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By the time the wine is poured and we’re digging into our delicious-smelling steaks, the moment has passed, and we’ve moved on to discussing how hard it would be to become a vegetarian.
Before I can find a way to guide the conversation back to us, a familiar voice rings out from the host area. “You can’t kick me out. I have a right to be here and so does Gavin. I’ve got his papers, right here.”
A beat later, a woman screams and murmurs of “alligator” begin echoing throughout the bottom floor.
Chapter Seven
Dipsy…Rose?
I’ve never been so glad to see an alligator in my life.
I’ve never been glad to see an alligator at all—I find reptiles terrifying—but watching Gavin scuttle around the fireplace and crawl nimbly up onto the small stage where the harpist is still strumming away is a relief.
Below us, people leap from their chairs, abandoning half eaten steaks as they run for the exit or climb up onto the chairs, bringing their nibble-worthy legs out of reach of the tiny gator. The harpist screams as Gavin crawls over her foot and kicks reflexively, sending him soaring into the air. But like a cat, Gavin lands on his feet and instantly starts weaving his way through the tables toward the cold seafood bar against one wall.
Two waiters give chase as another catches the now standing harpist as she faints.
From this vantage, safely on the second floor of diners and out of chomping range, Gavin doesn’t seem that threatening—he’s barely eighteen inches long and probably weighs less than Hambone—but those in the line of fire are understandably disturbed.
For my part, I’m grateful for an excuse to stop thinking about Bear and me.
About Bear as my boyfriend, my lover, my sexy and devoted partner who makes every night feel like Christmas Eve…
He’s just so damned irresistible.
The way he believes in me, the way he makes it clear that he wants a relationship without playing games, the way he looks at me when he’s thinking about kissing me…it’s almost too much. My resistance is hanging by a thread and the chances an emotional support gator will be there the next time Bear nearly breaks through my walls are slim to none.
Sooner or later, my luck is going to run out.
I have to go. Now. I have to beg Bear’s forgiveness and make a break for the exit. I can leave the suitcase with him in the room and maybe he can return some of the items before he flies out tomorrow for a refund. And it’s not like I’m going to need that elf costume again any time soon.
But leaving right now would involve walking through the territory of a still rampaging baby gator. And it would mean leaving before I’ve finished the best steak I’ve ever been served in my life.
And it would mean leaving this man who makes me feel so seen, so beautiful, so special.
Suddenly, a thought hits me…
“Do I make you feel special?” I ask softly.
For a moment, I worry Bear hasn’t heard me and doubt I’ll have the gumption to ask the question again. But then he sets down his fork and knife and reaches under the table to take my hand.
“You do.” He holds my gaze in a way that makes it almost impossible to breathe. “You don’t want a relationship. You don’t want to feel anything for me aside from friendship. You’re fighting this so hard, but…you’re still here.” His full lips twitch. “You must think I’m pretty okay.”
Curling my fingers around his much larger ones, I whisper, “I think you’re the best. The very best.” I swallow past the nerves tightening my throat. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d…wait for me, would you? A year or three? Just long enough for me to get my career where it needs to be?”
He seems to consider it for a moment, but then his brow wrinkles and his shoulders hitch closer to his ears. “The part of me that thinks running into you tonight was destiny wants to say ‘yes.’ But I’m not getting any younger, Rose. Or any less lonely. I’m ready to share my life with someone special. I think that someone is you, but if you truly can’t make space for me, even a small space…”
I press my lips together, fighting a wave of emotion as the lower level of the restaurant continues to devolve into chaos that eerily reflects the state of my torn and tortured heart.
Torn because I want to say “yes, Bear, I can make space for you,” so badly. Tortured because I know it wouldn’t be a small space. If I fall for Bear, I’m going to fall hook, line, and sinker. He’ll become the focus of my world—How could he not? How could the joy and satisfaction I’ll find in any job, even my dream job, compare to the way I feel when I’m with him?
