Knowing Is Not Enough (19 page)

Easton asked, “So why didn’t she tell you?”

“Because if she told me she was there, she would’ve told me why and who she was meeting with, which—I guess was a secret that is until now.” I took another drink. “Oh God, does this sound as convoluted and juvenile to you as it does to me?”

“No, I’m following it so far. So, what can’t she tell you?”

“I don’t know—crazy, right? She still won’t tell me. I have to ask Sanford when I see him.”

“She’s with Sanford—now, who is Sanford to you again?”

“Nobody—just a friend.”

Easton grabbed my hand, gently caressing the top. “Your hands are soft.”

“I’m glad you did this for me.” I removed my hand from his under his. “I’m starting to think this is more than
just lunch.”

“What if it is?”

“If you’re interested in me after that high school without the musical story I just told you, then you must really like me.”

“Hey, I’m definitely not one to let a few unfortunate events define me for the rest of my life. The events surrounding your marriage aren’t going to scare me away. I like you, and I want to get to know you better.”

I rolled over on my side to face him. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay—let’s get to know each other.”

He smiled. “You’ve made me a happy man. Whenever you need me, I’m there.”

“You didn’t seem like you had a sense of humor, but you got jokes. Isn’t that a line from something?”

“I’m not joking. I’m enjoying all of you, even though you have been talking about your ex-husband and his woman most of the time.” He chuckled when he saw my face. “Okay, go on, tell me the rest.”

I smiled. “There’s no rest, that’s it. Linda told me she wasn’t going on our trip to visit Sanford and that was it—the end.”

“You hung up on her.”

“More like logged off . . . we were on video conference then at my house.”

“You’ll patch things up. You have to talk to your sister,” he said.

I frowned at him. “No. I don’t.”

“You feel that way now, but you’ll work this out with her.”

“One day, but for right now we aren’t talking and I can keep it that way. Trust is huge for me. I have to know I can trust the people around me.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know . . . this doesn’t sound like a trust issue to me.”

I threw up my hands. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t see you and your ex ever getting back together?”

I felt a sudden chill as the sun began to set behind the trees—or maybe it was the chilling thought of Jake and me under the same roof again. Either way I was cold.

“Do you mind if we take this picnic somewhere else?”

“Not at all. What do you have in mind?”

“I live alone, so we have two options … we can go back to my place or someplace where we can get a cup of coffee to warm up.”

“How about we do both. Let me help you up, and I’ll get the blanket. Can you throw away the trash?”

“I think I can handle that,” I said.

We got our clothes straightened out from lying on the blanket. Easton’s jacket was extremely wrinkled when I handed it back to him. I gathered the trash and he rolled up the blanket before we both headed to the car. I hadn’t done anything like this in a long time. It felt good. He didn’t seem to mind I was a little on the sloppy emotional side either.

Easton opened my door. I took a deep breath of that new-car smell and snuggled back down into the seat. I opened the door for him on the inside. I don’t think I missed a beat making my hands way over to the door handle before he reached his from the outside.

“Thank you for that.”

“Not a problem. You see chivalry for us ladies isn’t dead.”

Easton hopped in the car, started the engine and cut the heat on.
I could see me with Easton
. “Okay, I love heat, but I have to say most men wouldn’t have turned the heat on.”

“Yes they would have. You look like you’re freezing. I can’t have you freezing on me.”

“I thank God you don’t want me freezing on you. I’m cold, but willing to shake and shiver before I asked you to turn on the heat.”

“You don’t have to do that, Alex, I’m glad to do whatever you want me to.”
Okay, there is that whatever you want me to again. I should make that his ring tone. I love the sound of it!

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you haven’t responded to my question,” he said softly.

I snapped back into the present. “I’m sorry—what question?”

“First, tell me where I’m headed.”

“Do you like coffee? I’m addicted, but I try not to influence others, so you let me know.”

“I’ll take you to get some. Just point me in the right direction.”

“Okay, well we’re on the Westside, so there should be one here somewhere. Just head back toward downtown there is definitely a shop, I think up this street near the hospital.”

Easton pulled out of the park onto the street headed toward the main artery. I turned the heat down because I couldn’t quite tell but I thought I saw little sweat beads
starting to form on his cleanly shaven head.

“All right, now you can answer the question.”

I was genuinely bemused. “I’m not trying to be evasive, but what question?”

“Do you think you and Jake will ever get back together?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t see that happening, nor do I want it to happen. That ship has sailed. What about you? Do you see yourself getting back with your wife, because technically you’re still married?”

“Not technically. We are still married. I don’t know what’s going to happen with us. It’s not like I don’t love her, because I do. I just don’t know if I want to be married to her.”

“So how exactly does that work? You wake up one day and no longer want to be married?”

“Well, that’s the overly simplified version, but more or less it’s just a realization the person you’re living with is more of a roommate than a wife. We got the kids and all, which we’re raising together, but that’s it. We would have the same relationship with each other and the kids even if we weren’t in the same house.”

I wasn’t buying it. “You seriously don’t think anything would change if you weren’t living in the same house? There has to be more going on than this.”

“No, seriously, there’s nothing else going on. I’m not beating her, she’s not beating me.” We laughed. “I just don’t want to be married anymore, and it’s not just to her. I don’t want to be married to anybody.”

Okay, Alex, why are your feelings hurt by him saying he doesn’t want to be anybody’s husband? He’s not your husband, but what if you wanted him to be?

“Anybody?” I asked.

“I mean—never say never. Anything can change. Meeting you, for example—I didn’t expect that.”

“I understand if that’s how you feel—I’m always conscious of absolutes and you seem so firm. Most women like commitments.”

“I know, but that’s how I feel. I can’t help how I feel, can I?”

I shrugged. “You can change how you feel. It doesn’t seem real fair to her, you deciding not to be married anymore.”

“It’s not like I put her out or nothing—I just told her I needed some time to think things through. And she agreed. This isn’t news for us, we’ve been having a rough patch for a while now. That one patch has turned into a quilt. We’re both on the same page—take a break.”

“I guess you don’t need a reason to get divorced other than you don’t want to be married.” I sighed. “I took the ‘until death do us part’ literally. I guess for some people it’s just a recommendation.”

“But you divorced your husband.”

“No, correction—my ex asked me to get married, and he asked me to get divorced when he cheated. I accepted both proposals.”

He smiled. “All right, I hear you. This is your coffee shop on the right, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, now you’re talking my language.”

I asked Easton to grab us two chairs by the window where we could sit and talk relatively undisturbed. I grabbed our order and met him there. Easton was rubbing the mahogany leather chairs. “I like these chairs,” he said.

It was about six o’clock and I realized I hadn’t heard from anybody today. No clients, Karen, Tobey—
didn’t want to hear from Linda
—nobody.
I feel like I’m in an alternate universe or something. I have actually gotten away, taking time for myself without any distractions. Unbelievable
.

I handed Easton his coffee, which gave me another opportunity to look at him head to toe.
If Easton and I were to have kids, our children would be gorgeous. Hopefully his height, since he’s taller than me—but everybody’s taller than me
.

“Do you have a picture of your kids?”

“Of course.”

Easton reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet. He unfolded it, fumbled through a few credit cards, pulled out a picture of his kids, and handed it to me.
Oh, and his wife is on the picture too. How lovely . . . a family photo
.

“Oh okay, cute kids.” I tried to act like I didn’t even see her. She was pretty and tall. “How tall is your wife?”

“We’re the same height—five-eleven.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How did you meet her?”

“In college—law school.”

“How did you two wind up together?”

“We were in the same classes, so it wasn’t hard to notice each other. I invited her to our study group and she came. We talked, realized we had a lot in common, and then started dating. I asked her to marry me right after we graduated.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“No. Not bad at all. I got to tell you, Alex, if you’re looking for a smoking gun in my marriage you’re not going to find one. There is nothing wrong with her or me.”

“I’m sorry, Easton. I don’t think it’s so much I am looking for a reason you shouldn’t be with your wife. It’s
more of me looking for a reason why I should be here—with you. Considering you are technically or actually married. I did mention my husband cheated on me, right?”

I felt the sleeve of my coffee cup. It cooled down enough for us to drink.

“This is good,” he commented.

“I knew if you liked caramel and coffee, this would be the drink for you. Caramel and coffee go together well.”

“Why, thank you, Dr. Nichols.”

“You’re welcome, Mr.—um, I don’t know your last name.”

“It’s Mitchell.”

“Easton Mitchell.”

We continued to talk for another hour before heading to retrieve my car, and then to my house. It was getting late. Easton had to get up in the morning, and so did I. I couldn’t run away forever, no matter how much I wanted to. He walked me to my door, hugged me, and then kissed me goodnight on the back of my hand. I couldn’t really tell if he was a good kisser from the hand kiss, but it was soft, gentle, and made me curious to know what
more
would feel like. He embraced me, pulling my body into his, wrapping both his arms fully around my waist. I felt the strength of his arms and chest . . . his cologne smelled really good. He let me go just in enough time for my sniffing his body to not get weird.

I opened my door, turned and thanked him. From the living room window I watched Easton’s tail lights fade further and further up Main Street until they were out of sight.

Funny thing about a story—it can be manipulated and twisted in all sorts of ways to make you either the villain or the heroine. But one thing always remains the same. There’s a villain in every story.

I had a good time with Easton and I wanted—no, I
needed
the euphoria to last as long as possible. I even started rethinking my trip to see Sanford. Recurring thoughts of our lunch date helped to get me through the day.

My feelings of disloyalty, valid or not, were very real to me and I wasn’t feeling benevolent, which is uncharacteristic of me. It’d been a few days since my difference of opinion with Linda and a couple from when I saw Easton. Easton and I were talking every chance we got. He was easy on me. I didn’t feel the intensity or paranoia I felt when I with Jake. Generally, I always have it together, but when we went out to lunch I clearly didn’t, and he was fine—even helpful.

I told him Linda and I was getting together to talk
about what happened so we could put it behind us. Both Karen and Tobey were leaning toward Linda’s side of things. Easton didn’t care what any of them thought. He just wanted to make sure I was okay. After several phone calls I finally convinced him I was. Linda wanted to have the meeting someplace we could talk freely without interruption excluding my office.

I vetoed that quickly. “I have to work and I am not leaving my office,” I said. She conceded and the meeting location was changed to my office at six o’clock.

Karen let Linda in then left for the evening. Instead of sitting in my normal spot behind the desk, I decided I would sit on the couch with her. With work and in life Linda is always poker-faced, rarely if ever showing emotion. For the first time in our lives my sister was visibly shaken.

She put her things on the opposite couch and sat down beside me. “Alex, you must know I never meant to hurt you. I made the wrong decision. I should have told you I saw Jake with Taylor—there is no excuse only an explanation−”

I raised my hand. “Look—if you didn’t tell me it must be for a good reason.”