“Why couldn’t Mom stay here?” Adam asked, obviously figuring it was time to change that subject, too. Dylan would let him, for now.
“There was no place for her to sleep.”
“She could sleep with you. Hope did.”
Yes, Hope certainly had, but truth be told, there had been very little sleeping. “That’s different. Your mom’s marrying that French dude.”
“Maybe you could marry her instead,” Adam suggested as he picked at the Band-Aid on his knee. “She said she would have married you if you’d asked her. So go ask her now.”
“Too late. She loves Gerard LaFollete.” Dylan patted his thigh and Adam crawled into his lap. “There are a lot of different reasons why people don’t get married, but just because your mom and I never got married doesn’t mean we don’t love you. Or,” he added, stretching the truth a bit, “that we don’t care about each other. I’ll always love your momma because she gave me you. And if I didn’t have you, I’d be real sad all the time.”
“Yeah.” Adam laid his head on Dylan’s shoulder. “I’m your little buddy.”
“Yep.” He wrapped his arms around his son and squeezed. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me, too. Where’s Mandy?”
“The last time I saw your puppy, she was chasing your grandmother’s peacocks, and your grandmother was chasing her.”
Adam pulled back, his eyes bright. No one loved naughty-dog stories more than Adam. “Did Grandma catch her?”
“Nope, but maybe we should go get her.”
Adam nodded and laid his head again on Dylan’s shoulder.
“When Mom gets married, will my name be Adam LaFollete?”
“No, you’ll always be Adam Taber.”
“Good.”
Yeah, good. For the first time since Adam had walked in the door, things were looking better. The fact that he’d mentioned Julie’s marriage was a step in the right direction. Perhaps Adam was letting go of his dream of them all living together. Julie was free to live her life, and Dylan suddenly felt a lot freer to live his. Yeah, now that it was too late.
“And you’re not going to be doing sex any more with Hope, right?”
Maybe not so free after all. He didn’t know how to answer. He knew what Adam wanted to hear, but he couldn’t say it. It would be like taking a step back when he was finally moving forward. And the funny thing was, he hadn’t known how badly he wanted to move forward until he’d met Hope.
Sitting on his son’s bed, holding him tight, he felt more alone than he could ever remember feeling. Before Hope, he’d known he was lonely, but now he felt it more keenly than ever. Somehow she’d crawled inside him, and it was like she’d breathed new life into his lungs, made his blood and his juices flow again. And now that she was probably gone from his life, he just felt hollow.
“Let’s go get that dog of yours,” he said, because he just couldn’t tell Adam what he wanted to hear. Not yet. Not until he knew what he was going to do. Not until he figured out exactly what he felt about Hope and the whole screwed-up mess.
Hope wasn’t going to hide like she’d done something wrong. She wasn’t going to hide in her house, pacing the old wooden floors and running to the window every few minutes. At seven-forty-five that evening, she changed into her peach sundress, put on her makeup and took herself to dinner. Unfortunately, the fanciest establishment in town was the Cozy Corner Cafe.
Honky-tonk played on the jukebox, and the diner smelled exactly how it had the first time Hope had set foot inside. The dinner rush had died down and a couple with a baby occupied one booth, while three teenage girls sat at the counter laughing and smoking cigarettes.
Apparently, the Cozy Corner hadn’t heard of providing a smoke-free environment and wasn’t too concerned about underage smoking. But at least the girls didn’t have pink hair and safety pins in their faces.
Hope took a booth
near the back and ordered a cheeseburger, no onions and extra mayo on the side, a large order of fries, no salt, and a chocolate shake. Maybe she could find comfort in comfort food.
Work had been out of the question, and she’d spent most of the day trying not to cry and wondering if it was really over between her and Dylan, wondering if she should call him and waiting for him to call her. She’d spent the day reliving all the time they’d spent together, especially the closeness of the night before. He cared about her; she’d heard it in his voice and felt it in the way he’d touched her.
She’d spent hours thinking she should go back to his house and make him listen to her, make him believe that she would never betray him. He had to believe her, but she supposed the only way he would know for certain was when no stories appeared about him or Adam or Julie.
She’d mopped her floors, done her laundry, and scrubbed the bathrooms. She’d taken a long bath, given herself a facial and a manicure, all in an effort to take her mind off Dylan. To take her mind off the cold, closed-up expression on his face as he’d told her he didn’t think he even knew her. Nothing had worked.
Paris Fernwood set Hope’s milkshake in front of her. As the waitress placed a long spoon and a straw on a napkin, Hope remembered her first day in town and her second encounter with Paris. She remembered the way Paris had looked at Dylan, her brown eyes melting and her harsh features softening. He’d lit her up from the inside out, and Hope wondered if she looked at him the same way, and if he noticed.