The Years Between Us

by Stephanie Vercier

  She looks startled, but it seems like it’s just for show. “Yes, absolutely rude of me to be going on like that. I wouldn’t want to put ideas into your head, make you think the boy you’re currently with doesn’t compare.”

  “I’m not with any boy,” I tell her, my patience wearing thin.

  “No? I thought you and David Baker.” She steps back and assesses me again. “He’s a good looking young man. No?”

  I open my mouth to start some kind of awkward reply when she shakes her head and waves her hand in front of her as if making the thought of David and I disappear.

  And then, as if on cue, as if this day couldn’t get any more awkward, the bell above the door jingles, and David himself struts in. He’s wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. On first look, David is handsome. But his outward appearance can’t make up for the guy I’ve been getting to know over the last three weeks, one that’s full of himself and has no qualms about pressuring me into doing things I don’t want to, who would leave me alone at the diner because I didn’t want his hands all over me.

  “David!” Emily beams. “We were just talking about you. I hope you haven’t been too naughty with this one.”

  “What?” He doesn’t even smile. He just looks pissed.

  Emily straightens, her demure smile suddenly going slack. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I’m not sure your mother would appreciate you being so sharp with a repeat customer.”

  He sighs out a breath. “Sorry,” he growls. “I need to talk to you, Claudia… alone.”

  That’s the last thing I need or want, so I prepare to tell him I’m helping Emily with an order. I look over at her first before opening my mouth, and I startle at a sudden, intense flare in her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” I ask her, those being the first words that come to mind.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” she snaps back. “I suppose him wanting to chat with you is my cue to leave.”

  David looks at her for all of two seconds, some glance of familiarity in his eyes I know I’m not just imagining before his eyes are burning right back into me.

  “But your order,” I remind her, just as she turns on her heel.

  “I’ll come back in tomorrow once Rhonda has returned,” she says, pretty much glaring at David before she walks out the door.

  “Are you guys… is she mad at you for some reason?” I really don’t want to talk to David, not at all, but I can’t help but ask in response to the tension between he and Emily.

  “Hell if I know what her fucking damage is,” David snarls, letting an annoyed breath out. “She can be a real cunt, but she’s my mom’s friend, so whatever.”

  Of course David would use that word to refer to a woman.

  Asshole.

  “Anyway, I really should get back to work,” I say with a sharpness in my voice that I do nothing to hide.

  “Yeah, because you’ve got zero customers.” He’s incredulous and downright nasty.

  “What do you want, David? Is this about last night?”

  “It’s about what you said to Danielle,” he snarls. “Here I was, chilling over at Carlos’, and she comes at me and asks me what the hell I did to you last night. What the fuck did you tell her?”

  God, he can turn ugly when he’s mad. “I didn’t tell her anything. She asked me if I slept with you, and I told her no. Then she got it in her head something else must have happened.”

  “Like what? Like I tried to rape you or something?”

  I roll my eyes, and he sees me doing it, his own eyes flaring back in anger.

  “I didn’t say anything, David. I suppose I could have told her you were drinking and coming on to me and acting like a spoiled little brat when I didn’t melt into your arms. God, I just wanted to be your friend, and—”

  There is no time to react, no time to stop him reaching across the counter, grabbing hold of my head and pressing his lips to mine. Before I can even pull away, his tongue is in my mouth, and I have to smack the side of his head to get him to let go. And when he finally does, I slap him right across his face for good measure, the palm of my hand stinging as I step away from him.

  “Jesus… why the fuck did you have to do that?” He’s holding the side of his face, some of his anger dissipating into what looks like hurt.

  “I don’t understand you.” I’ve had a couple of guys be upset with me before when they felt like feigning niceness should have earned them the right to sleep with me, but I’d never had one push so hard after I’d explicitly and repeatedly said no.

  “We could be so good together,” he says, eyeing me like I’m the one who’s the crazy one. “You and me, Carlos and Danielle. This could be the best summer ever, but you’re like this cold fish, and I don’t fucking understand it.”

  “I think you should go,” I say, my discomfort around him climbing to new levels.

  He pushes out an annoyed breath, looks at me like I’m certifiably insane. “Yeah, whatever,” he barks out, then turns and stomps out of his mother’s store.

  When he’s gone and while the store is still empty, I allow myself to cry. It’s not just about David, about how scary he’d just been, but it’s about Luke and what I feel for him, something that came on so hard and so fast. It’s about lying to Danielle and to my parents. But it’s also because of the women in Luke’s past, women who might be far more presently involved than I’d ever imagined, women I’m not sure I can compete with.

  Chapter Seventeen

  LUKE

  “I’m going to change,” Dani says the moment she and Claudia walk in, then dashes up the stairs before I can say so much as a hello.

  Having just checked the salmon in the oven, I take the opportunity to take Claudia’s hand and walk her back into the pantry alcove.

  “I missed you.” I put my hands on her hips, so damn glad to see her.

  “I missed you too.” She lifts her lips into a smile, but it feels put on, insincere.

  “Something wrong?” I furrow my brow and tilt her chin up toward me. “You can tell me.”

  She puts more effort into her smile. “It’s been a strange day. Emily came into the shop, and she… well she said some things.”

  “What kinds of things?” Just the thought of what she might have told Claudia unsettles me.

  “She said stuff about you, Luke.” She can barely hold eye contact with me when she says it.

  It’s not hard to guess what Emily might have allowed to slip out of her mouth. I’d been doing my best to be cordial with her, but it’s been obvious to me that she sees my lack of communication with her as a slight.

  “She talked to you about our relationship?” There’s no sense now in denying there was a relationship. That would only make it worse.

  Claudia nods, and it’s now I see her eyes are the slightest bit red.

  “Have you been crying?” I stroke her cheek, pissed off that Emily might have caused that, or worse, that it might have been because of me.

  “It’s really silly,” she says, her chin wobbling. “I felt… I felt kind of jealous.”

  I pull her to me and kiss her forehead. “You have nothing to be jealous about, Claudia. I haven’t been as up front with Dani as I should have been about Emily… and maybe with you too, but she’s in my past. I hope it’s not going to be an issue.”

  She holds tightly to me. “You have a past, and I don’t… it’s just something I need to get used to.”

  It’s hard not to feel a punch of fear at that. Claudia might have felt like she was in love with me this morning, even when she’d made that phone call to me, but after talking to Emily, this might just be more complicated than she’d like it to be.

  When I ease away, I dare to kiss her beautiful lips, first because I’ve wanted to do that ever since I’d woken up without her, and secondly because I hope it reassures her how much I care.

  “I’ll be as open a book as I can be with you,” I tell her. “Yes, I have a past, and Emily and my ex-wife aren’t the only two
women I’ve been with. I want you to be okay with that, but I can’t force you to be. All I can say is that when I was nineteen, I’d only wanted to be in love with one person too. It’s just that it doesn’t always work out that way.”

  She wipes away a tear, and I wipe another from her chin.

  “You’re right, and I’m sorry—”

  “No need to be sorry,” I assure her.

  “Okay. Can I come to your room tonight? After Danielle is asleep?”

  I should tell her no, that I don’t feel right about sneaking around behind my daughter’s back, and yet the idea of going an entire night without Claudia isn’t such a good one.

  “I’d like that,” I tell her, resting my forehead on hers again. “But if you can’t… or you change your mind, just text me, okay?”

  “Okay,” she says. “I’m going to run up and change before dinner too.”

  “All right. I’ll see you in a few.” I kiss her lightly on the lips one more time before she disappears.

  Dani comes downstairs in an oversized T-shirt and sweat pants while Claudia returns in a white blouse and dark blue shorts. They reveal long, flawless legs, and I make a conscious effort not to leer. When we all sit down to dinner in the living room, I’m afraid it’s going to be awkward, but I soon discover that it’s just easier to show an authentic interest in Claudia instead of trying to hide it. I do, however, have to pretend that interest is platonic, just like I’ve been pretending, by omission, that Dani’s mother is doing just fine on the coast instead of spending her days and nights in a hospital in Seattle.

  “I love your cooking, Daddy,” my girl tells me after her first few bites. “I miss this so much when I’m away at WSU.”

  “Well, you sure haven’t been around for much of it this summer so far,” I tell her lightly, not meaning to scold her, just wanting her to know she’s missed.

  “You can blame Carlos,” she tells me with a shrug, then turns her attention to Claudia. “By the way, he’s going to talk to David. I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but I know it’s something.”

  Claudia had just taken a drink of water and throws a death glare toward my daughter before she even puts the glass down.

  “What’s going on with David?” I ask it immediately, jealous and concerned and likely not doing a great job of hiding either of those emotions.

  Dani snaps her head back to me while Claudia keeps hers turned away. “I shouldn’t have said it in front of you, Daddy. But if we need you to beat him up, you will, won’t you?” She tags that on with an impish grin. She’s joking, and yet I’d be more than willing if he did anything at all to hurt Claudia.

  “I’ll have a stern talk with him right now if I need to,” I tell Dani before turning my attention. “Claudia?”

  She looks at me, but she remains silent. She doesn’t seem at all pleased this has become a topic of discussion.

  “If there’s something David has done, I want you to come to me, okay?”

  She nods quietly, then says, “I can handle it.”

  “He really did do something,” Danielle nearly hisses. “God, I thought he’d matured since high school, but maybe I just misread him.”

  “High school? What’d he do in high school, Dani?” Maybe my knowledge of David Baker is limited, only knowing him as part of the group of friends my daughter hung out with in high school and of course being Rhonda’s son. I’m aware that he held, and probably still holds, a reputation of being kind of a Romeo, but I’d never caught word of anything more sinister than that. The fact that Claudia thinks she has to “handle” anything has me concerned.

  Danielle shrugs. “No… nothing. Anyway, I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Then she turns to Claudia. “Sorry… I’ve embarrassed you. I just don’t want to be responsible for bringing you here for the summer and then getting you in trouble, and it doesn’t really hurt for my dad to have his eyes out for you too, right?”

  “I guess so… sure.” Claudia looks down at her plate and picks at her food.

  “I want you to tell me if he does anything at all to make you uncomfortable,” I say to Claudia with all seriousness. “Can you do that?”

  Claudia nods and whispers, “Sure.”

  Eventually the conversation veers away from David and into less controversial subjects. We talk about the classes Claudia and Dani will be taking sophomore year, and I find out, via Dani, that Claudia modeled when she was fourteen. Being as beautiful as she is, it’s not all that surprising. I’d like to know more, but after Claudia turns pink and sends another glare toward my daughter, she assures us both her modeling days are over and not anything she’s keen on discussing.

  I accept that, and, to take the heat off of her, I talk about some of the work I’ve been doing for the past six months and a few of the new software products I’ve had a hand in designing. They actually seem interested, even when I get into the more boring technical stuff. But I’m unable to help myself and eventually angle the discussion back toward Claudia.

  “I haven’t talked to your parents in a couple of weeks,” I tell her. “You know how they’re doing in Florida?”

  “Cory and Kyle have been texting me,” she says with the first real smile I’ve seen on her this evening. “They can be so annoying, but I miss them, and they’re kind of bummed I’m not there with them.”

  “They must look up to you.” It’s easy to envision.

  “Or they just want you as a buffer,” Dani says, a little too dismissively for my tastes.

  With a lift of my eyebrows, I turn to Claudia. “What do they need the buffer from?”

  “My parents can be… overwhelming,” Claudia volunteers. “Sometimes they argue, and it boils over, and then they’re kind of blind to anything else happening around them. It can be kind of scary.”

  “And Claudia would take her brothers to the park or for ice cream or whatever to get them out of the house,” Dani fills in. “She’s probably the one that should be the parent.”

  Claudia doesn’t say anything, but her returning blush tells me more, tells me that what Dani is saying is true. And I can absolutely see it. I’ve been attracted to Claudia because of looks certainly, but more so because she doesn’t seem like a nineteen-year-old girl. Yes, there’s the lack of experience with men, but beyond that she’s shown a great deal of maturity, from the way in which she got the job with Rhonda and has kept it, to her obvious concern for her two younger brothers and even back to sixth grade when she helped a boy out that she knew needed it.

  Without a doubt, there is even more that attracts me to her, and surely I’ll be adding to that, as I believe I’ve only seen the very tip of the iceberg as to what Claudia is capable of.

  “You’re very mature,” I finally tell her before leaving it at that, not wanting to embarrass her more than she’s already appeared to be tonight.

  “Hopefully you won’t hold it against me that I don’t have a job this summer like Claudia does,” Dani says with a grin, though I can see there’s a part of her that’s concerned she isn’t measuring up to her friend.

  “You know how proud of you I am,” I tell her. “You keep up your grades and stay out of trouble. You’re the best daughter a dad could ask for.”

  She pushes out her bottom lip. “Aww, Daddy, now you’re embarrassing me!”

  “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” It’s then I get up from the couch I’d been sitting on, keep my eyes glued on my daughter and walk over to her before she can get away from me.

  “Daddy, no!” She’s already laughing before I even get over there, before I slide onto the couch, bend down and grab onto her ankles, pulling her legs up along with them so that she swivels and leans in to Claudia. Once I’ve got a good hold of her, I go to work tickling the soles of her bare feet.

  “Daddy!” she protests before going into a fit of giggles while I hold onto her ankles and tickle her the way I had when she was little.

  When I chance a look over at Claudia, her hand is over her mouth, and she�
�s laughing too, not yet having had the opportunity to see this side of my relationship with my daughter. I ease up on the tickling, letting her think she’s off the hook, and my memories return to the time she was small enough to be carried on my shoulders, how she loved me to throw her up in the air and then catch her, how for those first years our little family was a blissfully happy one.

  “You had enough there, pipsqueak?” I let go of her ankles, and she slides back up to a sitting position on the couch.

  “You are so devious, Daddy! Are you going to still be doing that once I’m married?”

  “I don’t know… when are you planning to get married?”

  We’re both still laughing then, but Dani gets a serious look on her face before she turns to Claudia. “Who knows, but I’m not sure my future husband is going to let you get away with that.”

  “Hey, I’m the dad. I’ll always have dibs on getting to tickle your feet.”

  “Anyway…” she says, stretching her arms out. “Dinner was great, but I’m pooped. Should we head up, Claudia?”

  Claudia has only finished half of the food on her plate, but I don’t think she’d intended to clear it. I’m either a bad cook or she’s still bothered about David or Emily or maybe even just missing her brothers in Florida.

  “We should help your dad clean up,” she says, standing up and picking up her plate and empty water glass.

  “No, no.” I’m up next. “I don’t mind. You girls head upstairs. I don’t think you’ve had as much time together as you thought you would this summer.”

  “He’s right,” Dani says. “But we really should help you clean up. I’ve got to at least look like I’m pulling my weight around here.”

  “Yes, we insist,” Claudia tells me.

  In a way, I wish they’d have both gone up. The clean up does go faster with them, but we’re all pretty quiet too. There are things I want to ask Claudia, but I can’t ask them in front of Dani. And there are things I’d like to know about my daughter, like how things are progressing with Carlos, but I don’t want to embarrass her in front of Claudia.