Autumn
Friday before Thanksgiving, I went to the Panache Blanc to pick up my paycheck. It was the first time I ever dreaded a payday. It wasn’t going to be enough to get me out of the hole from spending ten days in Nebraska.
Dad was released from the hospital and Mom had set him up in the downstairs den. It had an adjoining bathroom so he wouldn’t have to deal with stairs. He insisted I go back to Massachusetts before I fell further behind in my classes and work. I hated to leave. He still looked so pale and thin. Things were bad at the farm and getting worse with every day he had to stay in bed.
“There’s nothing you can do here,” he told me. “If you want to do something to help, get back to school. Pursue your dream.”
“I don’t know what my dream is, Daddy,” I’d said.
“You will. It’ll come to you, and when it does, you’ll wonder how you never saw it there, waiting for you all this time.”
At the bakery, Weston was at his usual table in the corner, head bent over his work. His pen moved quickly over a page, his jaw hard, his eyes nowhere else. I said hi to Phil, slipped into the back room to get my paycheck, and slipped out again. I tore into the envelope, wanting to face the disaster head-on.
I stopped short, mouth falling open and tears flooding my eyes as I read the amount on the check—an extra five hundred dollars that had no business being there.
God, Edmond…
“Are you okay?”
From his table, Weston stared at me, the angular lines of his face drawn down with concern. I wiped my face and slumped into the chair opposite him. I set my paycheck on the table.
“Edmond’s kindness is making me emotional. He’s giving me a ‘Thanksgiving bonus.’” I made air quotes around the word. “Only there’s no such thing. He’s making up for the pay I lost while I was in Nebraska.”
“Sounds like Edmond. But you don’t like taking charity,” Weston said, not quite a question.
I shook my head. “Pride is a weird thing. If the situation were reversed and someone I cared about needed money, I’d give it without a second thought. Why is taking it so much harder?”
Weston nodded. “Yeah, I know how that is. But are you going to be okay?” He gestured to the envelope. “Money-wise, I mean.”
“I don’t know.” Dread lay heavy in my stomach. “I really don’t know if I’m going to be able to stay in school. Or if I even should. It feels selfish when my family is suffering so much. I feel like there’s nothing I can do to help, and I’m so far away.”
“How bad is it?” he asked.
“Not great. Dad was already shorthanded before the heart attack. He was probably working himself harder to make up for it, but it’s the planting season. The most important part of the year, and my brother says that we owe the bank money from an old loan. Dad’s going to have to sell off some acreage to make up for it.”
Weston’s expression was thoughtful as he nodded. This guy observed everything and missed nothing.
His diamond mind…
I huffed a breath and waved my hand. “Anyway, I hate talking about money. I thought the prelim track season was over until spring. What’s a runner like you doing in a place like this?”
“Best carbs in town.”
I laughed and pointed to the crust of sandwich left on his plate. “You going to eat that?”
“Help yourself.”
I took a bit of wheat bread crust. “Carbs I can accept. Money, not so much.”
“Bread is easier to accept than bread,” Weston said.
I laughed again and gestured to his work. “Am I keeping you?”
“I’m okay,” he said. His eyes were soft. “You?”
“Not really. On top of everything else, I’m panicking about my grades. As opposed to panicking about my Harvard application.” I ran my hands over my hair, yanking it back from my face and letting it fall again. “I’m really sinking. If I don’t maintain my GPA I’m going to be in trouble with this school, never mind Harvard.”
Weston nodded. “I had a partial NCAA and it ran out last year. I’ve been able to stretch the living stipend through this year because Connor’s parents are paying our rent. But next year?” He raised his lean muscled shoulders in a shrug.
“Student loans?” I asked.
“I don’t want to be saddled with that kind of debt. My mother’s been in debt her entire life. It scares the shit out of me. I’m thinking about Army Reserves.”
I sat back in my chair. “The Army. Really? Things are really a mess in Syria right now. And the war in Afghanistan seems like it will go on forever.”
“It’s only the Reserves,” he said. “One weekend a month.”
“What if the service falls on a track meet weekend?”
He shrugged again. “Bottom line, I have to take care of my mom and sisters and I need a degree and a decent job to do it.”
Mother and sisters. No father. Weston never mentions his father.
“I’m looking forward to meeting your family next weekend,” I said.
“Brace yourself,” Weston said. “You’re basically going to walk into a Mark Wahlberg movie.”
I laughed. “Connor seems really nervous about the day. Are his parents really that hard on him?”
“The Drakes are good people at heart,” Weston said. “They want Connor to be his best self. But they don’t get that his best self doesn’t involve being in his dad’s business, or politics, or even being in college.”
I nodded. “I think he’d be happy with his own sports bar.”
“He’d be good at it.” Weston’s pen tapped his page. “At least an economics degree could come in handy for it, even if it’s not what he wants.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Is economics what you really want to do too? Wall Street?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked slowly.
“I don’t know,” I said, and narrowed my eyes at him with a small smile. “Part of me thinks you working with numbers and money makes no sense. The other half thinks you’d make an excellent, cutthroat Wall Street vulture.”
His eyes widened first, then his smile unfolded—a genuine smile free of irony or dryness. It kept growing, unleashing a full-throated laugh in his deep—sexy—voice.
“Oh, you can laugh,” I said, my own smile growing. “I have to say, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself right now.”
His laughter tapered to a chuckle. “I don’t know which title I like better—Amherst Asshole, or Wall Street Vulture.”
I made a face. “I don’t like that name, Amherst Asshole. Where did it come from?”
“Track guys, mostly.”
“That’s because you don’t let them know you. You have facets just like everybody else. Even for a guy who thinks feelings are like tonsils.”
His brow furrowed. “When did I say that?”
“The day we met in the library. You said feelings were like tonsils and if only you could rip them out just as easily.”
“I did say that.”
“Do you still think it’s true?”
His ocean eyes poured into mine. “More than ever.”
The air between us suddenly grew thin. The distance between us felt like inches instead of feet. The dream I had in Nebraska filled my memory. Kissing Connor, then opening my eyes to find Weston holding my face in his hands…
I cleared my throat and looked away, even as some deep part of me wanted to be closer. To know more.
“What?” he said softly.
“I can’t get a read on you, Weston Turner.”
“Why do you always call me Weston, instead of Wes?”
I shrugged. “Wes is usually short for Wesley. Weston is unique.”
“You’re the only one that calls me that.”
“Then I guess I’m unique, too.”
The smallest of smiles touched his lips. “You are.”
“Can I exploit my unique status to ask you another, more personal question?”
“Ask away. But I may exploit my Amherst Asshole status to refrain from answering.”
I softened my voice. “Where’s your dad?”
A flicker along his jaw as his teeth clenched. A flare of anger burned hot in the blue-green waters of his eyes, then extinguished just as quickly.
“That,” he said, “is the million-dollar question.”
“You don’t know?”
“He took off when I was seven.”
“He just…left?”
“Tried to sneak out like the fucking coward he is without having the balls to tell my mom. Or to look my sisters and me in the eye and say he was leaving without us. But we caught him.”
My eyes widened. “You caught him?”
“Ma and I,” he said. “I came down with a fever at school. Ma took me home, and we arrived just as my dad was packing up the car.”
“Oh my God.” My hand itched to grab his. “Weston… What did you do?”
He shrugged, a hard jerk of his shoulders. “He drove off without a word and I chased him.”
“You chased him.”
He nodded. “I chased him. But he didn’t stop.”
I slumped back in my chair. “God. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well…”
My heart ached as pieces of Weston Turner clicked into place for me. Not an asshole, but an abandoned, bewildered kid, grown into a man, chasing that car, always.
“It must’ve been so hard for you, not knowing why he left,” I said.
“Why doesn’t bother me,” Weston said. “The why is he’s weak, cowardly, a pathetic excuse for a man. Plus, a million other insults I’ve called him over the years. Why is easy.” He flicked the edge of his empty plate. “What now is the bitch to accept.”
“What do you mean?”
Weston watched me for a long moment.
“He left my mom with the mortgage and only a haircutting job to pay it. He left her with three kids to support. What now? It was screaming at us from inside our empty house. And that question stretches over the years: What now?”
I leaned forward, silent, listening as Weston spoke more words at one time than I’d ever heard him speak. His voice was low, gravelly, and his accent grew thicker, as he drifted away from me and the bakery, and deeper into the thoughts and memories of his childhood.
“Who do I talk to if I have a crush on a girl?” he said. “Who teaches me how to shave? Or to drive? Ma is crying her eyes out every night, and the crying becomes drinking too many beers, so what can I do? My sisters drop out of school to get jobs and have shitty relationships with shitty guys because they’ve never seen it any other way. A cycle for them, but for me, it was like a pendulum. My childhood swung between What now? and What did I do wrong?”
His long fingers toyed with his pen, doodling hashmarks, tallies on a wall.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, my throat thick. “You were a little boy. It wasn’t your fault.”
Weston glanced up, his eyes soft. “Sometimes that’s harder to accept than money.” He dropped the pen and pressed the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other, cracking them. “Anyway, that’s my sob story. We all have one.”
Mine was a fairytale in comparison. I tried to imagine my dad leaving Mom, Travis and me. Without a word or warning. I’d blame myself, too. I’d seek protection. Build thick walls and insulate them against feeling that kind of pain ever again. A parent’s promise is unconditional love, and Weston’s father broke it.
No wonder he’s angry, I thought. No wonder he’s walled off, holding himself back. The old saying filtered into my thoughts, We accept the love we think we deserve. Sadness clenched my heart because for Weston, it seemed that meant none at all.
“Whatever,” he said, watching me. “I didn’t mean to dump all that on you.”
“I asked you to.”
Weston watched me again, the blue-green of his eyes like sea glass under the café lights.
“We all have our shit. Connor’s life isn’t any easier because he’s got money or both his parents. He’s got double the pressure bearing down on him. I have the responsibility to my mother and sisters.”
“Taking on that responsibility makes you the opposite of an asshole.”
“I know,” he said. “But…”
“But what?”
“Nothing. It is what it is. I’m pissed at my dad and I don’t know how not to be.”
I reached across the table to touch his hand, because I had nothing to say or offer but my presence.
His gaze held mine, the blue-green warm and deep, then it dropped to our hands on the table. His closed around mine, his long fingers folding under my palm, his thumb sliding against my skin. Just as it had done against my cheek in my dream…
My heart began to pound, and I swallowed hard.
“Weston…”
The wind whistled hard against the bakery windows just then. A newspaper slapped hard against the glass, then swirled away in the cold eddies of encroaching winter. Weston stiffened and withdrew his hand.
“It’s cold out,” he said. “How are you getting home?”
“Connor was supposed to meet me.” I checked my wristwatch. “Five minutes ago. We’re going to grab something to eat. You want to come with us?”
“No.”
I bit my lip, not wanting to leave him alone. I wanted to hold his hand again, or put my arms around him and give him a hug. He was a grown man, but my mind kept picturing a little blond boy, standing on an empty street and watching his father drive away.
I want to keep touching him.
The thought was both completely wrong and felt completely right. I fought for something neutral to say.
“You sure? I heard your car broke down.”
“It did,” he said. “But Connor and a buddy of his took it to the garage and had it fixed while I was in class last Monday.”
Warmth spread through my chest, feeling like relief. “That’s a classic Connor thing to do,” I said. “He has a generous heart.”
Weston nodded and abruptly began packing up his things. “Next week, when you meet his parents, it couldn’t hurt to tell them that.”
“I will.”
“Speak of the devil.” Weston tilted his head toward the door.
With a blast of chilly wind, Connor came into the bakery, eyes scanning the tables. His smile widened when he found me, then faltered to see Weston.
“Hey,” Connor said. “How’s it going?”
I got up and put my arms around his neck. “We were just talking about you.”
“Oh yeah?” He kissed me briefly, his gaze over my head.
Weston got to his feet. “I was just leaving.”
“We’re heading out to get something at Boko 6,” Connor said. “You hungry?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Weston shouldered his bag. “See you at home.”
“Bye, Weston,” I said.
“Yep.”
He pushed out the door. Connor watched him go, brows furrowed. I buried my hand that had been holding Weston’s in Connor’s hair.
“Everything okay?” I asked, feeling like a liar. A fraud. A cheater.
I was only comforting Weston. That’s all.
Connor blinked and then looked down at me. “I guess. I’m nervous about Thanksgiving, actually. Distracted.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Then I changed my mind.” His smile returned and his arms around me tightened as he kissed me deeply. “Everything’s great.”
It is, I thought as we headed out into the cold November wind, Connor’s strong arm around me, keeping me warm. I watched Weston walk to his car a block ahead and climb in alone.
Isn’t it?