I laugh. “Did you steal that from the restaurant?”
“No,” he scoffs good-naturedly. “If there’s any left when I’m done, I’ll return it.”
“Uh huh. Sure you will.” Damn, I love the teasing rhythm that we so easily fall into when we’re together. I pull my coffee from the tray and take a sip. “Thanks,” I practically moan. “This is exactly what I needed.”
“No problem.” He looks around with interest and before he takes another bite, he asks, “You come here often?”
Holding back a burst of laughter, I adopt a breathy tone. “No, it’s my first time.”
He stops chewing and his head jerks around, showing me his slightly confused, slightly taken aback visage. The laughter finally bubbles from my lips as I watch understanding come over him. “All right,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “I walked right into that one.”
“You did. Does that line usually work for you, Scott? I had no idea you had so much game.”
“Ha, ha, Opal. But you didn’t actually answer my question.”
I shrug, still chuckling. “I come here when I’m feeling blah, but you’ve come bearing some of my favorite things and some stellar pick-up lines, so I’ve upgraded my mood from blah to eh.”
He gives me an exasperated expression. “Glad I could be of service.”
From there on, it only gets better. We chat, we tease, and it’s so effortless, the absolute high point of my week, hands down. It’s not until the sun is going down an hour later that the mood between us shifts.
“Are we going to talk about last week?” I ask, wishing I could be satisfied with easy and superficial when I’m with him. But something I don’t want to examine pushes me to ask for more.
Throwing me a wary glance, he asks, “What about it?”
“You got home okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
I nod. “And should I be concerned that you’re on a first name basis with men who are . . .” I search my mind for the right adjective.
“Who are dangerous?” he finishes.
“Yes, that.”
“I don’t hang out with them if that’s what you’re asking,” he says defensively.
“I’m not judging you, Scott. I was only curious. I’m the last person who would want to be judged by the people I know.”
Geez, he’s touchy.
His shoulders relax by a degree or two . . . and draw my attention. He’s so broad and lean and I have the insane urge to strip him bare and get a good look at those tense shoulders and maybe let my fingers trace along their slope to the soft hair at his nape. Do friends ever get to see each other naked? And didn’t I just set myself some boundaries?
It dawns on me that neither of us has said anything for too long. My eyes jerk to his in alarm, but I don’t find them mocking me. I find them zeroed in on my lips. Unconsciously, I wet them and then in panic, I blurt, “How’s your mom?”
And he’s back to tense, but at least he’s not staring at my mouth anymore. “She’s fine,” he grits out. He must realize how hard his tone was, because his voice softens with his next words. “I mean, I guess she’s fine. She’s still going to work, so that’s something.”
“Have you . . .” I really hope I’m not overstepping here, “Have you tried to get her some help?”
He sighs. “Yeah, of course I have, but I can’t make her go to the meetings.”
I hum my agreement.
“Do you go to meetings?” he asks as if it’s just occurred to him.
I shake my head. “No, my problem isn’t exactly with alcohol.” At least not after the initial detoxing, I think to myself wryly. “My problem is more about the shitty decisions I make while under its influence. The alcohol itself, I could take or leave.”
The skepticism on his face has me plowing forward, “As long as I keep myself away from situations where people are drinking, I’m fine. It’s the fun and the socializing that I miss.”
He looks out over the water, seeming to digest the efficacy of my explanation.
“If you want,” I tell him with a fragile smile when he turns back to me. “You can tell your mom the best advice I’ve ever gotten on the subject.”
His eyebrows lift in question.
“My dad once told me that one behaviour has to be replaced with another, that if you try to cut a section of your life away without filling the void with something constructive, you’ll fail. And so far, that’s been working for me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, since I was forced to give up my friends, I’ve tried to stay busy. I’ve been running almost every day, and I work as many shifts as I can fit into my schedule, and,” I give him a self-deprecating grin, “my grades at school have never been better.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
The smile slips from my face. “Easy?” Of all the adjectives I’d use to describe the last ten months of my life, easy is not one of them – not even close. Painful, lonely, demanding, anxiety-ridden. Fuck easy.
“Your dad sounds like a pretty smart guy,” he muses, not noticing my discontent.
My ire retreats slightly at his faraway look. “Yeah, my dad’s great.” I want to forget the whole easy comment and the bitter taste it’s left in my mouth, so I push the conversation further forward into new territory. “How about your dad?”
His sudden, bitter laugh catches me off guard. “My dad? I don’t have one. Well, I’m sure I have a sperm donor somewhere, but I don’t know anything about him.”
I blink up into the anger on his face. “Oh.” I try to process that in the context of my life and fail. Without my dad, I’d probably be living in a ditch somewhere. “I’m sorry.” It comes out almost as a question.
“Don’t be. My grandmother’s always said it’s for the best. If he’d been around, he might have made me into a different kind of man.” Our eyes meet and I can clearly see he’s not as convinced as he’s letting on. “Not that I’m a saint or anything, but what kind of a guy sticks his dick into an eighteen year old girl without a condom and then disappears.” He shakes his head with disgust. “All my mom knew about him was his name, the one she gave to me.”
After a moment of hesitation, I push his shoulder playfully, hoping to lighten his quickly darkening mood. “That explains the big mystery. Your mom is straight-up Latina, and you . . . are not.”
“You think?” he huffs. “My whole life, I’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. I’ve always been too tall, too blond, too white.”
My brows quirk. “I . . . yeah, okay, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that sentence before.”
“Do I sound like a whiny bitch, or what?” he says with irony. “I guess, I just wish I could have blended in with my family and friends a bit more when I was growing up.”
“And now? Have you finally out-grown your awkward phase?”
“Opal, are you mocking my childhood trauma?”
“Possibly. But I seem to recall very little empathy for my poor little Catholic school girl routine. Anyway, you should be looking at it like you’re getting the best of both worlds. Not something to be crying over.”