The First Move Page 13

  At another table, a man yanked a fork and spoon from a young girl who was using them as drumsticks and handed them to the mother, who promptly gave them back to the child. Renia had never had a child—never raised a child, she corrected with a pang—but it seemed late for the girl to be up. The girl looked like she was wavering between John Bonham and falling asleep.

  Two women sat at another table. The one with short, wild hair was wearing clubbing clothes and the other, in a T-shirt and tightly curled braids, wavered between a lecture and amusement at her friend’s attire.

  Three different, complicated relationships, all with their own rules and bonds. She understood the two women. Another day, she could be one of those women, sitting across from Amy or Tilly, and sharing secrets, hopes and fears over a glass of wine.

  Previously, if a man had ever started to look at her like the man holding the woman’s hand, she’d have been out of that relationship faster than a camera could snap the picture.

  She hadn’t even given herself the chance to imagine the two-parents-and-a-kid relationship. The cowardly side of her could never figure out when would be the right time to tell a man she had a child who might contact her. Having a child as a teenager wasn’t even that big of a deal anymore, not like it would’ve been for her mother. But circumstances had made Ashley a secret, and once closeted away, Renia had felt obliged to keep her there.

  Miles knew about her daughter. He knew and he hadn’t turned away. Neither did he turn away after Renia had hung up on Ashley and admitted to being uncertain whether she wanted a relationship with her daughter. Instead of condemning her, he helped. And, once or twice, she thought she’d caught him gazing at her like the man in the corner was gazing at his dinner companion. She’d only seen out of the corner of her eye and the hunger was gone before she could be absolutely certain it had been there, but if he knew her secrets and still looked at her that way...

  Someone bumped into the back of her chair.

  “Jeremy, say excuse me.”

  “Give me time to say it on my own, Mom, and maybe I will.”

  “Don’t you take that tone of voice with me.”

  Renia glanced at Miles, who smiled and shrugged. “Teenagers. Can’t live with ’em. Can’t lock ’em in a closet until they’re twenty-five.”

  Tightness held her chest until she coughed it away. He had a teen daughter. She was thinking of starting a relationship with a man who had a teenager. A nice teenager, but no less scary. That her teen daughter had called her, wanted something from her, and Renia didn’t think she could offer it to her, scared her. She wrapped her hands around her coffee cup for warmth to stop the shivering, but there wasn’t enough heat coming through the crockery.

  “Hey,” Miles said after reaching across the table and unwrapping her fingers from the coffee cup so that he could cup them in his hands, “you’re not the only one terrified by this. If we leap, we leap together.” He nudged her salad closer to her. “Eat your food. You’ll need your strength for the jump.”

  She forked lettuce, feta and olives into her mouth, letting the salt and brine wake up her senses. She was starving. Miles turned to ask the waitress for more water and she grabbed a fry. When he turned back to her with amusement in his eyes, she took two more.

  * * *

  MILES DROVE REY back to her apartment, dropping her off right in front of her building’s front door. She didn’t linger in the car to be kissed good-night and, despite having stared at her wide pink mouth all through their dance lessons and dinner, he didn’t reach for her.

  He knew nothing about taming a wild animal or breaking a horse, but this slow give-and-take of building trust seemed to be what all the horse movies Sarah had watched with her friends when she was ten were about. Go as far as the animal will let you, take one more step, then wait for the animal to get used to that extra push before you take another.

  Only, wanting a pony had been a phase for Sarah and his desire for Rey might be permanent. She was a beautiful, elegant woman who used her placid demeanor to blanket burning emotions. Her emotions were there, smoldering under the surface. And fear was not her only emotion. While she was dancing, concentrating too hard on her steps to keep the blanket tucked tight, he saw hunger and, even better, joy.

  Once he learned what to look for, Rey’s thoughts over dinner had been easy enough to read. When she was upset, her elegant, smooth gestures slowed down and she reached for something solid to grasp. Her eyes brightened and she tilted her head to the side when she was pleased. There were no groans, grins or raised eyebrows, though he had made her laugh tonight. Rey’s emotions were held deep inside her, only the very edges showing in her features.

  She had wrapped her hands around her coffee mug because a relationship scared her. Not just a relationship with him, she was frightened by a possible relationship with her daughter. Her relationship with her mother seemed fragile and, as far as he could tell, the only solid relationships she had in her life were with her sister and friend. She seemed to like her brother well enough, but spoke about him as if he were some mythical creature looming large above her.

  He pulled into his garage, turned his car off and let his head fall to hit the steering wheel. Who was he kidding? He was thinking about Rey as if she were the only one with problems, completely ignoring the fact that he had nearly let his hurt and betrayal ruin Sarah’s relationship with Cathy. No, ruin was too easy a term. Poison was better. Rey should be scared of a relationship with him. Hell, look at how he’d reacted to an innocent photo shoot.

  He got out of the car and slammed the door on his past. Better, but not enough. He slammed the door from the garage into the house and pictures rattled on the walls. The crash of glass on the floor would be more satisfying, but the sane part of his mind knew he wouldn’t want to clean up the mess.

  Like stupid divorcing parents the world over, he’d thought Sarah didn’t hear what he called her mother behind closed doors, that she wouldn’t see how he treated Cathy like she were a slug he pulled off the deck. Cathy had tried to tell him, and his spiteful response had been that Sarah was a smart girl and knew to stay away from the parent who would someday forsake her.

  He tossed his keys on the table and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water, enjoying the clatter of metal as his keys slid across the wood and hit the floor. His stomach burned with shame as he thought about what he’d said when Cathy had begged him to reconsider his words. “Trying to cheat me out of my daughter now,” he’d said with a sneer. Then he’d followed that up by telling her to go sleep with her own personal Dick before closing the door on her and turning the dead bolt to lock her out.

  The admiration in Rey’s voice when she talked about his current relationship with Cathy would make him laugh, except there wasn’t anything funny in his memories. The breaking point had been when twelve-year-old Sarah had been on the phone with his mother and called Cathy a bitch. His mom had given him the ear-blistering of a lifetime. He started counseling and found a divorce support group. He discovered not all martyrs took their pain silently. When he suffered, he struck out at everyone around him.

  As he filled his glass, he had to admit the counseling and support group hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t really changed his ways until his mom gently hinted that Sarah would be forced to choose between her two parents, much like his father had tried to make Miles choose. You don’t want to spend the summer with your mom while she’s just lounging around the house, do you, son? I’ll pay for you to go to both computer
science camp and engineering camp.

  Miles had been a smart kid, but not smart enough to notice his father was trying to buy his affection and made his gifts conditional on not spending time with his mom. The fifth time he’d asked his father to take him to a Bears game, like they did before the divorce, and his father said he was too busy, Miles had begun to wonder why his father only wanted to spend time with him during school vacations, when his mom was off work. If his mom was busy, so was his father. Miles didn’t want to be that divorced dad, the one so jealous or mad at his child’s mother that he infected the bond between them.

  He drank the entire glass of water in three big gulps, which did nothing to help the heartburn his memories—and probably the cheese fries—were giving him. He dug around a cabinet for some antacid.

  Though the divorce support group taught him that he wasn’t the worst divorcing spouse in Atlanta, he had to admit as he crunched on the tablets that he hadn’t been the most well-adapted, either.

  He’d gone to the library and had taken out books on forgiveness, and he stopped saying malicious things about Cathy around Sarah. Once that got to be natural, he started speaking about Cathy with the respect due to the mother of his child. Eventually, his feelings followed his words, Sarah followed his lead and now they were the happy, blended family Rey admired.

  He poured himself a glass of milk and looked at the photo of Sarah on the fridge. Cathy had gotten him the Bears magnet for his birthday one year and the picture was Sarah gloating over her win in their fantasy football league. Cathy had announced her intention to marry Richard the day after that picture was taken.

  Cathy’s wedding had been a test of their new family dynamic, and they had passed. What he had told Rey at dinner was true. He wasn’t, and had never been, in love with Cathy. He wasn’t angry with her anymore and any desire to hang on to the remnants of their marriage was gone. He was done with the “growing acceptance” stage of divorce and ready to move on to “new beginnings.”

  Rey wasn’t the only scared one in this burgeoning relationship. He’d learned many things about himself during his divorce and one of them was that he could cause pain to the people he loved without batting an eye.

  The thought he might do such a thing to Rey was chilling.

  The sound of the television stopped him at the bottom of the stairs. The den was completely dark, except for the light coming from the screen. Sarah was sitting on the floor, her back against the couch and a bowl of nuts and an open can of pop next to her.

  “Sarah, what are you doing still up? It’s almost eleven and you’re supposed to go to Rey’s studio tomorrow.”

  “Bad date?” She didn’t even turn around.

  “No.” He walked around to stand between her and whatever vampire-high-school drama she was watching. “Are you going to be able to get up in the morning?”

  “It’s only ten-thirty and I’m not six. Just because you had a bad date doesn’t mean you have to yell at me.”

  “I didn’t have a bad date!” She looked up at him with wide eyes and he lowered his voice. “The date was fine. Why do you keep saying it was bad?”

  She pressed Mute on the remote. The light from the skinny vampires with fast cars on the TV created flashing shadows on her face. When she opened her mouth, light glinted off the braces on her teeth. “You slammed the door and threw your keys. Did you have a good date?”

  “I didn’t know you were still up.”

  “The slamming door would’ve woken me up.” She tilted her head to the side to see around him and he sighed. This was not a battle he was going to win, even if he could get her to stop talking about the slammed door. He plopped on the floor next to her and helped himself to a handful of nuts.

  “My date was good, I think. I like Rey. I think she likes me.” He wasn’t going to tell Sarah that he was beating himself up over how he’d acted during the divorce, especially since it might only make her feel bad, but he had to tell her something. “I’m sure dating as a teenager is hard. I don’t know, I didn’t do it. But I have thirty-four years of life—good parts and bad—hanging over me as I try to date. And I don’t even have experience from before your mother to turn back to. I’m flying blind here, and it’s a little scary.”

  “She has really good hair. You should compliment her hair.”

  “Her hair is nice.” He’d always had a thing for Rey’s eyes but... “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Before he went to bed, Miles sent Rey a text.

  Don’t think I didn’t notice you skipped out of the car before I could kiss you.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  OVER THE NEXT week, Sarah was a big help to Renia and Amy at the studio. The teen was interested in the workings of a photography studio and seemed to enjoy organizing. She didn’t even mind data entry, something Amy always put off. More importantly, she kept Renia from disappearing into her own thoughts and staring at the blinking line on her computer when she didn’t have clients in front of her. Miles brought them lunch every day. The three of them—four, if it was Amy’s day to work—would sit around her small table, eat their takeout and talk about their day.

  While sharing a meal and their lives, Renia felt a part of their family. Only Miles never once asked her to come home with them for dinner. He never asked her out on a date. And, after sending her that text, he never even tried to kiss her when Sarah’s back was turned.

  He touched her almost constantly when he was at her studio for lunch. His hand would brush hers, and linger, when he passed her food. He’d sit just a little too close to her when they ate, or tap the side of his foot against hers when he told a funny story.

  The contact wouldn’t be so bad if he touched her and the sensation went away. Instead, the sensation of his hand on her skin lingered long into the night when she would remember a touch and the corresponding tingle in her belly as she lay in bed. If his small touches were keying him up as much as they were her, his smiles hid the tension.

  Neither Tilly nor Amy were supportive. Tilly’s rushed advice during Wednesday’s dinner service was that Renia had lectured her once on it not being the man’s responsibility to initiate a relationship. Amy had no sympathy, either, saying only, “It serves you right that a man you care about is playing hard to get”—though she smirked if she caught one of Miles’s touches out of the corner of her eyes.

  On Friday morning, Renia was left sitting, confused, in her studio. She didn’t have any clients coming in this morning and was supposed to be spending the day preparing for two weddings.

  Supposed to be was the key part of that thought. “It will probably be as boring here as it would be at home today,” she said to the sighing teenager.

  Renia’s comfortable, controlled life was gone and had been replaced by a not-boyfriend with an ex-wife and bored teenager.

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  It was Renia’s turn to sigh. Unusual relationship turmoil was not part of her normal preparation routine. Neither was a conversation with a once-entertained-and-now-bored teenager.

  “I just don’t have anything for you to do. You’ve been a big help this week, though.” Why had she agreed to have Sarah at the studio today? She’d known she didn’t have anything for the girl to do. “We could develop the film from Monday.”

  “Could I show my mom the pictures? She and Richard get home tonight.”

  “With the other work I have, we’ll probably only get the film developed, not the prints made.”
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  “Well, then let’s look up your daughter.”

  She had to cough to start breathing again. “What?”

  “You know her name, right? Dad mentioned her parents had called.”

  “She’s eighteen. I’m not sure she has enough life experience for me to be able to find her on Google.” The idea that she’d be able to learn about her daughter by poking around the internet was freaky. The girl should have privacy from curious strangers, right? Even if the curious stranger was her birth mother.

  “She probably has a Facebook page. Everyone has a Facebook page.”

  Huh. This seemed a little...creepy. Intrusive, definitely. But waiting around hadn’t gotten her anywhere.

  “You might not be able to see anything but a picture, but that’s more than you have now.”

  A picture. Renia leaned back in her chair and grasped the armrests. They wouldn’t be looking at anything Ashley hadn’t made public to anyone with a Facebook page. She wouldn’t be trying to friend her, just look at her. Still... “Would you want Miles looking at your Facebook page?”

  “My page is private and I don’t post anything I don’t want my parents to see.”

  “So it would be an invasion of her privacy.”

  “It was only a suggestion.” The jeez was implied by Sarah’s tone.

  Renia leaned forward in her chair and shook the mouse to wake up her computer before she could complicate this any further. It was only a few mouse clicks. She wasn’t sitting in her car on the street waiting to see her daughter walk out of the house or stalking her at the grocery store. It was a picture, on a public social network. Passing up the chance would be stupid.

  “Okay.” How had she gotten to this point—using Facebook to track her daughter?