The Presence of Grace (Love and Loss #2) (5 page)

Chapter
Seven

Grace

The last day of school was always a mixed bag of emotions. I was glad school was out, was looking forward to two months of not teaching, but that year in particular I would really miss the kids. This was the first time my life hadn’t severely intruded on my work, so I’d spent one blissfully drama-free year teaching those kids, and something in my brain didn’t want to let them go; didn’t want the first successful year to be over.

But the summer promised to be good. Promised to be relaxing. Promised to be exactly what I imagined when I moved to Florida.

I took a job bartending in the evenings on the weekends. I wasn’t looking to participate in the party that seemed to sprout up when the sun went down, but I definitely didn’t have a problem making money serving alcohol to those who did. Two or three nights of tending bar gave me almost what I made in a week teaching, and I needed something to sustain me over the summer. I’d started three weekends ago, in order to be trained before summer officially started, and working both jobs was really taking a toll on me.

That, coupled with the emotional good-bye to twenty-six second graders, left me mentally and physically exhausted. Luckily, the last day of school fell on a Wednesday, so I had a day to recover before I had to go back to the night job.

I left the school building, hearing the door close with a familiar thud that felt more final than it ever had before, and the emotions started to come over me. I felt the pinching in my throat and stinging in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, but the idea of not seeing those tiny faces smiling at me every morning pulled at me. I made it to my car without a tear, but once the car door was shut behind me, one slid down each cheek. I’d wiped them away, still trying not to lose control, when I heard the ping of my phone indicating I had a text.

**You’re not crying outside of a school, are you?**

This came from Devon and made me laugh. Since our trip to Disney I’d seen him a few times when he was picking Jax up from TAG, and we’d been texting back and forth sporadically. The texts were friendly and completely appropriate, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t excited to receive them. Something about attention from Devon lit me up inside, made the day-to-day seem more vibrant and exciting. From the little flutters in my stomach to the random smiles whenever he came to mind, everything about him made me happy.

**Perhaps. I’ve heard it’s cathartic.**

**Need some cheering up?**

I stared at his message for a good minute. In all the texts we’d exchanged in the past six weeks, none of them had alluded to spending more time together. I’d thought about him a lot, but more in a lamenting way, wishing things were different. But now things
were
different, and he was basically asking me to meet up with him. I couldn’t find a way to make my fingers move, or the thoughts to come up with some sort of reply. He must have figured I was having a minor panic attack because he texted me again.

**Nothing fancy. Just coffee? Between friends.**

Between friends? Ugh. Either I’d been friend zoned, or he was adding the emphasis to make me more comfortable. I didn’t know which, but I was hoping for the latter.

**Can I meet you in an hour?**

The idea of meeting Devon looking like I did was terrifying. I needed to go home, shower, and regroup.

**Sure. Name the place.**

I sent him a link to my favorite coffee shop, Silk, and told him I’d be there in an hour.

When I entered the coffee shop, it was practically empty. I immediately spotted Devon sitting on the two-person couch in the corner. He saw me coming and stood with a smooth smile.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I replied as I came to a stop in front of him. There were a few seconds of awkwardness, neither one of us sure how to greet the other. Handshakes were too formal, hugs were too personal, but when he leaned down, one hand coming to rest on my elbow while his cheek pressed close to mine, I couldn’t help but feel the butterflies in my stomach come awake in a flurry. A kiss on the cheek from Devon would definitely go a long way to cheer me up.

He pulled away and I couldn’t help the blush that ran warm across my face.

“Can I get you something?” he asked, smile still on his face, hand still on my elbow.

“That’d be great. Vanilla latte, please. Iced.”

“Got it.” He gave my elbow a gentle squeeze then made his way to the counter. I took a seat on the couch, trying to look as though I was completely at ease, when I totally was not.

He returned with two cups, handing one to me, then sitting next to me on the couch, angled with one knee up so he was facing me, an arm draped along the back.

“You don’t look too torn up. There must not have been many tears.” He smiled just before he took a sip of his coffee.

“Only a few tears were shed. And it was expected. I’m kind of a crier. I know I’ll see most of the kids again, it’s just been an exceptionally great year and I’m sad to see it end.”

“Look on the bright side: maybe next year’s batch will be even better.” He winked at me and it only made my smile spread wide across my face.

“I don’t know. This year’s kids were pretty spectacular.”

“Jaxy is going to miss you. He told me so.” Those words tugged hard on my heartstrings. “But I told him that perhaps he’d get to see you this summer sometime.” Devon let the words hang in the air between us, alluding to more time spent together, and I instantly turned into a shy teenager, looking down at my coffee and smiling even wider.

Then I took in a deep breath, forced my smile to notch down from blinding to simply radiant, and shrugged one shoulder, looking back to him. “Perhaps.”

We were flirting. There was no denying it. And while we’d flirted a little at Disney World, this was definitely a new level of flirtation. I wasn’t opposed, and found it came back to me easily. Or perhaps it was just who I was flirting with that made it easy.

“So, have any exciting plans for the summer?” he asked, genuinely interested.

“Not really. I’m tending bar part-time on the weekends, and aside from that, I plan on reading and relaxing by the pool at my apartment.”

“You took on another job?” His face twisted with confusion.

“When you sign a teaching contract, you can either take your salary split up into twelve months or ten. When I first moved here I took the ten-month deal because it was more per month and being single in Florida isn’t the cheapest. So, I have to take a summer job to bridge the gap.” His expression had moved from happy and flirty to concerned and even a little aggravated. “I make pretty good money bartending.”

“I bet,” he grumbled, and took another drink from his mug.

“Do you guys have any good summer plans?” I asked, trying to steer us from the topic that obviously upset him.

“Kids are spending the days with my mom. She’s been begging to watch them more, and even though I’ve resisted this long, I figure two months of them might hold her over,” he said, finally letting his smile come back.

“It’s great that your parents are close and you can count on them for help.”

“Yeah,” he said, obviously thinking about his next words carefully. “Can I take you somewhere?”

His question caught me off guard. “Uh, sure,” I said hesitantly.

“I just thought maybe we could go for a walk. Talk a little.”

“Okay,” I said softly, surprised by the sudden change in plans. He stood and held his hand out to me, helping me up. As we approached the door he stepped in front of me, pushing the door open, letting me pass by. I felt his hand gently press on the small of my back and something inside me dissolved. It had been so long since someone had taken care of me in any way. The simple act of opening a door for me sent my heart racing and I smiled because it was so
Devon
.

He led me to his SUV and again opened the door for me. I watched him walk around the front of the car and slide into the seat next to me.

“I thought we’d go to this park I take the kids to sometimes. There’s a pond in the middle with a nice path that leads around it.” He looked to me as if he were waiting until I agreed to start the car.

“Sounds good, although parks usually close at sundown.” I looked out the window to see the sun was waning in the sky, the blue taking on a more orangey-purple hue.

“I’m willing to live on the wild side for one night if you are,” he said, his smile returning and causing my stomach to flip.

“Let’s go, then.”

By the time we made it to the park the sun was even lower in the sky, but looking through the windshield at the sight before me, I couldn’t care less.

The park was pretty massive, at least compared to what I’d envisioned in my mind. Sure, there was a playground, but there was also a picnic area, six separate basketball courts, and a soccer field. In the middle of it all was a pond with a fountain, spouting water up at least twenty feet. The path around the pond was lit with lights, as was the water shooting up from the fountain.

“This is beautiful,” I said, still trying to take in all the beauty of the water and blooming flowers around it.

“Shall we?”

I pushed open my door and joined Devon in the damp, warm air of the evening, glad I’d gotten an iced drink. I followed his lead and we walked to the path, taking leisurely steps at a slow and relaxed pace.

“So, besides the second job, have any plans for the summer?” Devon asked, breaking the comfortable silence of the three minutes it took for us to make it to the path.

“Not really. I’ve got a lot of books I want to read, but that’s about it.”

He chuckled, then said, “That sounds amazing.”

“I imagine you don’t get a lot of free time, being a single parent.”

“Tons,” he said with more soft laughter. “The hour between them going to bed and me passing out is just enough time to accomplish exactly nothing.” His laughter died, and then he continued. “Olivia used to be really great at planning things for the summer. Swimming lessons, soccer camps, play dates. I was pretty oblivious. I just went to work, came home, and went where she told me on weekends. It never occurred to me that keeping kids active and occupied in the summer was a full-time job.”

“Sounds like she was a great mother.”

I caught him nodding in my periphery. “Definitely.” He was quiet for a moment—we both were. I didn’t know what to say next, but he continued. “Can I tell you about her? This is strange for me—a first. I haven’t met anyone I wanted to spend time with, but it feels wrong to be with you and not get it all out. Does that make sense?”

It did and it didn’t; I wanted to spend time with him too, and I wanted to know about his marriage and his wife, but it didn’t feel like any of my business. So I told him the truth. “I’ll listen to anything you want to tell me.”

He was quiet for a moment, but then he spoke and had all my attention.

“I met Olivia my junior year of college. She showed up at a party and seemed to be one of those typical freshman girls who went to frat parties to get drunk and hook up. The instant I saw her, there was something about her that pulled me to her, but she was with one of my frat brothers. I tried to brush the thoughts away, but all night I watched as she got progressively drunker and my brother got progressively handsier.

“At the end of the night I saw them going up the stairs and he was practically carrying her, she was so drunk. He looked buzzed, but definitely wasn’t as gone as she was. It made me sick, so I intervened. I pretty much wrestled her away from him and she was so drunk she didn’t even notice. He was pissed, called me a cock-block, and I knew my whole frat would be angry with me, but I didn’t care. I took her in my room, laid her in my bed, and slept on the floor.”

He paused, taking a sip of his coffee, and continued slowly on the path.

“When she woke up the next morning, she assumed we’d slept together and was treating me the way she probably treated all the guys she woke up with the next morning. She tried to brush me off, tried to act as though it wasn’t a big deal, but when I explained to her what had really happened—that my fraternity brother was going to practically rape her—she just broke down on my bed. I sat with her, all day, and listened to her story. Turns out, she’d dated a guy all through high school and during her junior year he actually had raped her.”

“Oh, God,” I said automatically, my hand coming up to cover my mouth as I gasped. “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah,” he agreed sullenly. “It was one of those situations where she’d said yes before, so he didn’t think her screaming ‘no’ meant anything.”

I closed my eyes and tried to push the images my mind conjured up aside. I’d never been sexually assaulted, but I could imagine the fear and anger and helplessness that came along with it.

“It went on for a couple of months before she could end the relationship, and when she left for college, all the anger she felt toward him turned into an effort to reclaim her body. She slept with guys, said yes to anyone, because saying yes was her right and she wanted to use it.” He let out a large sigh and I couldn’t help but feel bad for him; he was obviously upset about what she’d gone through. I wanted to comfort him in some way, but didn’t know how. “Of course, that particular day we didn’t work through all that. That information came in the following years. But that day, the day she woke up in my room, was the first day of us, and we were together from that day forward. I felt this need to protect her, to show her that guys could be decent, that we weren’t all assholes.”