“I’m sorry,” he offered as he looked away embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, it’s fine,” I replied, brusquely heading towards an explanation. “About three months after we returned from our trip, she fell in her bathroom and hit her head on the counter. One of the staff found her and called an ambulance, but by that time she’d been out for who knows how long. She was on life support for a week until my father and his sister could make a decision to let her go. They fought about it for days. My aunt wanted to hold off and see if she would improve, but my father did what he usually does and made the decision on his own. And as most people do with my father, my aunt finally gave in and agreed to take my grandmother off life support. They did an autopsy, and it turned out that she’d had a massive stroke, so my father’s decision was the right one in the end.”
“It sounds like your father is a decisive man,” Brian murmured.
“Yeah, well, that’s one way of looking at it,” I flashed him a wry grin as the waiter set our plates in front of us. As the smell from the steaming spaghetti drifted upward, I inhaled deeply and, for the first time in two days, felt ravenously hungry. I looked over at Brian and chirped, “Bon appetite!”
Despite the fact that we’d stuffed ourselves so full that neither one of us thought we’d ever want to eat again, Gina insisted that we take dessert with us, and boxed up a selection of tiramisu, cannoli, and something her pastry chef called Lemon Ricotta Surprise Cake. I hugged Gina tightly as Brian went to get the car.
“He likes you, Bella,” she smiled as she pushed my bangs out of my eyes. “He’s got that look that a man gets when he likes a woman more than he’s saying.”
“Oh, Gina!” I cried as I grabbed her and hugged her again. I wasn’t sure she knew what she was talking about since she didn’t know the situation, but then, I wasn’t entirely sure that she didn’t know either. I decided to hold back and see how things went rather than rush into something I was unsure of. It seemed like the smarter choice after the debacle that had become Dominic. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”
“Yes, you come back, Bella!” she smiled. “And bring that nice young man with you.”
Outside Brian tapped the horn letting me know the coat was clear. I turned to go, and then turned back and said, “You’re sure he likes me, Gina?”
“Oh my beautiful girl, yes, he definitely likes you!” she laughed. “Now go to him!”
I ran out and climbed into the front seat, carefully setting the bag of Italian goodies in my lap before Brian shifted into drive and took us back to the dorm.
*****
A few hours later, we were sprawled across the couch watching a movie. I was barely paying attention to it because having Brian so near was incredibly distracting, and I kept turning Gina’s words over in my head. Does he like me? Or is this just another job? I looked over at him and realized that it had been ages since I’d had such a good time with, well, anyone. Brian was easy to be around and his sense of humor combined with his intelligence made him really good company; the personal protection part aside.
“You’re really a good man,” I said as I stared at the television.
“What?” he asked in a distracted tone. “Did you say something?”
“Yeah, I said that I think you’re a really good man.”
“What brought that on?” he questioned as he reached for the remote and turned the volume down.
“I don’t know,
I was just thinking about stuff,” I said quietly. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know anything about what I was thinking, but then, I wasn’t sure that I didn’t. “My whole dating life seems to have been a way of getting back at my parents for expecting me to be their perfect little daughter.”
“Well, you’re not alone in that endeavor, in case you’re feeling guilty,” Brian laughed.
“No, I’m serious,” I said as I looked up at him. “I’ve always picked guys who were jerks so that my father would pay attention, but he never did. He just waved me off like I was one of his employees. The only difference was that he’d always give me a credit card to ease the pain of being dismissed. Or at least that was my interpretation of it.”
“That sucks,” Brian replied. “My old man never gave me anything, but on the upside, I didn’t expect him to, so I guess we were even.”
“What is your father like?” I asked. I’d been looking for a way into Brian’s personal life, and here it was.
“Dunno,” he said. “I never met him. My mom said he was a good guy who was torn apart by the war and just couldn’t recover from it.”
“Your dad was a veteran?”
“Yeah, Vietnam,” he replied. “He was a door gunner, you know, the guys who sat by the door on the helicopters and fired at the enemy.”
“Whoa, that’s some job,” I was awed by this revelation, and wondered if that’s why Brian had entered the military. “Is that why you joined the Navy?”
“Nah, I did it because I couldn’t afford college and I didn’t want to work as a fry cook,” he admitted with a shrug. “My mom begged me not to do it, but I didn’t feel like I had many options, you know?”
I nodded, not knowing what to say because I didn’t know. I had no idea what it was like to feel like I had no options in life. My parents had provided me with every opportunity I had ever wanted, and then made the choice as to whether I would take it or not. Until I left Dominic, I’d really never had to make any difficult decisions, and the fact that it had taken me so long to make that decision was the result of it. I wiggled a little closer to Brian, and stared at his profile. He tried to ignore me as he pretended to watch the movie, but after a minute he turned and said, “What’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know, I just keep trying to picture you in the Navy,” I said, as a small smile played on my lips.