All I Ask(56)

“Much.”

“Do you miss it?”

Derek shrugs. “Not all of it. I miss my house and my practice.”

“It must’ve been hard to leave.”

“My dad needed me. He’s not as healthy as he’d like to believe and, honestly, I needed to be around family. I’m so out of my league with Everly, and my mother seems to connect with her. We were alone down there. I worked crazy hours, and leaving Everly home with the neighbor for hours wasn’t fair.”

“We do what we have to as single parents.”

He nods. “I didn’t have to stay there. I could’ve come back the day Meghan died. I worked because I needed to stay busy. I immersed myself in my practice so that I could avoid the questions and people who wanted to know how I was feeling. How do you tell people you’re upset but then there’s relief too?”

I wish I could answer that for him, but I don’t think he really wants that. He’s been holding this in, and for some reason, he trusts me enough to let it go. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s the thing, I’m not…at least not for me. I’m sorry for Everly. I’m sorry for Meghan’s parents, who are still devastated and can barely look at Everly now. I’m sorry that she had to go so soon because she didn’t deserve to die. But…”

“But?”

“I’m not sorry for me. And that is the most horrible fucking thing I can ever say.”

It feels wrong to offer words of comfort to him, but it also feels wrong to chastise him. Instead of doing either, I reach my hand across the table and hold his hand. I offer him no judgment, just friendship.

“You know, I was dreading moving back here. I fought against it so hard because I knew. I knew you’d be here and because…”

“…because?”

Our eyes meet and I don’t need him to finish the statement, I already know. As much as I’d like to be angry, I get it. I would’ve spent the rest of my life avoiding him too if I had the option. There’s a lot of things we’ve had to deal with and we’re not done yet.

“Because it’d be easier than seeing you and having you hate me.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t hate you, Derek. I didn’t understand. I was hurt, and angry, but I never hated you. I loved you too much to hate you.”

The waiter clears his throat and we both lean back with a polite smile. My heart is beating against my chest and I grab the wine, thankful for the distraction. That was a pretty intense first ten minutes of a date.

We both order the pasta with a grin shared between us. After the waiter leaves, Derek and I sit in comfortable silence. There’s so much to unbox from our previous conversation, I think we both need a second to process.

“Did Chastity know you were coming out?”

“She did. I don’t keep much from her and I thought if she was going to hear about our date, it was better coming from me.”

“Again, another display of how inept I am at dealing with my own kid.”

God, I can only imagine what that means. “I take it Everly knows?”

“She does.”

“And she took it well, I see.”

He laughs. “It’s hard. She knew that you and Meghan didn’t get along.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true.” I didn’t have a problem with his wife. And really, his wife had nothing on me. I didn’t write that damn journal entry. I never once made any kind of advance toward Derek. They were married, and no matter how broken I was over it, I didn’t do anything to warrant her hatred. “I thought I got along with Meghan, she didn’t like me for something you did.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not really first-date discussion.”

“I don’t think you and I could have an authentic first date,” I say with a smile. I don’t want my first, and probably only, date with Derek to be a bad thing. “We might as well call it what it is when it comes to us—weird.”

I want to be able to remember tonight with affection. This has been something I’ve dreamed of and now it’s here. The last thing I want is us spending it bickering or talking about heavy shit.

“How can you still do that?”

“Do what?”

“Change topics so fast. It was always something I wished I could do.”

“It’s a gift,” I say and then take a sip of my wine.

I’ve never really tried to dwell on things that don’t matter. I like to handle it and move on, except where Derek is concerned. He’s always been my weakness.

“Okay, well, how did Chastity take it?”

“The truth?” I ask.

“Always.”

Chastity is a great kid. She never has given me pushback and usually is very supportive when it comes to things regarding me living a life, but this time not so much. “I want to preface this by saying it’s not you.”

“It’s my daughter.”

I nod. “She loves you. She thinks you’re really funny, clearly she doesn’t know your humor is lacking, and she’s learning a lot by working with you. I think she’s just afraid that you and I could mess that up.”

She also said she’ll cut all my hair off in my sleep if I ever think she’s going to live under the same roof as Everly. Sad thing is, I don’t doubt her.