Love on the Lake (Lakeside #2)(52)
“Go where?”
“Home. If you want to skip out on the rest of dinner, I can take you home.” He stares at his half-empty glass of root beer.
“Do you want to take me home? And by home do you mean your place or mine?”
His gaze lifts. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable. Curious maybe, but not uncomfortable. Are you uncomfortable?”
“It’s awkward. I can’t go anywhere within a half-hour drive without running into someone I know. And shit like this happens. It’s one thing to hear about my reputation; it’s another to witness it firsthand.”
I wonder if this has happened to him before, in the past. If he’s tried to take someone out and one of the women from the other side of the lake has ruined the evening by approaching him. Or worse, propositioning him like Katrina did, in a public restaurant, of all places. “You live in a small town, Aaron; you can’t escape your past or your actions in a place like this. I knew that before I agreed to go out with you. And that”—I incline my head in the direction of Katrina’s table; she and another woman have their heads bent together, and they’re looking in this direction, so I smile brightly and wave—“isn’t exactly unfamiliar. I mean, my boyfriend slept with my best friend, and everyone knew. Except me. I can’t tell you how many times someone would come up to me in the middle of a public place and tell me how sorry they were. And how bad they felt for me. And two minutes later they’d be off in the corner, whispering with each other about my family scandal. Just like those women seem to be doing.”
“If I could go back in time, I would change a lot of things,” Aaron mutters.
“I think we’d all do that if we could see the future before it happened. Can I ask you why you slept with those women?”
Aaron rubs his bottom lip. “Convenience, I guess. I knew I was just something to pass the time. They were lonely, neglected, with husbands who traveled a lot. Although”—he raises one finger—“I never slept with the hockey wives.”
“Because their husbands are huge and could kill you?”
“That’s one reason, but mostly because those women are super devoted to their husbands. The women I slept with had already filed for divorce. Or said they were about to.” He shakes his head and pokes at his cheek with his tongue.
“That sounds like a story.”
“You sure you want to hear it?”
“If you don’t mind telling it.” Now that I’ve met Katrina, it doesn’t bother me that he’s slept with all these women as much as it did before. Maybe because they were serving a purpose and there weren’t any feelings involved.
“Last year Katrina told me she was in the middle of a divorce, but that wasn’t true. She threatened to divorce her husband, but she hadn’t gone through with it. She was never going to bail on her gynecologist husband, who apparently can’t find a clitoris with a map and a microscope. The man looks at vaginas all day every day. If anyone should know what he’s doing, it’s that guy.”
I nearly choke on a sip of my prosecco. As it is, I suppress a cough-laugh.
“You all right?” Aaron asks.
“I’m fine. Please, I need to know what happened.”
“She’s going to live in misery forever because she doesn’t want to lose the life of leisure. Which was fine. I didn’t want to be her boyfriend. But I thought they were separated, and I found out they weren’t when her husband showed up early one Friday afternoon. I had to jump two stories into the rosebushes or risk losing my balls. That was the last time I mowed lawns on that side of the lake. The Sea-Doo was an apology gift.”
“Wow. That’s quite the apology.”
“Rosebushes cause a lot of damage.” Aaron shrugs, but he looks like he’s waiting for me to get up and walk out on him.
I glance over at the table where Katrina is with her friends. “It’s sad that those women are so miserable and they’re willing to stay trapped in it because they don’t want to lose their comfort. I was the same way. I used to spend ridiculous amounts of money getting my hair and nails and whatever else done. I needed the brand names and the status that came with all those things. I’m embarrassed by the way I used to act and the things I put value on. It took losing it all for me to finally see that all of it was an illusion. A mask to hide all the discontent.” I blow out a breath. “Sorry, that was a tangent you didn’t need. What I’m trying to say is that if anyone should be uncomfortable, it should be that woman, not you. I don’t want her to put a damper on our date, so if you want to go, we can go, but I don’t need you to take me home unless that’s what you want to do.”
“I don’t want her to ruin our evening either.”
“Okay. So we don’t let her.” I slide my hand across the table and touch the tips of his fingers.
His shoulders relax, and he curls his fingers around mine. I see something vulnerable lurking behind his eyes. “You’re a dangerous woman, Teagan.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you make me want to believe in the future.”
I want to ask more questions, but our dinner arrives.
I’ve learned something new and important about Aaron, though—there are layers to this man, secrets and vulnerabilities. I want to uncover all of them and teach him that he can and should be loved, not in spite of them but because of them.