I turned in my seat until my back was flat against the backseat, allowing me to turn my head and see the man that I’d been avoiding looking at.
I knew the dark wouldn’t phase him. Knew he’d be able to see me the second I turned my face to his.
Steeling up my walls, and shoving my feelings, as well as my fear of the storm down deep, I said, “Cool beans.”
Cool. Beans.
Out of the massive amount of words I could’ve said, I chose to say the most juvenile thing I could possibly think of.
Four points for Blake!
Not.
The funny thing was, was that I could tell that he was amused by my words.
Something that sounded close to an ‘asshole’ was muttered from the front seat, and Foster’s eyes turned from mine to the real asshole in the front seat, and I could see something exchanged between the two before Foster’s eyes turned out the window.
I sat in silence for the next twenty minutes as David navigated through the winding roads that would lead us towards our destination.
If there was one thing I could say about David, it was that he had an awesome grasp on driving. He’d never once scared me while he was driving.
The harsh lights of the restaurant we were going to startled me short moments later as I thought about how David used to cater to my needs. Never driving in the rain when we didn’t need to. Never driving over the speed limit because he knew I was scared.
Then he had to go and open his mouth.
“Let’s get this done before I need to get home to Berri. She’s got some bad morning sickness,” David said as he bailed out of the truck.
I froze in the act of getting out, heart shriveling up into a tiny, never to be repaired, broken mess.
Oh, God that hurt.
He knew it’d hurt, too.
That’d been why he said it.
Foster’s eyes, the ones that took in everything, saw the hurt that I couldn’t quite cover up.
He offered me his hand, not saying a word, and I took it.
Grasping onto it like a lifeline.
“You were married,” Foster said as he helped me out of the truck.
I nodded.
“For nearly five years,” I said quietly. “He refused to have kids with me.”
“That’s why you left?” He asked quietly, lagging behind to allow space in between David and me.
I shook my head. “I found out he was cheating on me. For nearly two and a half years.”
His jaw worked, as if what he’d heard had disappointed him.
“I didn’t know,” he rumbled.
I shrugged. “Not many people do. And I’ve never seen you around, so I don’t know why you would.”
He didn’t say anything as we made our way inside.
The first person I saw was my Uncle Darren.
He looked at me warily, as if he thought I’d flip the off the handle.
I glared at him, not even bothering to give him a hug.
He’d effectively ruined my night, just by that one tiny act.
But then I realized that my hand was still in Foster’s, and my palms started to sweat.
Did I let go?
Would it be weird if I kept holding his hand?
Wow, his hand is big.
His fingers were nice and long, too.
He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and the watch he had on was awesome.
I wondered if the dash marks glowed in the dark.
“Does your watch glow in the dark?” I asked, my mind blurting it out before I was even aware that I’d said anything.
He let go of my hand, and my heart suddenly lurched.
I was bummed that he’d let me go, but then his hand went towards my back as he steered me towards the side of the table that would have his back against the wall. I went in first, which trapped me in.
However, I found that I kind of liked the feeling.
It was a different feeling.
When David and I used to go out, I’d always been on the outside.
Something about me ‘always needing to pee’ and him not wanting to get up and down every five minutes.
“So how has your first week been?” Foster asked, an odd tone in his voice that made me look at him.
His eyes were on David’s, two tables over, who was staring…well glaring, right back at him.
It was as if David was pissed that Foster was sitting next to me, but I wasn’t sure I could tell you why.
The man was the one to fuck me over, not the other way around.
“Who’s the hotel owner?” I asked to capture Foster’s attention.
He nodded in the direction of the man in the three piece suit and tie sitting catty corner to David. “Old guy, 0300.”
0300.
Military time.
“Do all cops use military time?” I asked.
I never could quite grasp the whole 2400 hours thing. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to figure it out, it just wasn’t happening for me.
Foster shrugged, and his indifference annoyed me.
The earlier nice guy was nowhere to be seen, and in his place was the same man that had looked at me like I was a dumb blond just a short week ago.
Dammit.
I was destined to be forever known as that girl.
“I was in the Navy,” he said once the waitress served us.
I’d ordered sweet tea, while Foster had ordered a bottle of beer. Foster’s, to be exact.
“You’re drinking the same beer as your name,” I said smartly.
His brother, who’d sat across the table from me, piped in with, “We’re named after the beers.”
My mouth dropped open. “That’s cool! I was named after my grandmother’s dog.”
The two men stayed silent for a few moments, processing that, and finally asked, “Why?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t a single clue. Blake is a boy’s name, yet I’ve been called that since birth. I don’t know what my parents were thinking.”
“They were thinking,” my uncle said, sitting down beside Miller. “That they liked the name, and it meant something to them.”
“He was my grandmother’s dog. Apparently, he saved my mom when she was eight months pregnant, alerting her to a carbon monoxide leak in the house. The dog died about two weeks before I was born because he was hit by a car, so they chose to name me after the dog,” I explained more fully.