Page 30

She gestures with her chopsticks, “I’ll pay for your manicure and blow out tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you will,” I mutter chugging my Merlot.
We finish quickly and take our wine to the couch by the fire.
Luce chooses to sit cross-legged on the floor with her wine next to her. “I ran into Jeff at Whole Foods. He asked about you.”
I grimace. Talking about my ex is the last thing I want to do.
“He was floored when I told him you moved to Oregon. I almost texted you, because I swear the man started losing his shit.”
“What? That’s crazy. He dumped me.”
“Yeah… I guess knowing you weren’t within arm’s reach anymore really got under his skin.”
“Well, I was within arm reach. Every damn day, for five years. And where did that get me? Dumped on Valentine’s Day, because he felt like being with me was ‘settling’.”
“Douchebag,” she mutters.
“Douchebag,” I agree.
“So,” she leans back on her elbows, “Roger a.ka. Silver Fox—what’s his story?”
“I don’t know. The man is a damn enigma. He barely speaks to me. He won’t even tell me how old he is.”
“Why does that matter?”
I shrug. “Do you think it’s weird I’m attracted to somebody at least twenty years older?”
“No. Hell-o, Brad Pitt, George Clooney? They’re all over fifty and hot as fuck. Besides, I think love is love. If you believe gay people can love who they want: Why shouldn’t you? Age is just a number and all that.”
“True. And they have nothing on Rog. Nothing. The man in finer than Charlie Hunam was in Sons.”
“Get the fuck out.”
“I swear. But the thing is, he was around when Dee was alive and living here. He knew her Luce. What if finding out the answers to my past jeopardizes what I want for my future?”
“I don’t know Dev. But if he was meant to be your future, he won’t hold her sins against you. She wasn’t your mom anyway. Your mom is in Chicago wringing her damn hands and calling me every ten minutes.”
“She knows you’re here?”
She nods. “Since you’ve been gone, I’ve stopped by several times a week. She’s hurt Dev. More hurt that you haven’t contacted her than because you came here.”
My face falls; I stare into my wine like it holds all the answers I’m looking for. “I just don’t know what to say…”
“Bullshit. How about, ‘Hey Ma, I miss you. How you been?’.”
I swallow my wine, feeling the guilt hit the back of my throat along with the heady alcohol and tell myself I’ll call her tomorrow, knowing I won’t. I’ll text instead.
“Enough about me. Tell me about the guys you met at the shore this summer.”
She twirls a few tendrils between her fingers and shrugs, staring at the fire. “There’s nothing to tell. It was a total bust. None of them were interested in anything but scoring weekend ass. I swear to god, Dev, it’s a lost cause. I’m more likely to own a herd of cats than get married at this point,” she grumbles standing up to refill her wine.
“I don’t have the answer to that either,” I groan, staring at my ring finger remembering a time when I thought for sure that by now I’d be wearing Jeff’s ring. I thought by thirty, we’d be married with a baby on the way. But here I am, on the other side of the country, starting a new life and dreaming of a man with the devil’s smile.