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“You look perfect.” I winked at her. “And here I thought you’d picked something tight on purpose. You knew how to tease when you wanted to.”
Maggie laughed, the sound coming out in a startled way. “Thank you.” She sounded sincere.
“It’s nothing. I’m sure you have men paying you compliments all the time.” I couldn’t help but think of her comment that it had been a while since she’d gotten dressed up. Had she really never had anyone take her out? No break from being a mother to just go and have fun? Had no man caught her eye, even briefly, in the five years in between?
“Not really. I mean—not like this.” Maggie blushed again. “I haven’t gone on a date since—in a really long time. With Fern it’s difficult.”
“I can imagine.” I took a deep breath. She wasn’t outright saying it, but I was hoping that once I confessed, she would say the same thing that I was about to say. “I haven’t been with anyone since that Thanksgiving.” Since you.
“Oh.” Maggie’s mouth popped open a little in surprise. “I… you haven’t seen anyone in all that time?”
I nodded in confirmation. “It just felt wrong.” I couldn’t get her out of my head, and as much as I’d been filled with guilt over it, I hadn’t been able to shake the ghost of her, either. Every time I’d tried to flirt with someone—or rather someone had tried to flirt with me—I just hadn’t been into it. It hadn’t felt right.
“I haven’t either,” Maggie blurted out. She swirled the wine in her glass, as if to give herself something to do. “I’ve been single this whole time, never hooked up, never—anything. It didn’t feel right. I told myself that it was because of my daughter, but…”
Her voice died away, and I found myself feeling lighter. Relieved. It was like this whole time we’d been waiting for each other, haunted by each other, even though we’d each tried to put that night out of our heads. And now that I was back in person with her I knew for certain:
No one else would do for me.
18
Maggie
This setting was getting to my head. The candlelit dinner, the lighting low throughout the restaurant. The small table we were at, the one definitely designed for only two people. The fact that all around us were only couples—and not many of them, actually. Not many people at all in a fancy restaurant on a Tuesday night. We didn’t have anyone sitting near us, giving us that much more privacy. And the wine—that was getting to my head a bit, too.
Not to mention there was the company.
When I said that I hadn’t been with anyone either, that it hadn’t felt right, Cal got this look on his face that was startled, and then—relieved. After that he started being even more charming than before, as if he hadn’t already been turning my head telling me I looked perfect and beautiful and all of the rest.
God, I had forgotten how damn funny he was, how amusing, how much he could charm me. That hadn’t changed, all this time. I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. I guess I’d hoped, secretly, that the shine would’ve worn off a bit, that I would find him to be dull now. But that was far from the case. He told me all about his latest gallery opening, and about this young artist he had worked with who was talented but needed to be taken down a peg and humble himself a bit, and it all honestly felt like no time had passed between us.
“What?” Cal asked, pausing in the middle of one of his stories.
I shook my head, taking another sip of wine. We had to order a second bottle. “Nothing. I just was thinking—you always knew how to make me laugh, and that hasn’t changed.”
“I’m so sorry I haven’t turned bland and boring in my dotage,” he teased, grinning at me.
“Soon you’ll have plenty of jokes to make about the nursing home.”
“Oh yes. I plan to slide nicely into dementia so I can paint all over the walls and nurse uniforms. No one will be safe from my paintbrush.”
I laughed. Cal might have been joking about his age, but he was still like a young man to me, full of energy and enthusiasm. Honestly, I kept forgetting that there was such an age difference between us. It was obvious he wasn’t in his twenties the way that I was, but if I hadn’t known better, if I’d been asked to guess, I would’ve placed him in his late thirties.
From there Cal launched into another story, and I relaxed again. I was either saying the wrong thing, being too blunt, or I wasn’t saying enough—if you asked the people around me. Jenn was one of the few people who I didn’t have to worry was just hanging out with me for the sake of politeness. She was plenty chatty and could fill up all the space on her own. Cal, I was now remembering, was always armed with stories and anecdotes, and I never felt pressured to talk. I could just relax and listen instead of worrying about saying the wrong thing.
