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“No,” he said, and she reached down into the picnic basket, took out another carrot, and he stole it, popping it into his mouth.
“That’s disappointing. I was hoping that we might trade some secrets.”
“Sorry. I never had anything I much wanted to write down.”
“Oh.”
And then she just felt a little bit sad.
And she realized that she had never written about her dad leaving. She’d never really written about her life, just her hopes for later.
“I guess I didn’t really like keeping record of the bad things either. I was really close to my dad,” she said. “More than my mom. I thought I was more like him. I thought we understood each other. And he used to laugh and joke with me and he made me feel safe. And one day he was gone. And he’s never been back. It’s like he turned into a whole other person. Or maybe I did. And I could never understand... I could never understand what I did. Because it seemed like I had to have done something.” And for some reason the words were coming now in great rushing torrents, and she was telling him things that she had never even let fully form inside of herself. All these uncomfortable feelings that she pushed to the side whenever possible. All these things that she never wanted to think about or talk about or spend one moment longer than she had to with.
“He wasn’t a distant father. He was agoodfather,” she whispered, the words scratchy. “And then he was just gone. How does it happen like that? How can someone just change like that?”
An unsolvable problem. The one that had started it all. Had made her afraid. To care, to feel bad—because how could you ever know if you’d feel right again?
“Because people are messed up,” Gus said. “And they have demons that are difficult to see. And I’m not excusing them. Any man that can leave his kids like that... He doesn’t deserve any excusing. Okay?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“I’m just saying, I don’t think it was you. Whatever it was, it was him. He was the one that couldn’t keep his promises or handle his life. He was the one.”
She really hoped that he would share. About his mother. Instead, he stood up, and started collecting his clothes.
And she slowly put her own on.
They packed all their things up, and put them back in the truck. And right when Gus got in the truck, just before he closed the door he said, “My mom used to bring us here for picnics.”
And he didn’t say anything more, but she felt like he had handed her a piece of his heart, no explanation, just that simple and that deep.
There was so much in Gus that he couldn’t say. And she realized right then that what she wanted more than anything was to be the one that he said them to.
Somehow. Someday. That was what she wanted.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ITWASTOWNhall day, and Gus couldn’t really focus on his presentation, because he was obsessing about his wife. An easy thing to do, when she was blowing his mind multiple times every night. He hadn’t had this much sex in...ever. Because he was so selective, because of the way he did things, and because of...
Because he didn’t like to give himself what he wanted. Not too often. But hell, he’d dropped that completely with her. He was getting exactly what he wanted all night long. For the last three nights. And he was feeling pretty damn good about it.
After the picnic, they’d gone to their separate rooms, and then last night, they’d ended up making love on the couch, before going their separate ways. It suited him. That little bit of distance and time to clear his head.
Because damn...
She was something else, that woman. A firecracker that was too hot to handle.
But he had to get his head on straight, and think about the meeting. Not that he was up against any opposition. It should be pretty straightforward. It was just any time you had to come forward and ask for a bigger share of the community money, he felt you needed to be certain of what you were asking for.
Transparency was a huge part of what made all this work.
Transparency...
The word stuck in his chest. Well. Transparency when it came to professional things was different than personal things.
Alaina wouldn’t like any transparency in him.
He went downstairs and there was Alaina, dressed in another one of those pretty summer dresses, her arms laden with baskets.
