Page 27 of Considering Us

“So fly!” he whooped, and I didn’t know how to react. I couldn’t imagine Kyle describing something as “fly,” and he was my one recent male frame of reference. “He’s really talented,” Heath said. “I think he’s only going to get better.”

“I wish he felt that way,” I said, instantly regretting it. I tried not to repeat anything David said to me to anyone else, especially since he kept to himself so much. “But he’s a really good guy. Loves my enchiladas and cookies. I bring him other stuff, too, but he always wants those.”

“That’s awesome,” Heath said, seeming really excited about everything I was telling him. “I’d love to meet him sometime if that’s ever something that works out. I’m a huge fan.”

“Maybe,” I said, not knowing how to answer. Even Tam had never met David. He didn’t like many people, and I felt very protective of him. “What next, Brooks Kepka? Or whoever your favorite golfer is?”

“He’s a good one,” he said, smiling at me, tousling the back of my hair in sort of a strange way. I could not figure him out. “Want to get some food? Some beer? Maybe back in Portsmouth?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, sure,” I said. I didn’t know what to make of this. Maybe I just had not gone out on many traditional “dates” and had no idea what to expect or how to act.

We settled into a brewpub in downtown Portsmouth about twenty-five minutes later. I marveled as Heath ordered six appetizers and a twenty-four-ounce beer. “Can you make a whiskey sour?” I asked the waitress, hoping for the best. I was mostly hoping for something not made with a neon-yellow sour mix, but I knew I couldn’t be picky.

“Oh sure,” she said. “Jack Daniels okay?”

“That’s fine,” I answered and glanced back at the bar. There was a bowl of lemons visible, so with any luck, they weren’t just for show.

“Whiskey sour, huh? That takes care of the first question I was going to ask you.”

“First question?” He was very good-looking, but beyond that, I couldn’t tell if we had a true spark between us.

“I was going to suggest we play twenty questions to get to know each other, but maybe twenty is a lot,” he said, laughing to himself.

“We could start with five?” Part of me felt like I was onThe BachelororLove is Blind, and we were in some sort of pre-scripted situation.

“Perfect,” he said, tearing off a piece of the huge sourdough pretzel that had been placed on the table between us. “Okay, question number one. Where did you grow up?”

“Kennebunkport,” I said. “But not wealthy. Because I know that’s what people think right away. You know, the Bushes, the White Barn Inn, lots of fancy boats at Dock Square, you name it. My mom works odd jobs, mostly because she gets fired all the time. My dad is on disability. He was injured in the Persian Gulf War, but it wasn’t a combat injury. It’s a long story. How about you?”

“Right near here. Newington, just next door. Your mom sounds like a trip.”

“Oh, you can say that,” I said, taking a sip from my cocktail. It was definitely a bottled mix, but it tasted like a more natural one. No yellow food dye, luckily. “She’s a real pain in the ass, actually. We sort of tolerate each other.” I took a bite from a steaming hot mozzarella stick, stretching out a big string of cheese. “This is delicious,” I said. “Okay, hit me with another.” I figured he might as well find out what he wanted to know, especially since I wasn’t sure if there would be a second date.

He laughed and smiled big, and I felt myself melt a little. It was all very confusing. “This should be good since you’re a cook. Favorite food?”

“Well, obviously, I enjoy dairy products,” I said, gesturing to the mozzarella sticks. “But it’s ice cream. I absolutely love it.”

“Here’s a follow-up. Favorite flavor?”

“Vanilla toffee,” I answered, giving a small smile.Could he connect the dots?

“Like a Heath bar?” He grinned big, and I couldn’t help but smile back. We must have looked ridiculous sitting there, smiling at each other.

“Yes, and I’m not just saying that because I’m sitting across from you. How about you? Favorite food?”

“This stuff,” he said, chomping on a chicken wing. “I love good bar food. Especially jalapeno poppers. They used to have really awesome ones here, wrapped in bacon. So bummed they don’t have them on the menu anymore.”

“And there’s dairy in those, so I can appreciate that. And bacon is always good.” My mind drifted back to that morning with Kyle, over fifteen years ago, stumbling over to the Norwell dining hall after not sleeping at all, where piles of crispy, fragrant bacon were waiting for us.“Maybe there will be bacon for breakfast,” Kyle had said as we walked across campus.And there was—so much bacon.

“Okay, I’ll ask you two more since the ice cream answer had a second part to it,” he continued. “What was the last relationship you were in?”

I gulped. I wasn’t sure how truthful to be, but all he would need to do was Google my name and find out all kinds of salacious things. Maybe he already had. “I was involved with a married man in Boston. It was not a good thing for me to do at all, and I have all kinds of regrets about it now that I’m removed from the situation.” I did. Hearing myself say it made me realize just how badly I felt about it and how much I had buried these feelings. Perhaps seeing Adrienne almost every day as a constantreminder of what I did and how it affected her was making me grasp the gravity of it all.

Heath nodded, but he didn’t seem to have a flash of knowing what I was talking about, so maybe he had skipped the Googling for now. “I bet that was tough. I went out with a waitress at the pizza shop across the street for a month or so,” he said, pointing toward the window.

“Like, right there?” I turned my head, but of course, all I saw was the busy street behind me.

“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “She turned out to have some weird habits, but I didn’t pick up on them for a while. Not a good fit, it turned out.”

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