Page 54 of Wine & Dine

21

He has a headache

[Dolores]

Sometime after noon on Monday, Garrett cancels our dinner plans.

I have the worst headache.

I haven’t heard this excuse before, though I’ve used it myself on Rusty. He would be pissed instead of sympathetic, and he’d keep his distance for a week to punish me for something I couldn’t prevent.

Is there anything I can do? Bring you something or make you soup later.

I don’t know how soup would help a headache, but I want to offer him comfort.

I get these sometimes. I just need to sleep.

I understand.

Something happened to us yesterday afternoon on our way back. Actually, it happened Saturday evening when it felt like he was making love to me. His eyes, so intense, gazing down at me as he moved with slow, deliberate pulses, filling me and treasuring me. The connection was deep, and I’d never felt like I did at that moment. Not with James. Not with Rusty. Not with a few men between them. The moment was powerful and disturbing, and Garrett tried to distance himself the next morning. I think. There was the morning sex. The finger fucking against a tree. But between those rash, rapid couplings, he still held my hand and spoke sweetly to me. He’s a complete contradiction, and my heart can’t keep up.

Then we returned home. His place. Denton’s place.

“I…I think I need some sleep, tomorrow being Monday.” It was such a strange thing to say, but I didn’t argue. We hadn’t spent overnights together other than this weekend and my Thanksgiving self-imploding. I didn’t want to feel like I was getting a brush-off, but let’s call a spade a spade. I was.

“Okay. Well, thanks for the weekend. I really enjoyed myself.” I tried not to smile too big, no hint of how I was feeling, no coyish recall of the amazing things we did together.

You do things to me, he said.

He did things to me too. Things I was afraid to feel and admit. I’d been down this road before.

Keep it to yourself, Dolores.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” I hated the question in my voice as I toyed with the handle of my bag. He wasn’t going to walk me into Denton’s. He wasn’t going to hold me again. We awkwardly stood in the space between—the no-man’s-land of his place or mine.

“Yeah, how about dinner?” He didn’t sound enthusiastic about it, and my heart sank, but I let it be.

“Sure.” I paused a beat. “Good night.”

He reached for the back of his neck and scrubbed. Tipping his chin to me, he said, “Thanks for coming with me.” I bit my inner cheek. There wasn’t a hint of sexual innuendo, which was so unlike him. Or maybe this was him. I was getting a dismiss-slip from the player next door.

I decided to call my brother to distract me after Garrett’s text. Maybe a familiar voice from home would ground me, remind me I don’t belong here anyway.

This is Oz. Home is calling.

“What was that?” I ask as I hear a crash before Denton even says hello.

“Oh, nothing. Just a little work on Magnolia’s.” He pauses, and then says to me, “Hang on.”

Denton finally agreed with me about moving our grandmother, Magnolia. It is not a good idea. She has lived in her post-Civil War home most of her life, and after losing our mother, I didn’t think another change for her would be in her best interest. Denton wanted to sell the family farmstead, but we learned we couldn’t. The house is tied to the land which loops back to land entitlement. It could only be inherited, never sold.

I’m relieved, as I had hoped, one day, I’d own the house. I don’t have the financial means to fix it up, but one day, it might be mine. Of Magnolia’s two children, one is deceased and the other lives in Texas. Aunt Rosalyn doesn’t wish to ever return to Blue Ridge. There are only three grandchildren living: Tommy Carrigan, our cousin; Denton, and myself. None of us have children, though our deceased cousin, Kit, has two. We are a rather small, sad lot as far as family goes.

Magnolia always told me we were a maternal line, meaning the house went from her grandmother to her mother, who was an only child; to herself, who was an only child; who had two girls. I am the next in line female not to mention the one who has taken care of my grandmother—and her house—for years.

Another crash occurs as I wait for Denton to finish speaking to someone. Then it goes quiet around him.

“Hey.”