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Fuck.
Valentine’s Day.
It hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Of course, there was no reason for the holiday to cross my mind, since I didn’t exactly have anyone to celebrate it with. And now that Damon had pointed it out, I couldn’t stop thinking about Lamise.
“I don’t think she had plans,” I told him.
“Really? Avalon told me she was gorgeous, so I guess I just assumed she’d have a date if she wasn’t already in a relationship,” he replied.
Avalon wasn’t wrong.
Lamise was gorgeous. When I first took notice to how beautiful she was that first day she walked into the office to hand in an application and resume, I felt guilty for even noticing it. While some guilt still lingered, I realized it wasn’t wrong to admit the truth.
Lamise was beautiful, in more ways than one.
“Her fiancé died last summer,” I blurted.
That declaration caused Damon to take his eyes off the road. “What?”
“Snake bite while he was out with their dog, who subsequently went missing,” I revealed.
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Following a beat of silence, Damon asked, “So, that just came up in random conversation when you got home from work one day?”
I wasn’t very good at this whole sharing thing, but I’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t always smart to keep everything to myself.
There was no time like the present to start sharing. “Not exactly. I never told Lamise about Violet, and she wound up assuming I was going through a divorce when she never met Rhys’s mom. Long story short, I finally told her the truth, and she ended up sharing what happened to her fiancé and her dog.”
“Wow. It’s kind of crazy to think the two of you happened to find each other,” he noted.
While I knew he didn’t necessarily mean it the way I took it, Damon’s words rang in my head. Hearing him say Lamise and I had found each other had caught me off guard. Because I liked it and hated it all at the same time. Because it indicated, at least in my mind, that we were together in some way.
And we weren’t.
Because Lamise wasn’t Violet, and I wasn’t Graham.
“We’re just friends who understand what each other is going through,” I told him.
“I wasn’t suggesting there was anything more than that going on between the two of you, Banks. I can’t even begin to imagine what I’d do in your situation; though, I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong way to move forward after what you’ve been through. Either way, I’m glad you’ve got someone you can trust to watch Rhys and who can understand what you’ve been through.”
That was precisely how I felt.
Based on what she’d said to me, Lamise felt the same.
Despite that, I had to wonder if she had Valentine’s Day on her mind today. Was she thinking about how she didn’t have anyone ready to take her out for dinner or to bring her flowers?
“Thanks, Damon.”
“No problem. And as Avalon told you before, you know we’re always free to watch Rhys for you, if you ever need us,” he offered.
“I know. That means a lot.”
A few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot. Damon drove up, parked beside my truck, and said, “Good work today.”
