Nope.
I can’t even think the L-word with a man I don’t even know, and who’d laugh at me if I told him the track my thoughts were on.
“My studies are going well,” I tell him. “I haven’t flunked out yet. I’m not the top of my class or anything, but…”
He glances at me as we come to a red light. There’s something in his eyes, an intensity I remember from the talk at the Memorial. It was there when he looked at me back then too, and as an eighteen year old girl, I let my mind do silly things, like tell myself he was looking at me that way because he was attracted to me.
But now that I’m older and – hopefully – wiser, I search for a different meaning in his expression.
He smirks. “What?”
“What?”
His smirk widens. “You’re staring at me, Autumn.”
A tingle moves over me as I realize something.
I didn’t give him my name. And he said he didn’t recognize my cell phone number, which means I wasn’t saved in his contacts list.
Does that mean anything? Or maybe he’s just good with names.
“I could say the same about you,” I counter.
He chuckles. “Fair enough. But I don’t want to pry.”
He turns back to the road as the light changes, guiding us down the street.
“It’s not prying.”
My hands are gripping my legs way too hard, but my body needs an outlet for some of this tension. My nails jab into my skin, my thighs tingling as I imagine his hands there instead, grabbing possessively.
“It was just, back at the restaurant, when I told that lie about your mother. The excuse.”
I swallow. “Oh, that.”
“We don’t have to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“It’s not a big deal. I mean, it is. It is a big deal, but I’ve tried to move on. About a month after I saw you at the Memorial, my mom, and dad... and don’t laugh at this, please.”
“Why would I laugh?” I feel his gaze on me, burning into my flesh. “This is clearly upsetting to you.”
“People have laughed before.”
“People?”
“Well, a person. A really mean and cruel and… I don’t want to get into that. The thing is, my parents died in a hot air balloon crash. They booked a ride for their anniversary. It was a freak accident. Apparently it hardly ever happens. That’s what they told me like it was going to make me feel better. It hardly ever happens. Anyway…”
I swallow and stare stubbornly out the window, unwilling to meet his gaze. Maybe he’s smiling, the way some people do after I tell them. It’s not that they find it funny, more like they can’t quite believe it and don’t know how to react.
“I’m sorry, Autumn,” he says in his deep gruff voice. “That’s messed up. I’m so, so sorry.”
I wave a hand, fighting down the emotions that try to rise up. With Declan, I had to learn to keep my emotions masked. Otherwise, he’d find ways to use them as weapons and hurt me.
“It was three years ago.”
“They were still your parents.”
I nod, part of me glad he didn’t accept my excuse, glad he recognizes how much it hurts me every single day.
But I can’t let him see that.
I’ve done too much already, sharing it with him.
We drive in silence for a while, leaving my thoughts to swim in my head.
It should be ridiculous, all these fantasies that spiral into my mind. I see Asher with our son sitting on his knee, his arm wrapped around our child as he reads from a heavy book. I see our son’s smile and Asher’s eyes light up when our child laughs at a funny line.
I feel Asher’s hands on my shoulders, imagine his face inches from mine as he tells me he cares about me and he always will… he’ll never let anything happen to me, to us, to our family.
It’s difficult to push the thoughts away, far more difficult than it should be. I have to keep reminding myself that I met this man once, years ago, but it does nothing to lessen the effect he has on me.
“What about your parents?” I ask, mostly to break the silence.
“Oh, they’re fine,” Asher says. “They moved to Spain a few years ago to retire. We still keep in contact. They love their lives over there.”
“That’s really great.”
Another silence ensues as we get closer to my apartment. I find myself praying for fate to intervene and bust one of the tires, making it so Asher and I have to spend more time together. I find myself wishing for a storm or sudden heavy snowfall, something that would mean we’d have to pull over and wait for it to pass…
And then what?
It’s not like he’d immediately leap on me if we did pull over. He’s a good man who answered a text from a woman he thought was in distress, nothing more. I’m doing myself no favors by reading too much into this situation.