while. I was certain he was happy to have cornered her.
She kept looking down at her feet. He definitely had an effect on her.
I turned to Theo and muttered, “If you weren’t cockblocking me, I could have rescued her from this, you know.”
He laughed and began to move the swing faster.
Hanging on to the edge, I warned, “I don’t think these swings were meant to go this fast, mate.”
He laughed harder.
All in all, I spent nearly an hour on that swing with Theo before he randomly bolted toward the house. I chased after him to make sure he got safely inside.
When I returned to the garage, I locked eyes with Felicity, who seemed less anxious than before as she chatted with Bailey and gathered trash into garbage bags.
I went back to my task of putting up the framework. From time to time, Matt would bring me the appropriate-sized pieces of wood, and I’d pretend to be cordial while sizing him up.
After our work was done for the day, Felicity and I packed into my rented truck while the other three took off in Stewart’s Jeep.
As we headed down the road, I turned to her. “I think we got a lot done for the first day, yeah?”
“Way more than I thought.”
“What did Matt want when he stopped you earlier?” I asked. “I watched you talk to him while I was swinging with Theo.”
“He asked me what I was up to, and he said we should get together when I move to Pennsylvania, but I brushed it off. I’m not going to do that.”
I knew it. “Nor should you, if he’s hurt you in the past,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. He’d only been back into her life for a matter of minutes and had tried to make a play for her. “How long is he here for?”
“Not sure. He’s on vacation in Narragansett, visiting his family. He has to return to Pennsylvania for work, I assume.” She turned to me. “He also asked if you and I were together.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him we were seeing where things go.”
“That’s the truth, I suppose.” I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “Anyway, I’m sorry he showed up if it dampened your spirits today at all.” Glancing over at her again, I paused. “The fact that you were so affected made me wonder if you still have feelings for him?”
She shook her head as she twirled her silver ring around her finger. “The only thing that bummed me out about seeing him was that it reminded me of how things ended—of the fact that almost all relationships end. I’m not into anyone right now but you, Leo, if that’s what you’re wondering. And that really sucks for me.”
Some of the tension that had been building inside my body all day began to lift. “I guess we’re one fucked-up team, then. Because all I could think about was how lucky he is to get to live where you’ll be. And the way he was looking at you made me a bit uneasy, even though I don’t have a right to be.”
Felicity remained quiet for several seconds as she looked out the window. “Matt was my first…everything. I gave way too much of myself to him at a very young age. It’s why when the other relationship I had in college ended, it almost didn’t faze me. I’d already been there and done that with Matt and had lost some capacity to be hurt by then.”
“Do you really lose the capacity, or do you just block it out?”
“I’m definitely a good blocker of emotions. It’s a practiced talent.” She flashed a sad smile. “Have you ever had your heart broken?”
I shook my head. “I’ve only had one serious girlfriend...in secondary school. I ended up cheating on her. I was too young for a relationship at the time. I wouldn’t stay with someone today if I were going to do that. But back then, I was just a stupid teenager.”
“And beyond her you haven’t had a girlfriend?”
“I’ve dated a lot, but nothing serious, no.”
“You’re a playboy. Am I right?”
“I was. But it’s not a bad thing if you’re not leading anyone on, right?”
“You said you were…in the past tense. You don’t consider yourself a player anymore?”
“Since arriving here I’m not living the playboy lifestyle, nor do I care to at the moment.”
“You seem to care so much about what your parents think. They don’t care that you play the field back home?”
“There’s an unspoken rule where I come from that anything you do before marriage, while it shouldn’t be spoken of in great detail, is fair game. But the closer I get to thirty, the more pressure there is to settle down.”
“Why thirty, specifically?”
“It’s always been a magic number in my family. Every man has gotten married by the time he was thirty. My father seems to expect the same from me.”
“Thirty is still so young.”
“The thing is, I don’t believe I’ve told you this, but my father has been battling cancer for several years. He doesn’t think he has all that much time left. I sometimes feel this pressure to get settled in case something happens to him, so that he’ll die in peace, knowing things will continue as they should.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know.” She paused. “Why does he care so much whether you’re married as long as you can continue to do his work for him?”
“It has to do with continuing the family name. He wants to be assured that I will, in fact, marry and have a male child someday. It seems to be all he cares about. My father’s entire side of the family is adamant that there’s no use for me if I don’t procreate. Not to mention, one of my father’s sisters and her kids are very bitter that the family inheritance will go to me and not them. It’s just the way it’s written, not my choice. So they try to make my life miserable when they can.”
“Like how?”
“One of my cousins is a real pill. She tipped off the press once when I was on vacation, and they printed photos of me tanning naked.”
“Ugh.” She cringed. “That’s not Sig’s family, is it?”
“No. Sigmund is my cousin on my mother’s side. A much nicer, but crazier, bunch.”
“I’m sorry you’ve got to deal with that.”
“There are worse lives to live. I know I’m privileged. I don’t have a right to complain.”
“No, but it’s your personal struggle. Even if it doesn’t compare to what many people have to go through in this world, you have a right to be angry or frustrated, especially when it comes to your family betraying your trust.”