Second Chances

by Gray, Christle

  The lights were low and shadows danced along the dark paneled walls, which made everything cozy and romantic. She nibbled on her lower lip and waited for him to come back from the bar.

  A few people sat at the long wooden bar and nursed drinks quietly. The bartender stared at a barely audible television behind the counter. His tired expression betrayed his boredom with the serene atmosphere.

  David brought back a glass of white wine and a beer and sat across from her. He took a large swallow of his drink and ran his other hand through his hair. It seemed like he was trying to figure out how to start.

  The intense silence stretched her nerves to the limit. Finally, she couldn’t stand it. “So if you don’t want to buy any art, then why, exactly, did you come to see me?” Her heartbeat doubled as she waited for him to answer.

  David set his drink down. “I’m not totally sure, to be honest.”

  He shifted nervously in his seat and his eyes darted back and forth, scanning the room, apparently unable to meet hers. “In my line of work, things can get fairly complicated, having to deal with the public’s perception of you. One wrong move can have an unfortunate impact on your career, or others around you.” She didn’t interrupt him as her finger rubbed the edge of her glass.

  He finally met her gaze head on. “I meet a lot of people who claim they want to be my friend. Unfortunately, they usually end up having ulterior motives.”

  Kristin waited as he paused to sip his beer, seeming to carefully consider what to say next.

  “You, on the other hand, do not strike me as that kind of person, which is refreshing to a jaded Scotsman like myself. So, I thought it might be nice if we got to know each other.” His hand fiddled anxiously with the neck of the beer bottle.

  Kristin’s excitement at seeing David again diminished as her heart dropped to sit in her stomach, a hard lump of disappointment. He wanted them to be friends?

  Her eyebrows pulled together. To be honest, she didn’t have many friends besides Ingrid and Celia. Her loneliness after relocating to London, weighed heavier after James’s death. It would be nice to hear a masculine opinion one in awhile, but was he really being honest with her?

  “And how do you think Sophie would feel about us ‘getting to know each other?’” Wine tended to make her bold at times, but after the exchange with Sophie outside the Royal Festival Hall, Kristin discerned that some justification should be in order.

  David’s face turned a sickly shade of white. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  Kristin huffed indignantly and folded her arms across her chest. “How can she not have anything to do with you getting to know another woman behind her back?” She shook her head, bewildered by his denial. “No wonder she’s so jealous.”

  His face now colored with a just a hint of crimson, and he sat back in his seat. Mirroring her, he folded his arms across his chest. “What makes you think she’s jealous?” His voice grew subdued.

  Kristin leaned forward and jabbed her finger in the air between them. “Because after you went back to the party that night, she told me very clearly to stay away from you, even though I tried to tell her we had just been talking.”

  His hand raked through his dark hair as David shook his head slowly back and forth. “Everything is such a blooming mess.”

  This whole scenario left her confused. Kristin reached across the table and took one of his hands in hers. “David, help me understand, and maybe I can help you. It’s just, well…I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  His other hand covered hers, sandwiching it between his own and he leaned forward, like he was about to reveal a secret. “You’re right. I haven’t been entirely honest with you about my situation.”

  Kristin’s chest tightened in triumph. She knew he’d been hiding something. The way he’d been acting around her and his fiancé hadn’t made any sense. But now that he’d admitted that fact, uncertainty plagued her. Did she really want to know?

  “Sophie and I aren’t exactly together like everyone thinks we are.” David’s words hung in the air like a low-lying storm cloud.

  Slowly she pulled her hand out from between his and laid it in her lap. “What does that mean? Either you are together and engaged, or you aren’t.”

  David stared intently at his lap. “It’s not that simple.”

  What was he trying to tell her? “So explain it to me.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair again, and her heart did a somersault. Why did she have feelings for him when she just found out he hadn’t been entirely honest with her?

  “Six weeks ago, I decided that it was no longer working between Sophie and I, and we came to the decision to call off the engagement. She had just started filming her first major movie role, and was terrified of how the breakup would play in the press.” He took another drink of his beer, while the fingers of his free hand drummed anxiously on the table.

  Kristin crinkled her nose. “Why would she be so afraid of the press?” The way Sophie acted, it didn’t sound to her that it was a press concern. The woman was way too possessive for it to be merely that. In that maniac’s mind, David was hers forever.

  David took a deep breath and clasped his hands together in front of him before he spoke. “Sophie has had a very established career, being in the public eye since she was a child. She developed a very specific public persona, becoming one of England’s sweethearts.”

  Kristin almost snorted in disbelief. Sophie was anything but a sweetheart. She turned her attention back to David as he continued. “This image is very important to her, so she begged me to pretend we were still engaged. It’s only until she’s through filming her movie. Then we can decide how we want to go public with the announcement.”

  The thoughts in Kristin’s head spun with all this information. She didn’t think it was going to be that easy with Sophie, but surely David could handle the woman. “So everyone thinks you two are still engaged when you aren’t? And, you’re going your separate ways?”

  “Aye, and it’s put my life in a bit of a shambles.” He stopped his fidgeting and finished off his beer.

  She picked up her wine glass and swirled the liquid around inside. “So why bother keeping up the charade?”

  David signaled the bartender for another beer before answering. “I’m not sure. I don’t want all the hard work I’ve put into my own career to be for naught. But, maybe it’s out of respect for a fellow actor’s career, or because I feel obligated, or maybe because I loved her once, and don’t want to do anything to deliberately hurt her.”

  Kristin shook her head. “If this is all a charade, then why was Sophie so angry at me last week for just talking to you?”

  David shrugged. “I can only guess she was looking out for anything that could lead to a story of us parting ways before we were ready to go public. She can be a little intense when dealing with things not entirely within her control.”

  Intense was an understatement. Kristin couldn’t imagine having to pretend to be with someone you weren’t in love with anymore. It didn’t seem fair that something like that could affect someone’s career, but she had seen how brutal the British tabloids could be. Yes, that’s why Sophie acted out of control. That had to be it.

  “And no one knows any of this?” The corners of her mouth lifted in a grin, she couldn’t stop.

  The bartender brought David another beer, set it down on the table in front of them, and then returned to his post behind the bar.

  “No one, except you.” He took a swig of the beer and played with the label.

  Kristin stared into her wineglass for a moment, letting everything she’d been told sink in. What did she want? Could she start a new life? Could she be friends with David?

  Her heart fluttered with a mixture of fear and excitement. Maybe friendship could be that small step toward being able to share something more with someone.

  When she looked up again, David stared at her expectantly.

  “S
o why tell me?” Her wine barely touched, she finally took a sip.

  David’s eyes shifted to the label on the beer bottle in front of him. “I can’t explain it, but lying to you about it felt wrong, somehow.” He glanced at her once more. “I hadn’t anticipated meeting someone during all of this.”

  Kristin took another sip of wine as she weighed their conversations over the last couple of weeks. A large part of her was overjoyed at his admission that he was actually not engaged to Sophie Miller. But that fear of trusting others still held her in its grasp.

  What did David expect her to say? What was she supposed to do with this information? Did he think she would be willing to play along with this absurd game? She had barely decided to move on with her life and didn’t need to deliberately make it more complicated.

  But with the deliberate way he tilted the beer bottle to his sensual lips, Kristin thought complicated might be just what she needed. “David—” he held up a hand.

  “I’m not being presumptuous enough to ask for anything besides a chance for us to be friends. The situation is too shambolic for anything more.”

  Kristin crinkled her nose. “What’s shambolic?” Asking something mundane seemed easier than to feel anything.

  “It’s slang for chaos, Kristin.”

  He dropped his hand and his shoulders slumped, the action diminishing his tall frame. “I’m just so tired of lying to my friends. I thought it would be nice to have someone I could be completely honest with.”

  Kristin perked up her eyebrows. “Friends, huh?” One step at a time, isn’t that what Ingrid said?

  David smiled and released the white-knuckle grip around his beer. “That’s it, friends. Buddies. Mates. What do you say?”

  He appeared as eager as a schoolboy for her answer. The tug of attraction she felt whenever she stared into his eyes for too long stirred up images in her mind better left dormant. Could she keep that under control in order to build a friendship? Perhaps it would be a good test of her newfound resolve to move on with her life.

  Kristin tilted her head. “Well, I guess I don’t really have many friends myself here in London, and we do seem to frequent the same places lately.” What the hell, friendship helped her take a leap out into the world.

  She raised her glass. “I say, let’s toast to new friends then. Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” he smiled and lifted his beer.

  The clink of their glasses joined the other jovial sounds of people socializing in the pub. David relaxed his shoulders and leaned back in his seat, in what she assumed to be relief.

  “You were really nervous about telling me all of that, weren’t you?” She snickered at his apparent relief.

  His forehead wrinkled adorably as his eyebrows arched. “Aye, wouldn’t you be? For all I knew, you would’ve chucked me out the door on my arse.”

  Her snickers turned to all out laughter. “I guess it’s a good thing the wine has me feeling pretty mellow right now.”

  “That was the idea,” he admitted, as he tapped his head with his index finger and nodded.

  Good looking and funny to boot. Friends, friendship, remember. She was doomed, always a sucker for a man who could make her laugh, just as James had right up until the end.

  There was a small tug at her heart as she thought about James, but David’s dimple gave her the strength to gently push it aside. There would be no sadness tonight.

  Another sip of wine, then she shifted in her seat to get more comfortable. “Tell me about being an actor.”

  He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Well, it’s not as glamorous as most people think. Sure, I get to don costumes or travel sometimes, but mostly there’s a lot of waiting around while they set up the cameras for each shot. That’s precisely why I love the theater so much. There’s more of a chance to fully immerse myself in a character, because of fewer interruptions.”

  “You sound like you really love it.” The transformation that actors so readily went through had always fascinated her.

  “Aye, I really do.” He sighed. “The only thing I don’t like is not having the time to see my parents as often as I’d like.”

  A family man, too. Could he get any more perfect? Friends. How many times will I have to remember that? “So are you close to your parents?”

  David’s head bobbed in reply. “My Mum and Dad worked hard to give me a good childhood. And when I told them I wanted to be an actor, well, they made sure I could go to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Said if that’s what I wanted, then I needed to go all the way for it.”

  “They must be very proud of you.” Not that she would know what parental pride felt like. Her parents had spent all of their time tearing each other, and her, apart.

  “Chuffed to bits, to hear my Mum speak of it, which is why I’d like to visit them more often.” David sat back in his seat again, his hands in his lap. “What about your parents? Have you seen them since moving to London?”

  Kristin gasped. Now here was a subject she usually shied away from, not having had such a storybook childhood. Sometimes, she told friends her parents died, just so she wouldn’t have to talk about them.

  But the glass of wine had calmed her nerves enough, and she had to start trusting more than Ingrid and James.

  “I haven’t seen my father since I was twelve, and I haven’t seen nor talked to my mother since I moved to London.” She twirled the stem of her wineglass.

  David leaned forward in interest. “Why is that?”

  Kristin picked up her glass and downed the rest of her wine in one gulp. “My parent’s didn’t exactly have a peaceful marriage. Nothing my father did was ever good enough for my mother, and so over the years they fought, he drank, and then, finally, he left.”

  Kristin closed her eyes as the wine hit her stomach radiating warmth throughout her body. Was it the wine that made it so easy to share her hidden side with him? The image of her drunken father on the front porch holding her shoulders telling a poor twelve-year old girl, “I’m leaving because of you and your damn mother,” flashed through her mind.

  Abandonment by the man she’d loved ruined her trust in other people so many years ago. Only James helped her through the pain.

  Her eyes opened slowly. “My mother blamed me for my father leaving. Without him there, all of her anger shifted to me, so I spent the better part of my teenage years trying to live up to the same impossible standards that drove my father away.”

  “That must have been horrible for you.” David’s eyes held tenderness and concern.

  Kristin laid her hands flat on the table and tried to keep them from shaking. These memories brought up the despair, helplessness, and worthlessness she had spent years locking away. All of these were forever entwined with her childhood.

  “I guess it was, but it was normal to me.” The raw pain of letting go a piece of her past didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would.

  David’s hand moved across the table and grasped hers gently. “So what changed then?”

  “I met James.” She smiled and her heart filled with joy and pain at the same time. “I was in my senior year of high school, and this big, burly guy came and sat beside me one day, out of the blue. I never said a word, just stared at him like an idiot, because no one ever talked to me much.”

  David’s thumb moved gently back and forth across her knuckles. Tiny sparks ignited across her hand at his touch, but the sensation reassured her too, a comfort for the soul baring she was attempting.

  “James did this for a week, me still never saying a word. Then, finally, he asked me out on a date. I couldn’t believe someone thought I was worth taking out somewhere. Neither could my mother when I told her. Despite that, I accepted, and my life changed forever.”

  David smiled and continued to rub her hand. Even though the glass of wine had warmed her body, his touch warmed her even more. He so easily made her believe she was safe while revealing so much about herself.

  His long fingers squeezed he
r hand gently. “You still really miss him, don’t you?”

  Her eyes focused on his fingers wrapped around her hand. It was right, her hand in his. Warm, comfortable, and exciting all at once.

  Kristin raised her gaze to his once again. “I do miss him.”

  Missing James would always be a part of her life, but she also knew it was time to find a way to move on. That man she loved had even made her promise, not that she kept that vow. Until now.

  “I would have liked to meet him.”

  “He would have liked to meet you, too. You have a lot in common.” Her lips curled into a smile tinged with sadness. They would have argued over beer, football, and the cultural impact of British humor on television.

  Peering around, she noticed that most of the patrons had gone, which left only them and two other people. She stared at their joined hands on the table again, but this time, she glanced over at her watch. She pulled her hands away, maybe a little too quickly. Remember, they were only friends.

  “Oh, my, it’s past one in the morning!” The time had flown. “I have to get home so I can get some sleep before work tomorrow.”

  David let go of her hand and glanced at his watch as well. “Blimey, where has the time gone? I have to be at the theater tomorrow morning.”

  Kristin headed out the door with David close behind her. It was another lovely spring night, a soft wind curled around her like a favorite blanket. The inky, black sky was speckled with stars, just as the glow from the street lights dotted the sides of the street. The fresh air was a welcome change from the smoky interior of the dark pub.

  “Can I take you home?” David stuffed his hands into his pockets again.

  Kristin grinned at his boyish mannerism. “Actually, I don’t live far from here, so I’m going to walk.”

  “Then, I, being the gentleman that I am, will see you to your door, milady.”

  He bowed a little at the waist and offered Kristin his arm, which she gladly entwined with hers. They walked again in silence, but this time it was the comfortable silence that friends often share, not the awkward silence of strangers.