Page 41 of When You're Gone
She was in desperate need of a release after everything that had happened that week. She just wanted to feel good, to not overthink it, to forget every awful thing that was stacked against her and every poor decision she had made as a result.
Fielding: Where are you tonight?
Tori: Rhett’s house
Fielding: I’ll text you when I’m on my way
She spent the next few hours listlessly wandering around the house: wiping down the kitchen, changing the sheets, running the vacuum on the main level and in the basement. She was the only one who lived here most of the time, so it was the least she could do to keep things tidy.
Penny heard the purr of an engine in the driveway first, barking her head off before Fielding could even get in the door. Tori suspected her little pug mix knew who was here without any visual confirmation, although she somehow managed to go even crazier as soon as she spotted him.
Fielding let himself in through the sunroom, striding into the kitchen and throwing his beanie on the bar like he lived here, too. He gave her a megawatt smile, but as she made her way across the room to greet him properly, he turned and dropped to one knee.
“Penny! Hi, girl! Hi! Hi! Hi! Ohhhh I missed you.” He made a huge show of scratching her head and riling her up, eventually dropping down to a squat so she could place both her front paws on his knees. They roughhoused for a minute, Fielding swiping at her playfully while the little dog danced on her hind legs and pawed him in return. “A whole week without seeing my baby rabie nacho chabie is way too long,” he declared. “I missed you almost as much as I missed your mama.”
He finally gazed up at Tori and gave her an empathetic smile that didn’t meet his eyes.
“Hi,” he offered her simply.
“Hi,” she replied sadly. She leaned against the counter with her arms crossed over her chest, glancing down at her socked feet when his gaze felt like too much. She saw him hop to his feet out of the corner of her vision. He closed the space between them, pulling on one of her arms to unravel the hold she had on herself.
“Can I hug you?”
She nodded wordlessly, still not looking up. He used her loose arm to pull her closer, enveloping her in a hug so tight it was almost hard to breathe.
“I’m sorry about Wheeler’s grandpa.” He squeezed her as her body trembled in his arms.
“Thank you. But it’s not just that,” she admitted, shuffling back a few feet.
“I know,” he replied earnestly.
She knew he knew. He saw her pain, but he didn't push. There was something about Fielding’s candor that soothed her and made it easy to exist in his presence.
“I really did miss you,” he told her sincerely, play-punching her in the shoulder but respecting the space she’d put between them. He cocked his head toward the sunroom. “How about I play bartender with that cherry vodka, and you can tell me all about it?”
“Buckle up, bartender,” she said as she moved to the freezer to grab the bottle of liquor. “We’ve got lots to unpack tonight.”
She clutched her stomach as the scar along her lower abdomen pulled slightly. It didn’t hurt, but it prickled enough for her to notice. She didn’t mind the sensation, honestly. Not in exchange for the joy she felt. She was laughing so hard she could barely catch her breath.
Fielding was standing behind the solid oak bar in the Wheelers’ sunroom, doing an overly dramatic impersonation of Teddy from earlier that night. A woman he had slept with on more than one occasion showed up at the restaurant with her much older husband. Apparently, the husband called Teddy “son” when he parked and retrieved the car, but then the wife had whispered “goodnight, Daddy” right before they pulled away. Tori could picture the exact look on Teddy’s face based on Field’s impersonation.
They had been out here for a few hours, Fielding making good on his promise to play bartender while she drank, swiveled back and forth on a barstool, and listened to his stories. He had her laughing now, but it hadn’t all been fun and games.
She had spent the first half an hour recounting everything that had happened over the last week: the news about her dad selling the house, the stress of Jonathan’s grim prognosis. The realization that Rhett’s entire life was about to change—that by proxy, her entire world had been turned upside down. She tried to stay impassive as she laid it all out. But she couldn’t help but feel like Field saw through her mask of indifference—that he really saw her and knew the depth of the struggles waging war inside her.
She was at odds with her past, desperately trying to reroute her future. She had unexpectedly been washed ashore in a foreign place, with no context for how she’d arrived or what the hell she was supposed to do now that she was here.
She finally caught her breath long enough to speak. “Why do you keep your valet job?” she asked as she traced the rim of her empty shot glass.
“Good tips,” he deadpanned.
She met his gaze and cocked one eyebrow in challenge. “I watched you write a check for $50,000 last week. You don’t need the tips.”
He blew out a long breath and spread his arms wide along the polished wood on his side of the bar. It was a very Jake-inspired gesture. Her heartstrings pulled as she thought about their mutual friend. She was frustrated that he didn’t seem to understand what she was up against, what she was dealing with. Not the way Fielding did.
“I like to be busy. I need to have somewhere to be, something to hold me accountable. Dem likes to say I have two settings and no off switch. I’m either focused, calm, and collected, or I’m a loose cannon trying to start a riot.”
She pulled her brows together in confusion. Fielding had such a lightness about him—in the almost year she had known him, she’d never seen him agitated. She couldn’t picture him starting a riot, literally or figuratively. He was cocky and mischievous, but not in a way that ever hurt anyone. He certainly wasn’t destructive.
