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Chapter 6
“So, one chocolate fudge sundae deluxe, two spoons.” The waitress scribbled the order on her notepad, then shot Tanith and Blake a perky smile. “That’ll be right out for you.”
“Thank you,” Blake said, returning her smile with an equally charming one of his own. That had been Blake in a nutshell all night: charming, classic, and composed. While Tanith hadn’t gotten the sense that he was any less vanilla than she originally thought, she had been enjoying herself with him so far. Conversation had flowed well from the time they met in the parking lot of the cute, slightly hipster diner to now. The appetizer had been shared, their hands occasionally touching when they both went for the same pita drizzled with balsamic, tomato, and mozzarella bits. Tanith had ordered a vegetarian burger and Blake had ordered a steak. They’d talked about college and Angel Fire and their hobbies.
It had been a pleasant first date. Tanith had almost forgotten how completely breathtaking Blake was until he strolled over to her in the parking lot, hands in his pockets, wearing a sharp navy blazer and a dress shirt like they were headed to a five-star eatery. Something was there. A spark. A longing to be near him. She had felt it from the moment they’d reconnected—something about Dr. Blake soothed her.
She had been on edge all day about money, especially after realizing she didn’t have the proper funds in the right account to pay Trudy the other night. Everything was balanced, but only just. One wrong move and things would plummet off the deep end. There was no way she could stop paying for Hayley’s medical treatment, so the first things to go would be the gallery, her art, and, at some point, her house.
Tanith plodded along each day like everything was fine, like crunching numbers was just one of those things she had to do as a business owner. And it was, she just hadn’t realized how near the precipice she was until this week, which only made her guilty conscience worsen.
All this time away from her daughter, and what did she have to show for it? Financial troubles. Nothing in life ate you up like financial troubles. She didn’t have the luxury of living off the grid anymore. Money mattered. And lately, it was tighter than usual.
So, she certainly appreciated Blake’s ability to distract her, both with his dashingly good looks, his natural charm, and his calming presence. While they sat opposite one another in a private booth, every time their feet accidentally grazed one another under the table, it was like a bolt of lightning cracked right through her—and the aftermath left her feeling like she’d just had the best massage of her life. Or the best climax.
Tanith couldn’t tell just yet. All she knew was that she had laughed a lot that evening, smiled so much her cheeks hurt, and didn’t once worry about the usual first date things. No fussing with her hair, no worrying about what kind of message her outfit would send, no on the prowl for bad habits in the guy. Tanith just enjoyed herself. Blake made her feel like she could breathe deep and free again, and for that alone he’d earned a second date. Maybe then she could see just how vanilla he really was.
“I guess the real reason I stopped doing photography once I started medical school,” Blake said, picking up right where they had left off before the waitress arrived to take their dessert order, “is that I just didn’t see a future in it. It wasn’t going to pay the bills, so why bother continuing?”
Tanith straightened up a little, her defensive hackles rising as they always did whenever someone brought up the fact that some art didn’t pay the bills. She had heard it time and time again in her life: artists are usually starving.
Despite her carefree spirit and her will to wander, Tanith had always wanted to prove the naysayers wrong—that she could survive on this, that she could make a living, and that she could thrive. For most of her life, that had been the case. And then Hayley came along and ended up sick. Then things changed. Not for the better, nor for the worse—they just changed.
She loved her daughter with all her heart; it was just hard to make everything work sometimes. She didn’t feel guilty thinking it, but sometimes she did feel guilty for remaining in a profession that wasn’t the most lucrative in the world.
“Well, just because you weren’t going to do it for a living didn’t mean you had to stop.” She fiddled with the straw in her milkshake, head cocked to the side as she considered him. “I mean, I’m sure there was some art credit you had to take in school. Why not fill the void with photography? I can tell you still love it. I’m sure it would have been a good stress reliever.”
“True,” he acknowledged with a slight bob of his head, “but a waste of time in the end. I mean, we had plenty of stress relieving options to pick from that weren’t classes. A class was another few hours a week we could have been cramming for the important stuff. I just went with jogging and called it a day.”
She pursed her lips and swallowed whatever was waiting to argue back that maybe photography was exactly what he needed to get through something as stressful as medical school with a better spirit.
“I didn’t want to waste my time with something that was little more than a teenage hobby,” Blake continued, shrugging. “It just wasn’t worth my time. I needed to put my time and energy into something that mattered. Learning to save lives…that matters. It’s what pays my bills and is setting me up for a solid retirement. Photography and many of the arts just don’t compare. Job security? Out the window.”
Tanith could literally feel the color drain from her face as he continued on about the validity of concrete professions—the sciences, medicine, trades—over more abstract professions in the arts. Without realizing it, he touched on every single deeply buried fear she had, fears that were slowly digging themselves out from the dark crevices in her mind, fears that were becoming more of a reality with each passing week lately. Unable to hear a word more of it, she grabbed her purse and scooted out of the booth.
Blake trailed off mid-sentence and frowned. “Are you okay?”
“I…I just…” She licked her lips and blinked hard, fighting off one of her rare moments of real and true panic. “I think I have to go.”
“Tanith, what’s wrong?” He sounded so concerned, so caring, that she found herself wanting to crawl into his lap and lose herself in his arms. It was such a strong pull, a yearning that she had never felt before with another man—and it frightened her. Because how could she feel so strongly, so desperately, for a man who clearly didn’t value her professional life?
She couldn’t demonize him completely, of course. Society programmed everyone to think of artists as poverty-stricken wrecks who just couldn’t hack it in the real world. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in a stable enough frame of mind to deal with it like she usually did. His words couldn’t just roll off her back. Tanith couldn’t laugh them away today, not with Hayley’s sickly features flashing before her eyes and the mounting medical bills scattered around her office calling her name.
“If it was something I said—”
“No, it’s fine,” she said, perhaps a little too quickly as she threw her pale purple spring jacket on over her floor-length dress. It had a low neckline, v-shaped to highlight her cleavage. She had spent a lot of time rooting through clothes before deciding on it. Tanith liked the way Blake’s gaze roamed her body while she wore it. But in that moment she was just happy it was loose enough to let her run if she needed to—because she was not going to cry on her first date.
“Then…” Blake shook his head, slowly making his way out of the booth. “What is it? Can I help somehow? I don’t—”
“I just have to go,” she told him, scooting up on her tip-toes and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “I’m sorry. I’ll…I’ll call you.”
She raced out of there just as the waitress arrived with their sundae, two spoons in hand, and when she glanced back, she caught Blake watching her go, a frown on his lips, and wondered if she had just ruined what could have been a good thing.
