Beautiful Mistake

“Keep out of my personal life, Rachel.”

I opened my mouth to apologize, but he cut me off.

“You should get to your other job. It might be the only one you have soon.” With that, he grabbed his leather bag and was up the stairs and out of the classroom before I could even shut my big mouth, which had been hanging open.

He punctuated his exit with a slam of the classroom door that left the walls shaking in his wake.

“You sure everything is okay?”

It was the third time Charlie had asked. The first time was when I dropped a full tray of drinks on the floor. Two of the glasses shattered, and I was so dazed cleaning it up that I sliced open my finger. The second time, I was lost in my head and over poured a beer from the tap. Now he was getting ready to leave, and his face was etched with concern.

“I’m fine, Charlie. Just a little tired,” I lied. “I stayed up working on my thesis, and I have a bit of a headache. But I’m fine. I’m sorry about earlier.”

“I could give two shits about the glasses as long as you’re okay.” He looked me in the eyes. “You’re sure? I can stay and you could take off.”

I smiled. “I’m good. But thank you.”

Wednesday night was the slowest night of the week anyway. It was just Al and me tonight, an old retired cop friend of Charlie’s who worked the bar a few nights a week. I was glad Ava wasn’t working so I wouldn’t be grilled about my mood. All evening, my emotions had jumped back and forth between feeling bad that I’d pried into Caine’s life and feeling pissed that he’d been such an asshole when I mentioned his past.

There were only a few customers in the small, open dining area that adjoined the bar, which left me ample time to overanalyze what had transpired between me and Caine this afternoon. Clearly I’d ventured into territory where I wasn’t welcome, but it didn’t feel like it was because of our pseudo employee-employer relationship. He led the way poking into my personal life, so it wasn’t as if having a personal-ish relationship was out of bounds for him. This felt more like I’d touched a nerve than pushed the boundaries too far. He’d said, “Keep out of my personal life,” yet for reasons that didn’t make any sense, I was certain he meant Keep out of this area of my personal life.

But that wasn’t what was bugging me. Don’t get me wrong, I felt bad that I’d upset him. I would have felt bad for intruding on anyone’s life in an area where they didn’t want a flashlight shined. What was confusing was the degree to which it bothered me. I was attracted to Caine on a physical level, that I couldn’t deny—who wouldn’t be? But him being so curt and upset made me realize my attraction to him was more than physical. I was crushing on my damn professor. Since that first day after class, I’d been drawn to him on another level.

Just before nine, I came out of the ladies’ room and checked on my one remaining couple who lingered at their table having coffee. Out of my peripheral vision, I spotted someone who had seated himself at one of the pub tables and went over to make sure he knew the kitchen was already closed for the day. I was shocked to find it was Caine sitting alone at the table.

“Professor? What are you doing here?”

His eyes answered for him. There was trouble lurking in the background. “Can you sit for a few minutes?”

“Ummm…sure. Let me just drop off the bill at my last table, and I’ll let Al know they’ll bring it up to him when they’re ready.”

Caine nodded. “Thank you.”

When I returned, there was already a Diet Coke on my side of the table and a beer in front of Caine. Untying my apron, I sat down and waited for him to speak.

“I want to apologize for this afternoon,” he said.

“I should be the one to apologize. I shouldn’t have been poking around in your personal life.”

“That’s true.” He smiled. “But I was wrong for the way I reacted.”

I shook my head. “If there’s anyone who should know there are things in people’s pasts they might not want brought up, it’s me.”

Caine nodded. He rubbed one finger around the top of his beer bottle. “I listened to some Johnny Cash tonight.”

“You did?”

He held my eyes. “I think we both have parts of our lives we’d rather not shake for fear of waking them up.”

That described perfectly the way I felt about my past. For the most part, I’d moved on and didn’t think about it on a daily basis. But it was always with me, and I worked hard to keep it locked away.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I really wasn’t thinking. I’m sure there’s a reason you don’t mention your history in your classes.”

Caine drank his beer, watching me over the rim. When he set it down, he asked, “How did you find out?”

I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. “A friend of a friend.”

He nodded.

I thought it was best to come clean all the way. I took a deep breath before confessing. “And I might have Googled you. Well, not you. Adam’s other son.”

Caine shook his head, but there was a sad smile on his face. “I needed a haircut.”

“You were in style. I liked it. You had the whole sexy-bad-boy thing going on.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I go to the barber.”

“Can I just ask you one thing?”

“Will it help put this shit to bed?”

I smiled. “It will.”

“What’s your question?”

“The last article I read said you’d signed a record deal. But I couldn’t find an album. What happened?”

Caine was quiet for a while. His thumb rubbed at the label of his beer bottle when he spoke. “The lifestyle was tough. Partying, staying up all night, sleeping away half the day. It made me lose track of reality and my priorities.” He looked up at me. “After we signed with the label, we missed honoring the deadlines a few times. Album kept getting pushed back. Then I lost someone close to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “I took some time off. My parents pushed me to go back to college. I needed something to focus on. They wanted me to study finance and work in the family business. We settled on a degree in music because I couldn’t imagine not having it be a big part of my life. Later realized I was good at teaching musical composition, so kept going until I finished my doctorate.” He lifted the beer bottle and tilted it to me before bringing it to his lips. “And here I am.”