Patchwork Paradise(43)

He gave me a pained look. “That’s a lot of garlic.”

“Eh.” I shrugged. “I don’t mind if you don’t.” Thomas buried his face in his hands. “What?” I asked, laughing a little confusedly. “What is it? What did I do now? We don’t have to eat pitas, Thomas. It was just an idea.”

He sat up so fast I startled, and his eyes were dark and fiery. “This is a date, okay, Ollie? A date. Cleo won’t be coming. In fact she helped me get dressed and then she went home and she’s expecting me to text her after we have all the hot sex, because that’s what she thought was going to happen. So no, if it’s okay with you, I don’t want to eat pitas.”

“I . . .” I was squashed against the passenger window. I shuffled back into the seat. The heat in Thomas’s eyes dwindled, and his mouth pinched together. He ran a hand through his carefully styled hair, messing it up. The way he was dressed, the pickup at my door . . . I should’ve known. “Shit,” I breathed. “Oh man. I had no idea. I f*cked up. Did I f*ck up? I f*cked up, didn’t I?”

He blew out a hot breath and stared at the street, where traffic crawled by. “No, Ollie.” He reached for my knee and squeezed it, letting go quickly. “You didn’t f*ck up. I did. I should’ve called you and asked you out properly and actually mentioned the word date. Not just texted you and asked you to go for a drink like we always do. Let’s”—he reached for the keys still stuck in the ignition—“forget it and go home.”

“No!” I sprang at him and yanked the keys out of his grip. “No. We can do this. Let me . . . get my head around this. Okay. See over there? Andre’s. I’ve heard of that place, but I’ve never been there. I am getting out of the car, and I’ll grab us a table. You wait five minutes and join me. We can pretend that’s when our date starts. Okay?” My heart hammered, then flopped around like a fish on dry land when Thomas slowly began to smile.

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay. That sounds good.”

I handed him the keys. “Five minutes,” I said, grinning stupidly. “You and me. On a date.”

He laughed under his breath and glanced away with a blush on his cheeks. I hurried out of the car before I made a complete idiot of myself. When I crossed the street and glanced over my shoulder, he wasn’t looking at me. He frowned briefly at his phone before pressing it to his ear. I didn’t think anything of it, but when he followed me into the restaurant not five, but twenty minutes later, he was white as a sheet.

“Thomas?” I rose to my feet and took a step toward him. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” A waiter had been approaching our table, but he took one look at Thomas’s face, spun on his heel, and walked away. “Hey, come sit. You look like you’re going to pass out.”

“I can’t . . . I can’t stay.”

“Oh. Is it your dad? Did something happen? If you need to go, I can take a tram. It’s no problem.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that.”

To my absolute shock, he was shaking. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here. This is no place to talk.” I shuffled Thomas out of the restaurant. “Well, that was the shortest date in the history of all dates,” I tried to joke.

He turned his soulful eyes down to me. “I can’t date you,” he whispered.

My heart began a slow thud I didn’t like at all. “Well, that’s . . . a pity, but we can work it out. It’s all fine. Um, why don’t you tell me what changed your mind over the past twenty minutes?”

He tried to unlock the car, but his fingers shook so hard he dropped his keys. I began to get really worried.

“Okay, buddy,” I softly said as I put a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you let me drive, and we’ll talk at my house. Unless there’s somewhere you need to be?”

“No, your house is fine.” He didn’t say anything else as he climbed into the passenger seat, and he remained quiet on the short ride home. Every once in a while I caught him squeezing his eyes closed, like his brain had conjured up something he couldn’t stand remembering.

I managed to park pretty close to my house and let him inside. “Are you hungry?” I asked him in the hallway. He shook his head. “Coffee? Beer?”

“A beer would be nice.”

“Make yourself comfortable in the living room. I’ll be right there.”

I grabbed two Hoegaardens and hurried back to find him sitting on the edge of the couch, his head in his hands. “Thanks,” he said hoarsely when I nudged him with the beer.

“You’ve got me really worried now. What’s going on, Thomas?” I sat down on the coffee table so I could look him straight in the eye.

“Remember that girl in the Nine Barrels last year? The . . . the night Sam died?”

“Yes,” I said and a chill ran down my spine. “Of course.”

“I didn’t meet her that night. I slept with her on and off for about six months. We both knew it was casual. Apparently something went wrong with a condom. I’m . . . She had a baby.”

I gaped at him. “Oh my God.” He was a dad? “And it’s definitely . . . yours?” I cringed as I asked it, but he gave me a wry smile.

“She says so. She says she didn’t sleep with anyone but me during that time, and I believe her.”