Page 17 of Fairy Cakes in Winter
In my quest to be adventurous and brave, I’d taken a foolhardy risk and propositioned a veritable stranger to have sex in public. I wondered afterward if we could have gotten arrested or if there were hidden cameras and someone might show up at Mom and Alistair’s home to cart off the visiting pervert and send him back where he belonged.
I’d vacillated between worrying about my soul to wondering if he’d thought about me this week. And that was just…madness. A shared flight and a hand job didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Sane people didn’t pine over handsome strangers they met on planes. I had to snap out of it.
Maybe a trip to Bath with Giles would help me get my head on straight.
I nodded slowly. “Sure. Why not?”
Mom squealed like a schoolgirl, chuckling softly as she filled the electric teakettle with water. “Yay!”
“Nothing is going to happen, Mom.”
“Sparks might fly. You never know!”
Oh, brother.
* * *
Sparks weren’t flying.
No offense to Giles. He was a nice man with a self-deprecating sense of humor and kind eyes. He was good-looking too—at least three inches taller than my five eight, with thinning light-brown hair and angular features. He spoke in a slow, measured cadence and had a habit of walking with his hands behind his back, even when the wind howled along the riverside and whipped at the hem of his coat.
I pulled my olive-green beanie around my ears, humming politely when he paused in front of the abbey and proceeded to give a brief history lesson.
“A monastery has been on this very site, dating to the seventh century. Bath was ravaged after the Normans invaded, but it was much sought-after by the bishops of the time who…”
My teeth chattered in my skull as Giles continued his lecture, pointing out the Gothic design and the stained-glass windows. I had to stop him when he went into detail about the organs, or I’d have frozen on the spot.
“Why don’t we t-take a look in-inside?” I suggested.
“Oh, yes. I’m so sorry. It’s a bit brisk. I don’t know that it will be much warmer inside, but we’ll get tea straightaway afterward.”
An hour later, we were safely tucked next to the second-story window of a bookshop—which according to my research, was a block away from Scott’s pop-up bakery.
I needed to unthaw before I investigated, though. And this was nice.
Giles and I spent twenty minutes or so talking about San Francisco. Apparently, his sister and her husband lived in the Sunset District and he’d fallen in love with the city when he’d visited them last year.
“The parking is better in that area than downtown. That’s for sure,” I commented.
“And the transit system is good. I was able to explore the nightlife in the Castro, and I quite enjoyed it. Do you know, I’m thirty-two and I’d never been to a gay bar till last year.”
His lilting tone made the statement sound like a question. I wasn’t sure what to do with that, so I smiled.
“Never too late.”
Giles chuckled. “The city was quite illuminating. And it’s such a pretty place, with rolling hills and ocean views…gritty yet grand in its own way. I need a change of scenery and frankly, I like the idea of a slice of anonymity that comes with being in a city…even a small one.”
“It can be lonely,” I replied, unthinking.
It was true, but I wasn’t sure why I’d said it. I wasn’t warning him away. It was more of a case of unconscious word vomit, aka the desperate need to unravel my thoughts and confide in someone, anyone.
Maybe that was why I’d connected so much to Scott. We had nothing but that flight in common and the fact that we were both a little…lost. I was looking for a new direction, convincing myself I’d made the right choice by changing careers, while Scott was looking for—actually, I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but I sensed his unrest and I empathized.
Or maybe I’d unwittingly taken advantage of his kindness in a moment of airplane stress and turned it into something more than it was. All the more reason to get him out of my system posthaste.
I turned to Giles with an apology on the tip of my tongue, but something in his expression stopped me.
“One can be lonely in a crowded room. I’m lonely here sometimes, and this is home.” He sipped his tea thoughtfully, then set it down, his fingers still curled possessively around the white cup. “I may be wrong, but I think we control our own happiness. San Francisco isn’t a metaphor for escape for me. It’s just a place I want to immerse myself in while I’m free to do so. I don’t want to look back and regret things I hadn’t done or tried.”