Too late, a reasonable little voice whispers in the back of my mind. I tell that voice to go to the back of the class.
The line, Gable. Hold it.
But even as I demand it of myself, I can feel my grasp slipping.
CHAPTER 21
FINN
Darcy's replies have gone polite.
Me:Mattichogue gossip is no joke. Did you know there's a town Reddit? Don't go there.
Darcy:Thanks for the warning!
Me:Free for dinner tomorrow? Let's make more heads explode.
Darcy:Tomorrow's tough, big grading week. Rain check?
Me:Thursday, then?
Darcy:Maybe. Let's see how the week goes.
That was last night. I've read the thread more times than I want to admit, sitting in the vineyard office with paperwork I keep not doing, and every read lands the same. Friendly. Warm, even. And closed. Two nights ago she fell asleep naked on my chest with her hand resting over my heart. This morning I got a rain check offer.
Here's the thing, the truth I wouldn't say out loud to anyone: Sunday night was the best night of my life. Not the best night I've had in Mattichogue. The best night, period, up against a life I've spent deliberately filling with the sort of nights people write magazine features about. Monday morning, I walked down her stairs sure to the bone that it was the same for her.
Now I'm not sure about anything. I don't know what to do with that feeling.Uncertainis not a country I've spent much time in.
So I've been doing the only thing a man in my position can do, which is go back over Monday morning looking for what I broke. The eggs were good. She ate the burnt toast and smiled doing it. I never said one word about the off-key singing, and the jokes were right there, ripe for the taking.
As for the sex itself, it was off the chart. No way to hang a rating on how fucking amazing we felt together. I know I didn't leave her unsatisfied. Those sexy little noises she made, and the way she cried my name when she came are not things that can be faked. Hell, Ifelthow hard she shattered against me.
When she kissed me goodbye she had her hand fisted in my collar, and that was definitely not a woman winding anything down or pushing me out. So it wasn't the toast, and it wasn't anything stupid I might have done, and it wasn't the sex. I've been through everything I said and did and I can't find the problem.
Which leaves the version I keep circling and hating. Maybe it isn't anything I did. Maybe Sunday meant one thing to me and another thing to her.
I chew on that all through lunch and it doesn't get smaller.
I could give her the week she asked for. Keep the texts light. Play it cool.
Instead, I put on a pair of jeans and a shirt I can work in, then I load a drill and a box of stage screws into the old vineyard truck.
I used to tell the guys at The Retreat that I'd never met a woman I couldn't leave by Tuesday. It's Tuesday, and I'm driving into town to hang scenery in a high school auditorium on the chance it puts me near her for twenty minutes. So that's where the saying went.
My cover story is safety. The sets we built during the auction weekend go up on the real stage this week, and I don't want that plywood arch anywhere near her kids unless I've braced it myself. That part's completely true. It's just not why I'm going.
Annie answers my text fast:Door by the band room's open. Just come in when you get here.
Darcy's best friend knows exactly why I'm coming today. I'm even pretty sure she approves. It's a small win, but I'll take it.
The auditorium smells like paint and sawdust. The forest is half up on stage, plywood trees in three shades of green, a muslin sky waiting to be hung, and my arch standing center with a lean I can see from the back row.
One of the Oakley twins, Nora, meets me at the stage steps with a clipboard. She looks at me, then at the drill.
"Braces go up first," she says. "Then the backdrop."
I nod like she's the boss. "That's the plan."
