Unraveled(41)

"That sounds super enticing.”

"I'm sure that there are summer hobos you could try out. Do a little service project."

"Your ideas are terrible, Eve."

I kept looking over at Adam’s table, but it stood conspicuously empty. Tucker and his friends had come in one night and sat there; I stared at the table as if I could wish Gray into existence. That had never worked with Will and it didn’t work with Gray either. It did, unfortunately, make Tucker think I was ready to forgive him for ignoring his family.

“Hey, sorry again about bailing on lunch the other day.”

I started to say that it was okay but then stopped because it wasn’t okay. “I think Carolyn really could use a visit from you.”

Tucker shrugged. “She likes to see you better. You’re Will’s wife.”

"Will's wife could've used the support," I said more sharply than I intended, and then I felt bad for making him feel guilty. But I'd said it because I needed him to be there. It was tough emotionally for me but Tucker would always be the guy who was running away from all of his problems and leaving them for other people to sort out. While I admired the fact that he had gone off and pursued his dreams, a big part of me was pissed off was he couldn't be more supportive of the grief his parents were suffering. It was hard to hold up Carolyn and myself at the same time. We both could've used a bit of his support to lean on. My biggest objection against Bitsy getting involved with Tucker had more to do with the fact that I thought he was a selfish bastard then the fact that he was ten years older than her.

"Sorry," he said blandly but we both knew that he wasn't.

“Besides,” I said. “I’m not Will’s wife anymore.”

He reached out and tapped my diamond. “This says you are.”

I fisted my hand. “Maybe it’s time to take it off.”

Tucker’s eyes widened but a rush of customers cut off any opportunity to talk. By the time a lull hit, he was gone. He and his crew had vacated the patio and either headed inside or to some other bar. Tucker’s feelings for me were entirely fabricated. He, like his mother, viewed me as an extension of Will. They kept me close because I was someone who loved him and, I suppose, because I answered Carolyn’s phone calls and went to the monthly luncheons for the same reason. But I was only twenty-two and I couldn’t be Will’s widow forever. There was only a long life of loneliness if I hewed to that path.

For the last week I’d run errands for my mom's law firm and when I wasn’t tending bar, I knitted, all the while staring at the unfinished flag I'd been working on for Will when he deployed. When I realized I'd made men's socks on the second night, I resolved to hunt Gray down and make him listen to me.

I’d never finished the afghan, but I hadn’t taken it down either. It kind of paralleled my life. The act of living it had been interrupted, and I'd never quite gotten back into the swing of things. Taking down the flag wouldn’t even be that hard, but it was just one of those things I’d never gotten around to. I'd dropped out of college, abandoned the flag, and kind of holed up with my family hoping that it was all a bad dream.

Gray obviously thought I was just an emotional mess he didn't want to take on for his temporary stay. I was lonely, but I wasn’t a danger to myself. I wasn't going to kill myself, and I had never thought of it, even in some of the darkest hours of my grief. While I had wanted Will to come back to life, I guess I was too selfish to want to leave it. Being out with Gray had made me feel enervated. Hanging off the side of the cliff, feeling that weightlessness, was exhilarating. I wondered if that sensation was what Will had felt, what he chased after, and I wanted a deeper taste, a fuller understanding of it. I thought Gray could give that to me.

So I was done waiting for him. I was going to find him and ask him to spend another day with me. Yes, there were lots of guys I could pick up for one-night stands here at the bar. There was always someone at the last call who’d struck out all night and would gladly go home with me regardless of what I had in my apartment or how many rings I wore on my fingers, but I didn’t want them. I wanted this golden-eyed man who told me he’d catch me if I fell. I was determined that he not see me as a sad widow who’d tried to hurl herself off the cliff. That was not going to be his last encounter with me. I was fun, dammit. He was going to see that if I had to hold him down and motorboat him. And if he was nice, I’d give him the men’s socks that I’d started knitting the other evening.

“So you think you’re ready to take off your ring, huh?” Eve asked as casually as she could when the band took a break.