“The salmon would be good.” She smiled up at the guy as he jotted something down on a pad of paper in his hand.
“Let’s make it easy. We’ll just do two of those.” I turned my attention back to her, finding her eyes locked on me.
Her chin was cupped in her right palm. It was as if she was ready to compete in a stand-off, but I would always be defeated. My muscles shivered as I gazed into her blue, crystal clear eyes.
Her long, blonde hair was tied in a messy bun again. She looked like a princess or a goddess. Someone with high royalty, majestic ways, or supreme charm. I could not help but smile upon seeing this wonderful woman’s sweet face.
“So, how many girls have you taken out on a date?” Kylie posed the question, teasing me about tonight’s dinner date. Pretending to count using my fingers, I answered her with a joke.
“Sorry, but I lost track of them all.” It was a weird question, but something told me she was still a little off because of Bailey teasing her over stealing me. It was trivial, but it was obviously still bothering my girl.
She rolled her eyes, knowing that I was fabricating things. She leaned closer and looked at me with keen eyes. She asked again, hoping for a factual answer. “No kidding.”
There was no need to count. I knew perfectly well how many women I took out on a date. “You’re the second lucky girl.”
She grimaced, giving me a skeptic glare. Just in time, the waiter delivered our salads. As we carried on with our food, she brought up the topic again, curious about my dating experiences. “No way there have just been two of us.”
“Yes, way. The first one was Vince’s mother. I loved her very much, but I guess the lesson I learned from our separation was that love wasn’t enough.” I picked up my beer that I’d ordered and drank deeply from it, hating that the conversation was headed here, but it needed to. For us to start getting serious about us, I needed to open up and share myself with her. “I wasn’t enough.” Reminiscing about the past was a bad idea, but necessary. It hurt to even think about it.
“I’m sorry, Hunter, but I’ll tell you one thing. You’re more than enough.” She reached across the table and ran her fingers over mine. “Would you hate me if I asked to hear the story? I just want to know what happened. If you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to. Seriously.” She leaned closer, the emotion in her eyes moving from skeptic to sympathetic.
“Linda was her name. She was my college sweetheart. Ever since we met, we knew there was a spark between us, that we were going to spend our lives together. We had been together for five years when she left, and I’d never imagined my life without her. We planned out the future together. We believed that there was not a thing that could separate as. That, surprisingly, was a single-sided view looking back. Those were all the things I thought, but obviously, she had a different idea.”
Her eyes were sad by merely listening to my story. She nodded, telling me to carry on. “What happened?”
“So, on our fourth anniversary, she gave me the best gift ever: Vince. She said she was pregnant, carrying my little one inside of her. Hearing her say that, I cried and knelt down before her. I did not plan anything about it. It was just a random thought. I proposed to her, and she said yes. It was the best day of my life, or so I thought.” I took another drink of the beer, realizing that no one knew this story but me.
Kylie looked down, her eyes filled with unshed tears. “You don’t have to keep going.”
I reached out and took her hand. “I want to.” I continued my story. “Life had never been better than when I was living with Linda. My dreams were coming true. Things were tough, but with her and Vince with me, I felt I could do anything. I worked hard to support our little family, starting everything from scratch.”
“What happened to her
?” she asked, her eyes avoiding me. Had I upset her somehow? I bristled at the thought. She’d brought it up, and I was simply trying to be fully open with her.
I answered her question anyway. “Back then, we lived in my father’s house. He’d passed away years before, so the house was unoccupied. Everything was tough for us. My business had failed many times, and most of the time, my pockets were empty. I leaned into my father’s pension for support for a while, which was hard as hell. Linda was understanding in some ways, and not in others. But everything changed when she gave birth to Vince.” I looked at her as I was about to tell the most painful part of my life.
“Vince?” Kylie looked up. “What would change when the baby was born?”
“I don’t know, but she was different. She became ill-tempered and disoriented with things. She even neglected taking care of Vince when he was a baby. I can still hear her screaming in my face about how disgusting and troublesome he was. Everything was falling apart in my business, and I was on the verge of closing the doors. Instead of being there to support one another, Linda was dragging me deeper into the ground.” Finally, her eyes met mine.
She was ready to hear the naked truth of my bitter past. “I’m sorry, Hunter.”
“Me too.” I finished the beer and sat it down, needing some closure. “And the worst part? She was always out on the town. Whenever I asked her where she’d been, she’d get fucking furious and go ballistic. One day, when I came home stressed from work, I found Vince alone in the house crying. I searched the house and found Linda packing her things up, ignoring him. She left us without even caring to answer my questions or explaining where she was going or why. Later, I found out that she had an affair with someone and ran away with him, far away from Mesquite.” I let out a heavy breath, my heart sinking. “For the longest time, I thought I had moved on, but I hadn’t. I felt like if I had done better in the business or been more of a man for her, she wouldn’t have left.” I swallowed the pain stuck in my throat. “But it doesn’t matter. She fucked with my son, and even if she came back today…I’d kick her to the curb. Period.”
Kylie squeezed my hand and looked at me with sad eyes. “Does Vince know about any of this?”
“No, and he never will.” I recalled how Vince asked several times about his mother. “I always told him that she died giving birth to him and her ashes were spread in the ocean. I feel sorry for lying to him, but it was the best thing I could do to keep him away from heartbreak. She hated him, Kylie. No clue why. He’s the best thing that ever has happened to me.”
She squeezed my hand tighter, nodding as I looked at her. “That’s right. She’s a fucking idiot for not loving him silly and even more so for leaving you. I’ve never met a man as good as you. Don’t doubt your worth for a second.”
I winked at her. “Enough of this. Let’s eat.” I moved back as the food was delivered, grateful that the conversation was over, but knowing that some part of the taint of losing my first wife hung over me. It always would.
After we had finished our meals, I asked for the check. I stood up after leaving the amount due on the table, and leaving the excess for the tip. We left the restaurant at around 8:30 p.m. Good. Plenty of night left for fun.
I drove us home as quickly as I could, my desire to touch her and take care of her almost overwhelming me. As soon as Kylie and I entered the house, we both collapsed on the couch next to each other, full as hell. Kylie was sitting beside me, her head lifted up, eyes closed. She was panting heavily. I watched as her chest rose and fell. Her mouth was parted a little, inviting me over for a taste.
“God, you look good, baby.” I wanted to have her again. I scooted toward her, whispering in her ear what’s on my mind. “We have the house for ourselves tonight—”