He paused for a moment. “I can pick you up at the bakery if you want. Or we can meet at the park again. I wasn’t able to Google your home address.”
No. No date. This was stupid. Not only stupid, it was wrong.
“Hey, Finn. It’s okay.” He leaned closer. I thought he was leaning in for a kiss, but he stopped short. His huge eyes held mine. “Just a date. Just dinner. Just some fun. Nothing big. Nothing to freak out over.”
I nodded hesitantly.
“Let me take you out?”
I nodded again.
His warm hand on my shoulder made me want to melt into him. Get lost for a few hours. “Two days? How about I get you on Friday?”
“Okay.”
“Do you want me to come here or meet at the park?”
“Why don’t you come to my house? We can go from there.”
“Perfect.” He put my address in his phone. “See you then.”
I almost called out to him as he walked away, told him to not bother. There would be no date. Brett’s voice telling me he loved me echoed through my head.
Ten
FINN DE MORISCO
Theterm “late bloomer” doesn’t even begin to capture my growing-up experience. Even though I’d been homeschooled my whole life up until I went to culinary school, I still had a wide assortment of witch friends. By the time I was sixteen, I was the only one of us who hadn’t gone on a date, much less had a girlfriend. I’d always known I was different, even before I had the qualifier “gay” to apply to it.
As witches go, we’re a pretty open species. Not every family I knew was cool with their kid being gay, but most didn’t have a problem with it—at least not compared to werewolves. I’ve heard if one of them comes out of the closet, they’re killed. Who knows if that’s true, but from the few I’ve met, it wouldn’t surprise me. I’m sure it wasn’t Mom and Dad’s first choice for me, but they didn’t even flinch when I told them. I’d been almost eighteen. I’d already been accepted into culinary school. I’d made this huge deal about it, dreading it for days and days. They’d known something was wrong. I couldn’t even eat.
I’d asked Mom and Dad to go out to dinner with just the three of us. I didn’t need the girls tagging along. Telling two members of the de Morisco family was enough. I could imagine what Caitlin would have said. Of course, it was only a year or so later that she announced to everyone she was a lesbian. The only thing I’ve ever done faster than her.
After all my hemming and hawing for over an hour at dinner, Mom finally said, “Good God, Finn. Just tells us already. We already know, sweetheart!”
Even with that, it took me nearly ten minutes to spit out those three gargantuan words—I am gay. Was I afraid they thought I’d say something else and would be devastated when the homosexual proclamation was made? I don’t know what I thought. Maybe they’d think I didn’t want to follow Mom into the gastronomic world and had decided to be a carpenter or something. Maybe that I’d announce that due to religious reasons I could no longer accept my witch heritage and was going to become a Jehovah’s Witness. Nope, my coming out was met with about as much resistance as if I’d told them I was Latino—and with as much surprise. They both wrapped me in their arms, told me they loved me, said not to worry about my sisters because they already knew, and then asked what I wanted for dessert.
All that build up, and even after it was over, it still took me a year to go on my first date. Yep, nearly nineteen and never been kissed.
My first date. What a shambles that turned out to be. It was with the first gay guy I met upon entering culinary school. Maybe I should have scouted all my options before going with the first one I saw. Turns out a good three-fourths of men specializing in pastries are gay. Go figure!
Alex was a year older than me, half a foot taller, and gorgeous. If he ever ate a carb in his life, it went directly to his pectorals. He looked like a corn-fed linebacker. And don’t bother asking me what a linebacker does. I have no idea, other than wear a jockstrap. He was sweet and intensely romantic for the first few days, and then he became controlling, jealous, and the tiniest bit verbally and physically abusive. Well, tiny is a relative term. Alex and I dated for seven months. We’d have an amazing, passionate three or four days followed by six or seven days of tirades and emotional outbursts. He constantly blamed his hot-blooded Latin nature. He wasn’t abusive, just passionate. He didn’t control; he just loved me. He didn’t scream; he professed his love. I just couldn’t understand the way Latin men loved—they gave with all their heart, all their emotion. Couldn’t I see how lucky I was to be with a man driven to such passion for me? He never seemed to comprehend I had as much hot-blooded Latin blood in me and I never treated him in such a manner. Actually, I had a lot more hot-blooded Latin blood in me, considering he was half-Irish.
After Alex, there was a brief string of losers and stereotypical assholes, culminating in my extended time with Jake, who made Alex look like Mike Brady. After a time of healing from the whole Jake debacle, I met Brett.
Looking back, Brett and I never dated. We never had an official date at all. I scooped him up and took him home after he was raped and nearly devoured by the vampire, had a two-second romantic exchange on the beach before Sonia was killed, and then the rest of our dating life consisted of either searching for or hiding from the previously mentioned vampire. Huh, wonder why that relationship didn’t work out the way I dreamed? Even so, I must admit, it was the first time in my life I’ve experienced actually falling in love with someone. I’d fallen into infatuation and codependence before, which I’m sure was still there with Brett, but never in love.
Each time a relationship had ended before, there was always a sense of peace and relief, a sense of regaining my freedom. With Brett, all that was left was my shattered heart. Despite Brett’s issues, no one had ever treated me as sweetly as he treated me, never looked at me the way he looked at me. I’d never held someone and really pictured holding them for the rest of my life. Even though I’d never admitted it to myself, I hadn’t believed I could feel that way about someone. Until Brett. Then he left. You don’t get more than one chance at that. It’s a once in a lifetime kind of thing.
Cynthiadidn’t give me a hard time when I went back into Panaderia, only grinned conspiratorially and kept working. The only other reaction I received was from Mom, who looked relieved when I walked through the door. She’d probably expected me to not return, go back to the alleged bathhouse.
In truth, the near euphoria I’d experienced from the magic of baking had evaporated as surly as Bertha’s trail of spit on the glass display case. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done. I’d agreed to go on a date. Adate. With someone besides Brett.
Hooking up was one thing. Maybe not the best thing to do in the world, but it was a way of dealing. A date was something else entirely. Despite Schwint’s cavalier claim that he wasn’t looking for marriage, he had to be looking for something. Something more than a random hookup.
Sex I could explain away. It was nothing more than trying to deal. The same way some people ate their feelings or went on shopping sprees when they were stressed. Sex was that for me. Sex and sleeping. Both sufficiently blocked out the world, obscuring the fact that Brett was gone. At least for those moments of climax and when the dreams weren’t bringing him back to me. A date was going to do nothing more than bring Brett even more to the front and center of my mind, if that was even possible. And suggest that I was moving on from him. That I was giving up on him.
What I supposed to do? Go backward? Shove Brett aside and go after a drugged-out fairy who liked to masquerade as a large Midwestern woman? I’d already been with enough losers to know that love couldn’t be found with them. Is that what I was looking for—love? With someone new?
