I should’ve pretended not to notice her, knowing goddamn well how easily I could fall in love with that girl. Maybe I already have.
Now there’s a dangerous thought, considering my track record of being loved right back. Loved in the truest sense—not just adored, but also respected, admired, understood. Faithful to.
Not just for the good.
Forever.
Three
Gemma
“Okay, your turn, Shane. Two truths, one lie.”
“Let’s see…” Shane begins, taking a short swig of his IPA. “I lived in Thailand for a year. I majored in Art History in college. And… I brew my own hops out of my garage.”
“You lived in Thailand for a year,” I pick.
“That’s actually true.”
“Dangit!” I sip my own drink, the restaurant’s house pinot noir, thinking. “You brew your own beer?”
“No. That’s a lie,” he says proudly. “Always wanted to learn how to, though.”
I swirl the wine in my glass. This guy is hands-down the most interesting man I’ve been out with in a long, long time. Okay, so he’s the only man I’ve been out with. I hadn’t missed dating, maybe because it was never this easy. Never this fun. Talking, laughing, sipping, taking nibbles of the cheesy, gooey appetizer sitting between us. He doesn’t even send me judgy looks when I scoop up too much of it.
“What were you doing in Thailand?” I ask.
“Construction work. A whole team of us were there helping rebuild after a particularly bad monsoon season flooded several coastal villages. They needed schools, hospitals, grocery stores, the works.”
I thank the stars I have a mouth full of cheese, because I’m speechless. He did all of that? What a noble, good guy.
“Your turn, Gemma.”
“Okay…” I swallow, “hmm…”
“You should know I’m determined to get it right this time,” says Shane.
“You are? Why?”
“Because, I’m interested. I want to know everything about you.”
“That’s going to take some time.”
He guzzles his beer again, sets it down. “I have time.” The way he looks at me as he says it has my whole body buzzing just to get closer to him.
“Two truths and a lie…” I take a pause to wipe my hands off on the napkin in my lap. A pause to think. “Okay—I can speak three languages, I can hold my breath underwater for a full minute, and…” I list, wrapping an unruly curl around my finger, “this is not my natural hair color.”
“Which three languages?”
“French, German and—” I stop mid-sentence as Shane smirks triumphantly. “Hey! That’s cheating!”
He chuckles. “Natural or not, your hair color is beautiful,” he says, still grinning. “But I’m guessing it is. You can’t hold your breath for a full minute.”
“No.” I laugh. “That would mean certain death for me.”
“Well don’t die yet, baby. I like you too much.” He what? His words are punctuated by the server, coming over to set down our dinner plates. My belly warms as I look at and smell both glorious entrees.
“Can I get you anything else?” the server says.
“No,” I beam, “this looks amazing!”
“Roger that,” answers Shane.
We dig in. You know the food is supremely yummy when, for the first time since he picked me up, absolute quiet folds in between us.
It was a riot. The babysitter, Jenny, arrived as I was getting ready to leave. My nerves were climbing higher than before any job interview. Was I really about to go on a date? Shane appeared at the door not long afterward. My daughter Aris, spying at him through the window blinds, threw me a scandalized look. ‘Is that…’ she’d started. ‘How did you even…’ I kissed her cheek and flew out the door, saying, ‘Behave for Jenny. No TV after eight o’clock. In bed by nine!’
All my tension drifted away as we got in his truck. Shane’s smile, his soulful eyes and his warm, yet cinder drawn voice, put me at ease right from the start.
Halfway through our meals, I pipe up again. “So, I’m guessing there’s more to your job than washing cars in front of the humane society?”
“You could say so. In fact, that was really a one-time thing, an exception because they’d gotten such an influx of new animals. Our team had recovered them from…well, I won’t get into all that now…but they’d been properly rehabilitated and were ready for forever homes,” he explains. “We had to get the chief’s approval to do the fundraiser.”
I swallow dryly, and reach for my wine. Now I really feel sorry for not donating. I have a job now. Guess it’s time I make good on my promise to give something back.
As guilty as I feel, I must have done something right, at some point in my life, to be dining at this establishment now, across from Shane. I can tell he likes me…I see how he looks at me, I hear what he says. ‘I want to know everything about you.’
But doubt, that relentless ugly creature, still gnaws at my chest.
He’s perfectly nice, and handsome of course. I’m just hesitant to fall too deep, too hard. Fast. I’m a single mom doing custodial work and he’s…him. SWAT guy, karate instructor, charming and insanely attractive.
What could he really want with me?
I’ve been wrong about people before. My ex, Aris’s dad, was interested in me once upon a time, too. And the recruiter…oh, how I thought she’d liked me, at first. I recall how it went after the polite introductions. Abysmally. Turns out I’m underqualified for just about everything; inexperienced; undereducated. Her words, not my own.
Sigh.
“And your job?” Shane prompts.
“It isn’t what I pictured myself doing.” Honestly though, I don’t hate it. At the end of the day it’s gratifying work. Good benefits, flexible schedule. It’s everything I need to pay the bills and be home in time to cook dinner for me and Aris. “The people are nice,” I add. Still, a part of me, the hopeful part, was dreaming of…more.
But what?
Why?
For whom?
“Wait…You majored in Art History?” I ask Shane. Deftly escaping any further career-talk.
“Sure did.” His full lips quirk up in a cheerful grin. “Graduated with honors too.”
“Why Art History?”
“Eh…I tell people it’s because the underlying narratives speak to all of us, there is sociological significance to every piece that can help us decode, and even address, our modern-day struggles. Even the rhetoric used to analyze the art carries real weight, real power.”
For a second I just stare at him. He stares back, unblinking. When I crack a smile, Shane cracks up.
“And the truth?” I ask, still giggling.
“That was all true, but wasn’t my initial motivation.” He shrugs. “I was being rebellious. My dad wanted me to be a software engineer, like he was. I couldn’t imagine sitting at a desk all day. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to try out for SWAT after becoming a police officer.”