Something About You (Just Me & You) (32 page)

“Okay, then. How are you feeling?”

The question took him by surprise.

“I’m holding,” he said. “I made it through when my
grandparents died. So I know the drill.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“I would have gotten around to it.” He splayed his hands out
and contemplatively flexed his digits together from thumb to pinkie. “There
didn’t seem to be an opportune moment.”

“You
should
have told me.” Sabrina’s voice was soft
and fierce.

“When? While we were at the gala? After Molly miscarried?
Christmas night? You were dealing with your own problems with your family.
Telling you, ‘That’s nothing; my sister’s on life support’ would have been
classic one-upsmanship. I’d have doubted your intentions even more. No pity
fucks for the man with the comatose sibling. I make it a rule.”

“I do too.” Sabrina looked at him matter-of-factly. “I never
offer sex out of sympathy. Just so we’ll have at least one thing straight in
the future.”

In the future.
Was she trying to tell him they had
one? They stopped talking and watched a flurry of snowfall coming down in front
of the large glass panels for a spell.

“I can’t believe it,” Sabrina finally said. “I’m in Des
Moines, Iowa.”

“You most definitely are,” he sighed. “I’ll hand it to you,
honey. You don’t usually leap before you look. But when you do, you leap long
and far.”

“I have a hotel room reserved. I never intended to be a
bother.” She glanced at the stack of bags.

“No hotels,” he said firmly. “You’re staying with me. You’ll
have your own room. If that’s what you want, of course.”

“I’d like that. I’d like it a lot, Gage. I’d like — this
is so hard for me to say.” Sabrina cradled her elbows in her hands and studied
the toes of her ridiculously impractical shoes. “I realize that life doesn’t
always offer do-overs. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now. But I’d like
one — with you.”

Gage didn’t doubt that she meant it. Not when she was
looking into his eyes with such utter candor. He resisted the urge to scoop her
into his arms and lose himself in the smell of her perfume. He’d already lost
himself in her before, and he knew where that had got him.  

“We’d have to start over,” he warned. “You’ll have to see me
at my worst. And we would have to talk — really communicate.”

Sabrina gave him a worried look. “Do you think we can?”

“I don’t know,” Gage told her honestly. “We got off to a
rough start.”

Sabrina contemplated his response and nodded. Was it his
imagination, or had he seen a fleeting look of devastation in her eyes? She
looked so out of place, sitting there brushing lint from her fancy coat and
frowning at the scuffs on her black patent shoes. Regardless of what happened
between them, it would be interesting to see how a woman like her translated
into a small town like Walden.

“I’ll bring the car around.” He stood and picked up the two
largest suitcases. “I want to get out of the city before the roads are covered
with snow.”

As they drove down the highway away from Des Moines in a
black Chevy Tahoe with rental tags, Sabrina peered through the window and tried
to acquaint herself with the unfamiliar landscape.

She knew that the Midwest was flat. But her initial
impression was that Iowa was flatter than she could have possibly imagined. The
point at which sky met land to create the horizon was abrupt, spreading out in
every direction like Texas Panhandle terrain. Accustomed to Austin’s rolling
green hills and staggered tree lines, Sabrina found the view bleak and oddly
beautiful. Flakes of snow hit the windshield and skated up the glass until they
blew out of sight.

“We’re almost there,” Gage told her after a half-hour.

“Where is ‘there’?”

“Walden, my hometown. I told you about it when we first met,
remember? It’s really small,” he warned.

Sabrina did remember him telling her that. Walden was not
charming or quaint like the towns in Austin’s surrounding Hill Country, unless
she considered the small mom ’n’ pop restaurants and shops stuffed between more
functional, uninspiring architecture. The town seemed to have just enough small
local businesses, houses and satellite dishes for its resident population.

A
lot
of satellite dishes, she noticed. 

“You come from this place?” Sabrina realized how critical
the question sounded as soon as it escaped from her lips. Everyone had to come
from somewhere. It was all the luck of the draw. She was from a big city; Gage
was from Walden, Iowa.

Population 2,112.

Because somebody had to be from Walden.

“Born and raised,” he said. “I would have probably ended up
with a fond attachment to hard alcohol and a remote control had I not left when
I did. But Walden has some positives. The folks here have good hearts. And this
town has at least one of everything. One movie theatre, one skate park, one
pizza place, one sports bar, one coffee shop. One twenty-four-hour market, of
course.” He slid her a sly glance. “You have to be really good with the number
one if you live here.”

Sabrina was not. She would have gone stir-crazy. “So what
did you used to do for fun?”

“In the winter? My high school buddies and I went down to
the lake and drank cheap beer by the bonfire. Sometimes we cruised Nicki’s
Coneys downtown for girls. Come the thaw, we got drunk and drove into Des
Moines, in that order. Somebody always had an older brother with an apartment
we used as a crash pad.” Gage was silent for a moment. “I can’t complain too
much. Something about Walden made me who I am.”

“So it was just you and your sister and grandparents?”

“That’s right. After my grandparents died, it was just me
and Michelle. She’s ten years older than me. She was my legal guardian until I
turned eighteen. She worked her ass off to make sure I went to college.”

His voice sounded distant, Sabrina noticed. Michael Gage
Fitzgerald had a story to tell. What was it?

“So your parents, are they—?”

“Never really in the picture,” he replied promptly. “My
mother was — how do I phrase this delicately? I can’t. My mom slept with
other women’s husbands. It was true love every time. That is, until the wives
found out. My dad was an out-of-towner. I think I met him once when I was
three. Michelle never found out who her dad was.”

“So the two of you are half-siblings.” Sabrina processed
what he had just told her. It was true that she and Les didn’t see each other
too often, but she had largely facilitated their estrangement. She couldn’t
fathom being born to parents with absolutely zero interest in parenting.

“I never thought of Michelle as my half-anything,” Gage
replied. “She was always my big sister.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“When I was old enough for grade school, she unloaded me and
Michelle on my grandparents and took off to do her own thing. I have no idea
where she is today or if she’s even alive. So if you ever find yourself wanting
to call me a bastard, you won’t be telling me anything I don’t already know.”
He shot her a crooked smile.

Sabrina suddenly felt ashamed. She had carried around her
unresolved issues with Les — a father she
could
name — like a
dead weight. She had refused to drop it. Her childhood could have been so much
worse.

“God, Gage,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why should you be sorry?” He gave her a curious look. “I
don’t know my old man. So what? I’m sure I’m not the only one.”

“I seem to be dragging you down into further despair,” Sabrina
sighed. “Should I shut up?”

“Of course not. Just change the channel to something less
emo. Say something that only the illustrious Chief of Staff Sabrina March would
say. Make it off the cuff and irreverent.”

Safe words
, she thought.

“Okay.” She spoke the first thing that came to mind. “How
long?”

“How long—?” He glanced at her quizzically.

“How long had it been for you before you and I — before,
you know, we—”

“Still obsessed with my sex life.” He smiled. “It’s never
going to end, is it?”

“It ends when you ’fess up.”

“It was a very long time.” And with that, he gave her a
hearty pat on the thigh.

Gage turned the car into a residential neighborhood. The
street was sparsely lined with older homes. The battered green house at the end
of the cul-de-sac was the type of property that real estate agents typically
described as a “cozy bungalow” or “small fixer-upper.” If there were truth in
advertising it would have been marketed as: “Lot for sale with teardown.” An
impossibly large, solitary tree was in the front yard. Its barren limbs covered
the roof of the house almost protectively.

Gage pulled the Tahoe into the driveway behind an old sedan.

“Home, sweet home,” he said.

Given the dryness in his voice, Sabrina didn’t take the
adage literally. When she and Molly were children, they always had one friend
who lived in the Poor House. The house without central air that was too hot in
the summer. The house where all the kids slept on fold-up cots in the same
bedroom.

Gage’s childhood home wasn’t quite the Poor House. Whoever
had lived there last — Sabrina assumed it was Michelle Fitzgerald— had
taken pride in the place. The siding still looked relatively new, and the
moldings around the windows had been recently repainted. Frigid air crept into
the cabin and wound around her ankles. Sabrina shivered.

Maybe coming here to be with Gage had been a bad idea.

“I feel like I’m intruding,” she blurted. “If you want me to
fly back to Austin tomorrow—”

“—Shh.” He placed a gloved finger against her mouth then
replaced it with his lips. It was just a simple kiss. A good-to-see-you kiss.
But it stirred something inside of her. The image of his bare chest molded to
her own came to mind.
No erotic thoughts
, she scolded herself. Gage’s
situation was too grave. His state of mind was too fragile.

“Because I can always … leave and go back home,” she
rambled on nervously.

“Look, darlin’, if I didn’t want you here, I’d tell you,” he
said. “But I do. Now, if you want me to continue to convince you to stay so
you’ll feel more comfortable about it, let’s take it inside. I’m freezing my
ass off.”

Gage unlocked the front door and ushered her in before
retrieving her luggage from the Tahoe. A small rose-shaded lamp sat on the
accent table near the entryway. It cast a warm glow into the otherwise bleak
room. Most of the furniture was still covered with plastic drop sheets and the few
pieces that weren’t were covered in a thick coat of dust. The pine flooring was
scuffed and dull, the wallpaper faded and darkened by age and water stains. A
dark hallway doglegged off to the left, leading to what Sabrina assumed were
the bedrooms. Gage’s childhood home needed so many renovations and repairs that
her house in Cadence Corners was in pristine condition by comparison.

Gage came back inside with her luggage. He put it down and
turned up the thermostat. “I’ve pulled a lot of all-nighters at the hospital,
so I haven’t been here much,” he explained. “It should warm up soon.”

Sabrina pulled off her gloves and looked around. “When was
the last time someone lived here?”

“Not since Michelle’s accident. The neighbors offered to
keep an eye on the place to make sure it’s not burglarized. I humor them. I’m
sure you’ve noticed this isn’t exactly prime real estate.”

“Promise me something, Gage,” Sabrina insisted.

“What’s that?” He looked up. She noticed the opalescent blue
circles under his eyes. The merry sparkle in them was absent. He looked beyond
tired. He looked like a man who was overwhelmed and valiantly trying not to let
the rest of the world know it.

He looked like the Gage she wanted to get to know better.

“You’re not to play host,” she went on. “Don’t entertain me.
Don’t call to check up on me. I refuse to get in the way of anything you need
to do. Besides, I brought my work to keep me occupied.” She held up the
messenger bag that contained her laptop.

He nodded. Then he slipped a key off of his key ring and
placed it on the accent table. “I’ll leave you the key to the Impala just in
case you need to get around. Have you driven in snow before?”

“Never. But I’ve seen
Fargo
.”

He chuckled. “Then obviously you’re good to go.”

“Show me where I can set up camp tonight.” She picked up her
train case. “I need to sleep off the jet-lag.”

“Texas and Iowa are in the same time zone, Sabrina,” he
reminded her. She pulled her cell phone out of her coat pocket and looked at
the time display. He was right. They were.

She hunted down the next excuse. “Plane travel makes me
tired.” The truth was that Gage was exhausted and needed his sleep before he
embarked on another day at the Des Moines hospital. She could see it written
all over his face.

“I’ll take you to the spare bedroom,” he said, gathering the
rest of her suitcases.

The spartan room housed a twin bed with a bare mattress and
pillow, a small desk and chair, and nothing else. The braided rugs were frayed
from age. While Gage fetched sheets from the linen closet, Sabrina pulled off
her coat and draped it over the chair. The small house was definitely heating
up slightly, but the air still had a bite to it.

“Thank you.” She collected the pile of linens from his arms.
“I can take it from here.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “There’s leftover pizza in the
fridge.”

She was famished. “Just what I need. Jet lag
and
pizza dreams.” She put a little more gruffness into her tone. “Are you trying
to make my night miserable, Fitzgerald? I can forage for myself if I need to.
Now, vanish.”

He lingered in the doorway with a veiled expression on his
face that made Sabrina feel awkward. She could be curled up against him in the
same bed, legs intertwined, sharing cold pizza straight from the box had
circumstances been different. But they weren’t. Memories of their last sexual
encounter and its terrible ending still hung in the room like demolition dust.

“I’ll be gone when you wake up,” he told her. “Just so
you’ll know.”

Their gazes met for a moment. He looked slightly vexed but
resigned, as though he had finally given up trying to figure out the last word
in a crossword puzzle. Then he slid his hand down the doorframe and disappeared
from sight. She heard his footsteps going down the hall.

Then she heard a door close.

Sabrina deftly made the bed, stopping only to rub her palms
together to warm her hands. She hadn’t slept in a twin since her freshman year
in college. The muslin linens were printed with a pink, yellow and orange
seventies design and were coarse and heavily pilled, but the feather comforter
was heavy and soft. She sifted through the clothing she’d hastily stuffed into
her suitcases. No nightgown. Or extra socks. She would have sacrificed any one
of the expensive pieces of luggage for something warm and flannel, but the only
thing she could find that remotely passed for nightwear was a long silk robe.

She quickly doffed her clothing, slid into the robe and
scooted into the bed. She turned off the bedside lamp and shivered while she
waited for her body temperature to warm up the sheets. Finally, after what felt
like hours, she felt herself growing sleepy.

She was startled back into awareness by a loud popping noise
that sounded like water hitting a searing hot pan.
What the hell?
She
bolted up and peeled back the blinds. Other than the odd crackling noises,
everything was quiet. A thick blanket of snow buffeted the sound of passing
cars. Now she heard voices coming from the direction of the yard next to the
Fitzgerald home. It sounded like a couple of kids and their parents.

Why were families up at such an ungodly hour?

She jumped when another series of mystery pops crackled
through the night. She didn’t remember it was New Year’s Eve until the effusive
flare of a Roman candle shot high into the clear night sky.
How can
something so simple be so beautiful?
she wondered as the brilliant flares
of pink light and blue midnight moon cast their light on the virgin white dunes
below. The snow sparkled like it had been cast with countless diamonds.