November 9(84)

My hands are threaded together on the table in front of me. I try to come up with a multitude of reasons to turn around and glance over my shoulder, but I’m afraid when I do I may not be able to stop staring. I have no idea what kind of damage I’ve done to her, and I’m scared if I look in her eyes, I’ll see that she’s sad.

But I’m scared if I don’t look in her eyes, I’ll miss the fact that she could be happy.

“I’m only half an hour late, Fallon. Cut me some slack,” her father says.

He said her name. That’s definitely her. In the next few minutes, I could be coming face-to-face with the girl whose life I almost took.

Luckily, a waiter comes up and takes my order, distracting me from myself. I’m not at all hungry, but I order something anyway, because what kind of guy comes into a restaurant and doesn’t order any food? I don’t want to draw attention to myself.

The waiter tries to strike up a conversation with me about the fact that the guy behind us looks just like Donovan O’Neil, the actor who played Max Epcott. I pretend I don’t know who that is and he’s wildly unimpressed. I just want him to go away. Finally, he does. I lean back in the booth so I can hear more of their conversation.

“So, yeah. I’m a little shocked, but it’s happening,” her father says.

I wait for her to respond. I missed whatever he just said to her, thanks to nosey McWaiter, but her silence proves it wasn’t something she wanted to hear.

“Fallon? Are you going to say anything?”

“What am I supposed to say?” She doesn’t sound happy. “Do you want me to congratulate you?”

I feel her father fall against the back of his booth. “Well, I thought you’d be happy for me,” he says.

“Happy for you?”

Okay. Whatever he told her has pissed her off. She’s got spunk, I’ve got to give her that.

“I didn’t know I had it in me to become a father again.”

I don’t know how I feel about that. For a second, I’m reminded that this man used to be in love with my mother, and this could have possibly been a situation he got himself into with her, had the cancer not taken her first.

I mean . . . I know the cancer didn’t take her. The gun did. But either way, the cancer was at fault.

“Releasing sperm into the vagina of a twenty-four-year-old does not a father make,” Fallon says.

I laugh quietly. I don’t know why, but just hearing the way she talks to him eases some of my guilt. Maybe because I’d always pictured her to be this meek, quiet girl, wallowing in self-pity. But she sounds like a firecracker.

But still . . . this is insane. I shouldn’t be here. Kyle would kill me if he found out what I was doing.

“You don’t think I have the right to call myself a father? What does that make me to you, then?”

I shouldn’t be listening in on their private conversation. I spend the next few moments trying to focus on the laptop I brought with me, but I’m just scrolling through screens, pretending to work, all the while listening to what an inconsiderate prick her father is.

I can hear her sigh from where I’m seated. “You’re impossible. Now I understand why Mom left you.”

“Your mother left me because I slept with her best friend. My personality had nothing to do with it.”

How could my mother have ever loved this man?

Now that I think about it, I’m not so sure she did. He seemed to be the one sending all the letters and texts. I never saw anything she sent him, so maybe this was a short-lived, one-sided relationship that he can’t get over.

That makes me feel better, anyway. I shudder to think my mother was just a regular woman who sometimes made bad relationship choices, and not the all-knowing heroine I’ve probably made her out to be in my memory.

The waiter interrupts their conversation to deliver their lunch. I roll my eyes when he pretends to just now notice that Donovan O’Neil is sitting there. I hear him ask Fallon if she’ll take a picture of the two of them. I stiffen in my seat, wondering if she’ll stand up and come into my view. I’m not so sure I’m ready to see what she looks like.

But it doesn’t matter if I’m ready or not, because she just told them to take a selfie and that she’s heading to the bathroom. She begins to walk past me, and the second she comes into view, my breath hitches.

She’s walking in the opposite direction, so I don’t see her face. What I do see is hair. Lots of it, long and thick and straight, chestnut brown, just like the shoes she has on, and it falls all the way down her back.

And her jeans. They fit her so perfectly, it looks like they were custom made, molding to every curve, from her hips, all the way down to her ankles. They move with her so well, I find myself wondering what kind of panties she has on under them. Because I can’t see a panty line. She could be wearing a thong, but she could also be going . . . what the hell, Ben? How in the hell did your brain move in this direction?

My pulse speeds up because I know I need to leave. I need to get up and walk away and accept that she seems to be okay. Her father may be an *, but she’s able to hold her own pretty well, so my being this close to either of them isn’t good for anyone.

But dammit if the waiter isn’t eating up the fact that Donovan O’Neil is giving him the time of day. I don’t even care about my food, if he would just bring me the check I could pay it and get the hell out of here.