First Love, Second Chance: A Secret Child Romance

by Vesper Young

  “These are yours, dear,” she said.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have. I’ll pay you back.” Though I probably didn’t have cash for that today.

  Confusion clouded her features. “I didn’t buy these. they were just sitting in front of your apartment. I assumed you had had your groceries delivered.”

  I shook my head, unsure. It dawned on me a second later. I took the extended bags and thanked her for watching Ryan, who had already gone inside. I made a mental note to bake Mrs. Shubert something nice. She watched Ryan in a pinch for free, and she wouldn’t dream of accepting any financial compensation. The first time I’d tried, she told me that was what neighbors were for. This Thanksgiving past, she’d invited us over for dessert, after we celebrated with my closest friend, Mindy, and her husband Deacon.

  I closed the door and saw Ryan had already made himself comfortable on the couch.

  “Hey, kid. How was Mrs. Shubert?” I settled next to him on the couch.

  He shrugged. “Fine. She made me do all my homework.”

  I smiled. That was a given with a retired middle school teacher. Ryan didn’t usually need any extra prompting to get his work done, however.

  “Can I watch TV?” he asked.

  I looked at the clock. “Only for an hour. It’s a school night.”

  He nodded, grinning. He knew darn well my enforcement of bedtime was pretty lenient as long as he didn’t call me on it.

  “Can I join you?” I asked.

  He looked like he was considering it. “That’s fine,” he said, a touch dramatically.

  He was at that age where he didn’t totally want to be my baby anymore, but hadn’t started pulling away fully. Which meant although sometimes he needed his alone time, he wasn’t completely done with me yet. Not two minutes passed before he was snuggled next to me, my arm draped over him.

  I couldn’t picture my life with him grown up. For what seemed like forever, I operated by keeping my head down and keep our two-person family taken care of. The groceries were cold proof I wasn’t even always doing that. But I loved Ryan so much. Despite the challenge of being a one-woman army, I never regretted keeping him.

  He opted for the sequel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World. His dinosaur phase had lasted a couple months now. One of these weekends we’d go to the Natural History Museum. That would blow his little mind.

  While the movie played, I thought about the groceries. No question, they were from Lucas. I’d seen him pause in consideration at my empty fridge. I’d been annoyed at first. Of course he’d seen something wrong with my home and tried to fix it. But that wasn’t the spirit in which he did things. It was a nice gesture, and when I got off my high horse, I could admit those groceries would go a ways towards relaxing the stress that had been building up. If nothing else, I could rest a bit more tomorrow since I wasn’t scheduled; all I would need to do was drop Ryan off at school and pick him up.

  I passed out with my son in my arms to the sound of late nineties sound effects, more relaxed than I’d been in ages.

  ***

  Wednesday morning I headed to the Rattler after dropping Ryan off at school. It was odd to see the building in the day. The Rattler had been around for a couple decades, and the facade hadn’t been updated since the turn of the century.

  I pushed the door open tentatively, as if I hadn’t spent the better part of four years working here. At night, this was my place. Where I worked, where I knew the people, where I could make the soda machine work even when it seemed like it had finally quit.

  In the daylight, the Rattler wasn’t mine.

  Lucas was seated at one of the booths. He’d spread some papers out over the table and had been intently looking at them, until I walked in.

  Then his gaze snapped to mine.

  Lucas was like the Rattler. In some circumstances, so familiar, so known to me.

  But this morning, he was distinctly not mine.

  We greeted each other and I moved to take a seat by him. He gave me a smile that was charming, if a hint tentative. Lucas didn’t do tentative. He must’ve been convinced I wouldn’t come.

  I’d been planning on sitting across, but he deftly moved over, making it obvious I should sit next to him.

  Logically, that made sense. After all, the papers would be easier to read if we weren’t shuffling them a hundred-eighty degrees constantly.

  Emotionally, convincing myself to sit by him was harder. I was desperately grasping at any distance I could put between us. My heart couldn’t take letting him in again and I couldn’t figure out how to even begin to bridge the years between ten years ago and today. Logic, and social norms, won out. I placed myself at the edge of the shared seat. Even though Lucas had moved deeper into the booth, he still took up a lot of space. He was tall and had muscles that added bulk all around. He was dressed casually, again. Jeans, navy blue T-shirt.

  For my part, I wore my standard bartending attire. I had the early shift after we finished here, so I’d made arrangements with another mom in the building to pick Ryan up.

  I glanced at the papers. There was a blueprint of the bar, a couple catalogs, some papers with numbers that made my head spin, and a few blank sheets for good measure. I snagged some of those and took out a pencil.

  I slid the paper to make it horizontal then drew a Venn diagram. On top of one circle, I wrote OLD, on the other, I wrote NEW.

  And because old habits die hard, or maybe just to avoid looking at Lucas for another moment, I wrote THE RATTLER as a title.

  I stopped short of signing our names. Middle school had been a few too many years away to get away with such blatant procrastination. I forced myself to look up at Lucas.

  “What’s the game plan?” he asked.

  I shrugged. I’d been hoping he would tell me, but I guess the point of hiring a consultant is they tell you what to do. Maybe I would’ve had a better clue had I ever finished my degree, but if he wanted to hire a dropout interior designer, that was his prerogative.

  “I was thinking we brainstorm a bit to start. What the Rattler currently is like, which I can help with, what of that you want to keep, and what you want to update. Then anything else you think should be part of the new design.”

  Our hands brushed as he reached over. Even the brief contact sent sparks dancing over my skin.

  He raised the paper to the light, contemplating, then set it down after a moment. The way he furrowed his brow hadn’t changed. It made me want to rub his forehead and tease him.

  “Alright, I’ll tell you my perception as a newcomer, and how about you fill in things I miss?”

  We got to work. He mentioned some things I’d expected, like the worn seats and facade, the dented furniture. He mentioned the good, loyal staff—we had surprisingly low turnover—so that went in the middle, plus the loyal regulars. I added Marco’s name in parenthesis as a joke, then explained how often Marco came in. When I described the unassuming old man, Lucas recalled him. Then I told him a few highlights of the stories Marco had told me over the years, which had him laughing.

  It startled me, just for a moment, to hear him laugh. The sound hit deep inside my chest. It wrapped around my heart and tugged. His laughter was infectious as ever, so I was soon laughing while I told a few more stories.

  I added a couple of things. We kept bullets on the side of things that would need changing, like the soda machine and so on.

  The NEW circle was a bit harder. Lucas was less sure about what he wanted, which I imagined was where I came in. There was no need to get too fancy, but I knew how well a few key changes would improve a space. I’d always liked that. An apartment was cramped and dank until you added a well-placed lamp, colorful throw pillows, and a cityscape from Ikea as wall art. At least, that’s what I had done when I moved in.

  We brainstormed a bit longer, sometimes going on tangents. Every once in a while, he would reference things from his office on the west coast.

  I was desperately curious about what he’d been doing the
last ten years. Hell, he’d probably tell me if I asked. Lucas was going slow, mostly because I kept stonewalling him at every chance, but he hadn’t been shy about the fact he felt there was still something between us.

  He didn’t know that something was a child.

  I didn’t ask because I knew asking him personal questions would make it all right for him to ask questions back, and there wasn’t a whole lot I felt comfortable telling him.

  The hours passed quickly, almost too quickly. We worked out a rough idea of the upgrades Lucas wanted made. We only stopped when people started arriving for their shifts. Amelia was the first to walk in. She breezed past us to the coat rack without a word, shooting me a curious look that promised questions.

  I abruptly realized how close Lucas and I had gotten, leaning over the same sheets of paper, our heads inches apart. From the distance, I could detect hints of soap, generic shampoo. It should’ve been bland. It was intoxicating.

  I had to pull back. Now.

  “Well, I need to get ready for my shift,” I told him, inching out of the bench.

  Lucas grabbed my wrist before I got up. The warmth of his hand traveled up my arm and I was acutely aware of every nerve ending he was touching.

  “How’re your arms?”

  I blinked. My mind had done the stupid thing where it went blank when he asked some sweet question in a slightly husky tone from this distance.

  Arms. Soup spill. Ice packs. Right.

  “All better,” I said. Squeaked was more like it.

  “That’s good.” The tension eased from his grip, but he didn’t pull his hand back. “Same time, tomorrow?”

  I nodded. “But a shorter day,” I told him. I had a late shift tomorrow so if I stopped consulting around one, I could pick Ryan up and spend a few hours together. With us both being sick, there hadn’t been much quality time, aside from last Saturday when we went to Central Park.

  Lucas agreed and let me go. Truth be told, I didn’t have much to do to prepare for my shift since I was already here and changed. Maybe fix my hair. Oh, and definitely get a bite of food. Over the course of our meeting, I’d completely forgotten to eat.

  I investigated the kitchen. It was a small area, since we didn’t do much in the way of food outside of appetizers and burgers. Because I normally worked out front in the bar, I wasn’t super familiar with where things were. I did find a few bags of chips kept on hand for hungry workers, so I snagged one of those.

  Customers trickled in. Unlike most bars, we didn’t do many happy hour promotions so there wasn’t much of a crowd on Wednesdays. I considered the bar, thinking about what we’d done today. The furniture needed to be replaced, no doubt, and Lucas was going to take the opportunity to rebrand. The Rattler was a bit of a dive bar, and getting deeper each day. This was a chance to turn things around. We made good food, and I, as well as the others, could make a mean cocktail. If he’d made even a small portion of what his company had sold for a few weeks ago in profit, he definitely had the capital to reinvest in upgrading. The walls were mostly good, an exposed brick that gave the bar character. I wanted to see how it would look when we finished.

  It went past than mild curiosity. Interior design had always been a passion of mine. More than that, I was excited to complete a project where I worked. It wouldn’t be an abstract case study, it would be my own contribution.

  And more than that—though I tried to convince myself otherwise—I was excited to spend time with Lucas. Excited in the way you feel adrenaline pump into every inch of your body when you look over a cliff before cannonballing in. The question was whether I’d land safely and walk away unscathed after a thrill? Or was I going to fall flat on the rocks?

  I had secrets. I had walls around those secrets, and I hoped that would be enough. Because the truth was, I couldn’t walk away from the cliff.

  I may have managed to push Lucas Northman away once. But somehow I was never able to walk away from him.

  It’d be a lie to tell myself this could be the first time.

  I lied to myself all the same.

  7. Lucas

  Kara returned the next day, and the day after that, to plan out the renovations. We had fun working together. She’d smile when something fell into place and I’d stare, using every ounce of self-control to not kiss her.

  Thursday she’d made a point to leave early, turning her wrist seemingly every other moment to check the time. When she’d come back for the late shift at the end, she was back to being distant.

  Friday was better. She wore the same watch, but forget to watch the clock, something I took no small amount of satisfaction in. I didn’t push it—much. After last week, I hadn’t offered her a ride home again, and she never mentioned the groceries I’d gotten. I ached to tear down her walls, but Kara would dig her heels in if I pulled too hard. Better to remind her what we’d had, even if it required a torturous amount of patience.

  When we were together, poring over plans, making jokes and shooting shit, it was impossible to forget what we’d had. There was no way I was imagining it—the chemistry was still there, and it was sizzling. But then she’d put up her walls. What was holding her back?

  Over the weekend, when Kara wasn’t working, I’d cornered Amelia, who seemed to be her best friend at work.

  I’d tried for nonchalant. Of course, I wasn’t good at that type of bullshit. I’d interrupted the redhead who was flirting with Ethan. The bartender was tall, broad, and clearly no stranger to the gym. Amelia’s attention—along with the flock he maintained of any single women at the bar on any given night—made it clear he was attractive. Amelia spent most of her downtime circling the bar, not unlike the way I often found myself gravitating towards Kara. I didn’t mind a little workplace romance, especially since it meant the bartender wouldn’t be looking at Kara. When she worked the bar with him, they’d talk casually throughout the shift. When I’d come by, Kara was pressed to say two words to me. It was driving me nuts.

  Amelia had been a dead-end, however. She hadn’t appreciated me cutting her conversation short and had told me in no uncertain terms if I had questions for Kara, I should ask Kara. She’d even pointed to her name tag for emphasis.

  Loyalty like that was good. Except it made figuring out Kara’s deal even harder.

  To kill some time, I worked in the office. I’d wasted no time upgrading the dinosaur of a desktop. How the hell had Samson gotten anything done?

  The Rattler didn’t have a website. Hell, Samson hadn’t even bothered to claim the Yelp page. Web design wasn’t my forte, but I could make something functional. Computers usually cleared my head. Since thoughts of one woman were dominating my brain, I spent the weekend building a site trying to gain some clarity.

  I had arranged for the installation of some new kitchen equipment on Monday, so Kara wouldn’t come to consult until Tuesday. She worked behind the bar Monday night. Lost in her thoughts as she was, I kept my distance.

  Maybe it made me a bad person, but I’d scheduled her to start at four on Tuesday. The first day she’d opted to work straight through, and I figured if I made it more trouble than it was worth to leave after consulting, I could convince her to let me take her to lunch as a thank you.

  If she declined to even have a burger with me, fine, I’d back off. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone, but if she truly didn’t want to spend time with me, I wouldn’t force her.

  To my surprise, she agreed.

  We didn’t go far, just around the block to an all-day diner.

  I glanced around. They didn’t have diners like this in California. It was classic New York, down to the supposed famous people photographed with chefs dotting the wall.

  “Scoping out the competition?” she teased, noting my appraising looks.

  “Are they our competition?” I asked as we were seated. “We’re a bar.”

  “We serve food. And it’s good.”

  I nodded. “It is good.” Surprisingly so. “Especially the soup.” I winked
at her.

  She turned away, a small blush highlighting her cheeks.

  “What would you think if when we remodeled the bar, we emphasized the food a bit more?” I asked.

  She considered. “You mean make it more of a pub vibe than just a bar with food?”

  I nodded, glad she was on the same wavelength.

  “That could be good,” she agreed after a moment's thought. She began to wonder aloud about structural changes, increasing the number of tables and styles. I took notes on a napkin, adding my own thoughts to bring up later.

  Our food came not long after. We bit into our burgers and shared a knowing look.

  Ours is better.

  We headed back to the bar once I paid the check. Kara didn’t fight me on it, still buzzing with ideas for decorating the bar. I spent most of that evening working on the website, scrapping some parts since we were headed in a new direction. But when I did venture out to check out the night’s crowd, Kara grinned at me.

  ***

  The next week passed quickly. Our consulting sessions were invigorated by our new goal. Kara had begun searching up different distributors so we could remodel the bar. She was adamant the Rattler not lose its local charm. I wanted it to be more inviting to new blood, which she appreciated and incorporated. I wasn’t savvy at this interior design stuff, but Kara had always been good about not mocking me for it. Beyond, of course, some good-natured teasing. When I asked why she was getting one particular mirror for the bathrooms instead of another, she explained which frame would complement the hardware better without so much as a smirk.

  She’d eased up, now that we were spending so much time together. Her business slacks and turned to jeans. And those jeans made me groan when she turned around to get something.

  While I may have been a little—okay, a lot—distracted by those jeans, I continued to turn over the puzzle pieces of Kara’s life. The employees at the Rattler seemed to like their jobs, sure. And I knew better than most that following your dream could get old eventually. But I’d never pictured Kara as a bartender. She was good at the job, and she didn’t seem to hate it, but when she was working with me on remodeling the bar, there was a lightness to her expression I hadn’t seen any of the evenings when she mixed drink after drink.