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“Why didn’t she want them to know where she was?” Dale asked, brow knitted. He was still trying to find Matt and Aimee but I was beginning to think they weren’t here yet. “My grandfather used to beat her. That’s what my mom told me.”
“Why does this not surprise me?” Dale muttered. He stopped, turning around and putting his hands on my hips. “What did Dr. Jarvis say about that when you told him that?”
“You know exactly what he said.” I rolled my eyes. “And he also said he was proud of me for breaking that abusive cycle.”
“With me,” he replied smugly. Then he leaned over, grabbing my ass and whispering, “Because as often as I want to spank you, I refrain.”
“We still have time,” I reminded him, laughing as I pulled away. “We haven’t had kids yet.”
“There will be no spanking in our house,” he proclaimed. “Unless it’s me finally spanking you—”
“Hey guys!” I waved to Aimee and Matt. They were already here, sitting at the bar. My stomach seemed to understand that meant we would get to eat sooner and grumbled loudly.
Turned out we were twenty minutes late, which was perfect because the hostess called us before Dale and I could even find seats. The hostess seated us at a booth and the waitress came to take our drink orders. Aimee had pictures back from their honeymoon. We’d already heard about how blue the water was and about the giant tortoise they’d seen when they were snorkeling and how burnt Aimee got the first day because she forgot to put on sunscreen, but now we got to hear about it all over again, with visual aids.
“At least I didn’t get all sunburned before our wedding night,” she said sheepishly.
“Close enough!” Matt protested. “She wouldn’t let me touch her for three days. Three days!”
“I was beet red.” Aimee sighed. “I think I was redder than my hair. I made him keep going down the hall to get more ice for the bathtub.”
“Just what I wanted to do on my honeymoon,” Matt interjected through a mouthful of breadstick.
“My mom even warned me. She put sunblock in my purse for pete’s sake.”Aimee slapped her forehead. “And I still forgot!”
“You were just too caught up in being Mrs. Aimee Green,” I teased, taking a sip of my Diet Coke and wishing the waitress would hurry up with my Tour of Italy. I couldn’t wait to eat my lasagna—even if it wasn’t quite as good as John’s homemade.
“Anyway, how did the meeting go?” Aimee asked, leaning forward, all ears.
“Yeah, enough about our honeymoon.” Matt shoved the pictures back into the envelope. “Unless you want me to regale you with the tale of four times…”
“Matt!” Aimee blushed, nudging him with her elbow. It must have been pretty hard too because Matt coughed, spewing little bits of bread into the table. “Shut up!”
“That’s nothing,” Dale scoffed. “One night we—”
I didn’t elbow him. I reached over and shoved a breadstick into his mouth instead. Dale bit it and chewed, giving me a doughy grin.
“The meeting was… amazing.” Of course I’d told Aimee about Ben—it was still hard to call him “my dad,” even in my head, but it was getting easier.
“I knew it!” she exclaimed. “Sara, I’m so happy for you.”
“Hold onto the happy for a while,” Dale countered, washing down his bite of breadstick with my Diet Coke. “We haven’t seen the results of blood tests or anything yet.”
“Oh come on, Dale.” Aimee raised her eyebrows at him. “Do you really need to?”
I hadn’t explained Dale’s conspiracy theory about Ben just looking for something sweet out of the deal that had nothing to do with me.
“He could be anybody. I mean, there’s no father’s name on her birth certificate and her mother isn’t exactly around to tell us.”
I winced at that and saw Aimee’s look of sympathy which somehow made it worse. She still had both a mom and a dad—even if they didn’t get along very well, with the exception of her wedding.
“It just seems suspicious to me, that’s all. Maybe I’m wrong.” Dale sat back in the booth, putting his arm over my shoulder. “If the DNA comes back and he’s really Sara’s father, I’ll be the first one to welcome him to the family.”
“Those tests take a long time, don’t they?” Matt asked.
The waitress had arrived with salad and then it was yes, cheese on the salad and yes, we need more refills and sure, bring another basket of breadsticks.
“I saw a show on DNA evidence,” Aimee said. “It took like a month to get the results but they’re pretty conclusive.”
