Page 56 of View With Your Heart

“Never.”

My mouth falls open. “You never went without, even with your girlfriend?”

“Zoey was extra cautious about pregnancy. She was on the pill, and I always used a condom.” The idea makes me swallow hard as I know firsthand those two things in combination are not always foolproof. Even Pam Carter joked earlier tonight about the same thing as she’s five months pregnant after only one night with Jacob, her fiancé.

Gavin perches up on his elbow, placing his head in his open hand. “What about you?”

“What about me?” I snort. Patrick and I didn’t need protection. He already knew he couldn’t get me pregnant, but this isn’t something I want to share with Gavin. I can’t tell him Patrick was sterile.

Instead, I slip off the bed to clean up and return to find Gavin sitting upright with his legs under the covers. With pillows propped behind his back, his chest is on display, and he’s a vision of masculinity. My foolish heart imagines him in this position every night, next to me.

“Are you always going to avoid talking about him?” Gavin asks as I tug back the sheets and slide in next to him, laying on my side to look up at him.

“Don’t you think it’s awkward to discuss him now?”

“I just want to understand your relationship.” He glances over at me, his eyes full of questions.

“We were married. What more do you need to know?”

“Did you love him?” There’s something behind the question I can’t read. Is he hoping I didn’t?

“Gavin,” I groan.

“Just tell me.” His demand comes out a little rough as if he’s bracing himself for my answer.

“I did. He’d been my best friend.”

“How did you meet?”

I smile at the reminder while I sigh at the explanation. “He was a benefactor of the arts. He supported the dance company, and I met him at a fundraiser.” Before I was pregnant. Before we were intimate. I’d known him for a year.

“Our relationship was easy. Patrick was a friend.” He was also accepting, which made him safe. He knew all my secrets and respected them. “He was my best friend as I said.”

Now would be the time to tell Gavin, my head warns, but I remind myself I promised to hold off until after the wedding. I didn’t want anything clouding his attention from his purpose this week. Plus, I knew how much his parents, especially his mother, wanted to see him again, and it felt important for him to spend time with them, drama-free.

“Jess mentioned he was older than you by quite a bit. Why weren’t you married sooner?”

“Gavin,” I groan his name again, rolling to my back and staring up at the ceiling. “Patrick was eighteen years older than me, yes.”

“I heard what you said at the party. Gee was almost a year old before you married. Just tell me he was good to you while you were pregnant. Did you just want to wait until after the baby was born?”

Gavin pauses while I decide how to answer him, and then he speaks again.

“You said you were twenty-three when you got pregnant. You must have hooked up with him pretty quickly after that weekend.” His voice lowers, and he looks down at his hands cupped in his lap. To say Patrick and I hooked up does not do our relationship justice. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I had to take a leave of absence from the dance company. Leo and Gertie took me in once I expressed my panic and fear. Patrick sought me out, finding me only after Gee was born.

“What happened to you after that weekend?” I ask him instead, twisting to look back at him.

“Zoey,” he bitterly huffs. “We met shortly after that weekend.” Gavin rolls his wrist, reminding me of his injury.

I stare at him, knowing how that weekend altered my life. How my perspective of what was important changed completely. In a sense, he had his own adjustments after that weekend as well.

“Tell me something good about your dad.” The statement startles Gavin, and he peers over at me. I adjust the sheet over me, securing it over my breasts and perching up on an elbow to look at him.

“Why?”

“Just play along.” For the next half hour, Gavin regales me with stories of his childhood. His father, the farm, and the shenanigans with his brother and Jess Carter. Some of these stories I remember hearing before. Some are new to me. Either way, my hope is several things. I don’t want to keep discussing our past relationships, both with others or between ourselves. I want him to consider good times with his father, as I’ve often had to do with Gee to settle him when he was worked up after Patrick’s death. I’m also hoping Gavin might accept this town isn’t as bad as he remembers. That he had fun here as a child, as I’m hoping Gee will make fond memories as he grows.

Gavin knows there isn’t much to share about my parents, so he asks me about Leo and Gertie and how they were once they were older. Without admitting I spent another year living with them at twenty-three, turning twenty-four, I offer things we did together. Sweet or quirky things they did as a couple. I loved them as the grandparents I never had, possibly even loving them more than my own parents.