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“No,” he blurted out again. “No, I didn’t buy or sell anything for Gloria.”
“Ah, Gloria.” She smiled at him in a pleasant way, clearly expecting him to say more about his relationship with her.
He supposed he hadn’t said anything more than what he’d put in a text a couple of nights ago. “We were together for a long time,” he said, a sigh pulling through his chest with the words. “Probably a year and a half? Something like that.” He shifted in his chair again, these wrought-iron things not that comfortable. “I asked her to marry me. Twice.” Notwithstanding the terribleness of the water, he reached for his and took a big gulp of it. A horrible moan came out of his mouth, and his face contorted in disgust. “Ugh, big mistake.”
Sage didn’t laugh, but her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “You were trying to hide behind that.”
Ty couldn’t deny it. “A little.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin, which only made his lips drier. “She didn’t wear either ring,” he said. “Told me no twice, but she wouldn’t break-up with me. I ended things with her last summer, about oh, a couple of months before the Heritage Festival.”
Sage nodded, her expression softening. She finally reached over and covered his hand with hers. Finally, that skin-to-skin contact he’d been craving. He expected flashing lights and sirens and an electric kick—and he got all of that and more.
“I was married for twenty-six years to a man who never loved me.” Sage pulled her hand back, and Ty wasn’t fast enough to turn his and grab on to stop her. “I didn’t think—I’m ready to meet someone new,” she said. She went to tuck her hair behind her ears and realized she’d braided it out of the way.
“But I don’t think I knew what I wanted, and when our first date was…sort of dry, I maybe wrote you off when I shouldn’t have.”
Ty didn’t like hearing that the date was dry, but they’d gone to a concert in the park. It had felt safe to him at the time. He’d met her there, bought her dinner from a food truck, and enjoyed the band.
But she was right, there hadn’t been much time for talking or getting to know each other.
“Fair enough,” he said.
“I just have to say,” Sage said. “I want the whole shebang.”
Ty grinned at her, hearing the Texan in her. “The whole shebang? Care to elaborate a little more? Are we talking about the house?”
She shook her head, her eyes sparkling, but her expression somehow also remaining serious. “Not the house. The romance. I want a man to sweep me off my feet. Take me on grand adventures. Kiss me like I’ve never been kissed. I’ve never had the fairy-tale romance, and I want it.” She tried to tuck her hair again, failed again, and finally put her hands in her lap. “It might sound silly. I’m almost fifty, but…I want it.”
“Ah, down here in these parts, we call that ‘everything and a side of grits.’” He grinned at her, and she beamed back at him for a moment, filling his world with her sunshine. When she laughed, it sounded carefree and so, so happy.
Ty realized then that he himself could use some romance. Some grand adventures. Some kissing like he’d never kissed before. He could use some of her laughter, some of her happiness.
He’d dedicated his whole life to work, and what had it yielded him?
Certainly not the kind of carefree joy currently pouring from Sage.
Brother sat up as the food arrived, and Sherman joined him. Gypsy raised his head, but otherwise, he didn’t seem to notice a very big plate of delicious meat had just arrived.
“You feed your dogs from your plate,” Sage said.
“Judge away,” he said good-naturedly.
“I would never.” She acted like he’d insulted her in the worst way possible, and then she fed Gypsy a bit of roast beef. “All right,” she said. “Moment of truth.” She picked up her sandwich and dunked it in the au jus, really soaking up the sauce with the bread.
Ty couldn’t look away from her. She made him feel so alive that he hadn’t even realized how sluggish and dull his life had become. But she possessed an energy he didn’t have all the time, and he wanted it.
She grinned as juices dripped down and she bent toward her sandwich as she lifted it up. She sank her teeth into it, really committing to a full mouthful of bread and meat. Ty couldn’t remember the last thing he’d eaten with that much gusto, that much anticipation.
Sage’s eyes drifted closed as she straightened and moaned. “Oh, yeah,” she said around the mouthful of food. “That’s good.”
He laughed at the garbled quality of the words, though he still got the gist of them. He picked up his enormous sandwich piled with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, with a cranberry relish instead of mayo or mustard and took an equally big bite.
He groaned too, because he hadn’t had this sandwich in a long time, and it was just as meaty, tangy, and salty as he remembered.
“Can I try it?” Sage asked, revealing herself as a food-sharer.
Ty didn’t normally like to share his food, but for her, he would. He pushed his plate toward her, and she nudged hers closer to him. For her, he thought he might do anything, and he told himself toslow down.
She’d said twenty minutes ago that they weren’t dating. He hoped he could change her mind at some point in the near future, and he’d share whatever he had to in order to stay in her good graces.
