Indiscretion

“I can’t believe you still haven’t heard from Dawson.” Lily shook her head. “I was worried about you getting involved with him at the beginning because of his track record with women. But when I saw the way he looked at you, I stopped worrying. He’s clearly crazy about you.”

I dipped a French fry into ketchup and sighed. “He has a funny way of showing it.”

It was Friday afternoon, almost two weeks since something had changed with Dawson. It was like he was upset with me, but I had no idea why, and he didn’t allow himself to be around me long enough to figure it out. At first, even though we kept missing each other at the office, we kept texting. But now even his texts had grown distant. They were never more than a few words, and he never initiated them except to ask once a day how Frannie was. And at this point, it was clear we weren’t missing each other anymore. Dawson was avoiding me like the plague.

“This morning, I got to the office at six thirty because he’s been coming and going either before I arrived or after I had to leave for the day to pick up the kids. Frannie’s sister-in-law, Cynthia, stayed over last night, so I didn’t have to do the morning routine. But Dawson was already gone by the time I got there. I asked the overnight security guard if he’d seen him leave—pretending I’d overslept and missed the boss and he was going to be mad—and the guard said he came in at midnight and left at around four AM. The man has turned nocturnal to avoid me.”

“I just don’t get it. There has to be a reason. He’s probably freaking out over how he feels about you because he has no experience with relationships.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But I get the feeling there’s more to it than that.”

“Ben thinks it has something to do with Bailey.”

“I wondered that, too. Because she died of cancer. Maybe Frannie’s situation stirred up old emotions that are difficult for him to manage. But he didn’t disappear when the shit hit the fan and Frannie had that awful week that scared us. He went MIA after she started to recover and got out of the ICU.”

“Whatever the reason, he needs to pull his head out of his ass and speak to you about it.”

I sighed. “Could we talk about something else? I need an afternoon off from thinking about Dawson. I feel like that’s all I do lately, and it’s honestly exhausting.”

Lily reached across the table and patted my hand. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

I forced a smile. “Tell me something good. How’s the second floor coming along? Have you started renovating yet?”

Her lips curved to a cheeky smile. “We started one particular room.”

I dipped another fry. “Which one? Your bedroom?”

“No, the nursery.”

My eyes widened. “You’re…”

Lily nodded with the biggest smile on her face. “I just found out a few days ago. You’re the first person I’ve told besides my mom and obviously Ben.”

“Oh my God, Lily!” I got up and walked around the table, swamping my best friend in a hug. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you guys.”

“Thanks. I still can’t believe it. The funny thing is, I had my IUD put in a few weeks before I met Ben. I went to the gyno for a checkup two months before the wedding, and she said it was almost time to change it. I told Ben, and his response was a sexy smile and ‘I can’t wait to put a baby in you.’ I thought it was insanely hot and attacked him.”

I laughed. “You two are sickeningly perfect together.”

“We’d planned on trying in a year or two, but since the IUD had to come out, we decided to roll the dice and let things happen when they were meant to. I was shocked we got pregnant so fast.”

“I’m so excited for you.”

Lily’s news really lifted my spirits, and I left the diner feeling upbeat for the first time in weeks. Though as the day progressed, I couldn’t help but think about where I was in my own life. A year ago, I’d had my dream job and been engaged. Brad and I had talked about having a family in the future. Back then, if someone would’ve asked me where I saw myself in a few years, I would have described Lily’s life—happily married and pregnant. It was a reminder that life changes, and we have to keep moving forward. I just really wished I was doing that with Dawson.

***

Sunday afternoon I took Leo to the park for off-leash hours. The minute I closed the gated area and unhooked his collar, he took off with a Pomeranian. Unfortunately, being here reminded me of the last time I was here. With Dawson. He’d asked me to be his girlfriend that day, and we’d talked about introducing our “children,” Leo and Sheldon. How we’d gone from that to today still utterly confused me. Until now, I hadn’t let myself think about the fallout from our decoupling. While we weren’t officially broken up, maybe it was time I took the hint. Could I continue to work for him? I loved the job, and it paid well. Lord knows it had taken me forever to find someone who would even hire me, so I wasn’t exactly anxious to start pounding the pavement again. But…seeing Dawson every day? How would I feel when he inevitably started dating, and women called or stopped by the office? Even the thought of it turned my stomach. This is why you shouldn’t mix business and pleasure.

I closed my eyes.

God, I’d made a mess of my life once again. My fresh start had turned into a sour ending. Busy feeling bad for myself, I realized I’d lost track of Leo and his little friend. So I got up and went to see what trouble he could be getting himself into. Women sometimes put their purses on the ground next to them, which was an invitation my dog and his unpacking addiction couldn’t refuse.

“Leo!” I walked through the dog park calling his name. “Leo!”

I finally found him in a quiet corner, humping his stuffed turtle. Except as I walked closer, I noticed the color of the shell was darker than Leo’s. And I hadn’t even brought his toy! Great. He’s humping someone else’s. I really hoped some three-year-old wasn’t watching this go down, being scarred by my dog violating his favorite stuffy.

“Leo! Stop that!”

Of course he ignored me and went right on humping, standing on his two hind legs.

I reached for the poor stuffed animal, but quickly pulled my hand back and gasped. Leonardo wasn’t humping a toy; he was humping a real, live turtle. “Oh my God!”

But it definitely wasn’t God who answered.

“It’s fine. Sheldon’s head is still out, so he doesn’t seem to mind.”

My head whipped around. “Dawson?”

I hated that my heart started to race wildly just seeing the man. He smiled sadly. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?”

He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “I came to talk to you. Took a chance you’d be here.”

My body may have been excited to see the man, but my head wasn’t in agreement. I suddenly got very angry and felt my face heat. “You don’t need to take chances on where to find me. I’ve been the same place every day for the last two weeks: at the office. You know, the place you’ve been avoiding.”

Dawson dragged a hand through his hair, and I took a closer look at his face. He looked terrible—annoyingly handsome, yet still terrible. Dark circles rimmed his blue eyes, his normally tanned skin looked sallow, and his face was covered in what looked like two-week-old, ungroomed scruff. His clothes were also wrinkled, when he was always dressed crisp. “I have been avoiding you. I’m sorry.”

I turned away. “Just say whatever it is you came to say and get it over with.”

He stayed quiet for a long time, but I could feel his presence. “Do you think we can sit and talk?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Fine. Whatever.”

Dawson walked around me and lifted Leo. It pissed me off that he looked adorable holding him. So I plucked my dog from his hands. “I can carry him myself.”

Dawson frowned and gestured to a park bench under a tree. “Why don’t we sit over there? I’ll move Sheldon.”

We sat side by side on the park bench. I kept my focus forward, watching Leo, not ready to look at the man next to me.

“How’s Frannie?”

My lips pursed. “Fine. It’s very nice that you’ve taken such an interest in my sister’s health, but it would be great if you gave a shit how I was, too.”

I felt Dawson’s eyes burning into me, but I still didn’t turn.

“Naomi,” he whispered. “Look at me.”

“Why? Do you want to see me cry when you dump me?”

“I never want to see you hurt, Naomi.” He paused. “Please look at me.”

I gave him my best icy glare, but when I saw pain in his eyes, it melted.

“I’m sorry.” His voice cracked. “I’m so damn sorry I’ve been avoiding you.”

I tasted salt in my throat, but refused to allow myself to cry. “Why? What did I do?”

He shook his head. “You didn’t do anything. I’m just a coward.”

“I don’t understand.”

He nodded. “I know. And that’s because I shut you out when I should’ve let you in. But I was too ashamed to tell you about my past.”

“Does this have something to do with Bailey?”

“It starts there. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to tell you about her.”

“Of course.”

Dawson looked down for a few moments before starting. “I met Bailey in eighth grade. Girls were just starting to get into boys, and I thought I was hot shit because a few of the popular girls liked me.” He shook his head. “Bailey called me out on my shit whenever my head started to get too big. We were best friends. She had cancer, but in tenth grade she went into remission, and boys started to notice her. Her hair grew back, and she put these blond streaks in it. She wasn’t the sick girl anymore. She was just a regular high school girl, which is really all she ever wanted. She didn’t have a lot of friends, because she was sometimes out of school for long periods of time and her treatments took all her energy. A few guys asked her out, and she even went to a dance with one of them, but she’d always find something wrong with the boys who took an interest. I teased her that her standards were too high, but I suspected she was afraid to get close to people because her cancer had come back twice already.” He paused and took a deep breath. “It came back a third time in the fall of junior year.”

“I’m sorry.”

Dawson looked straight ahead, but I didn’t think he was seeing anything, at least not what was in front of him. “She did a few treatments but then stopped. There was nothing they could do that would extend her life more than a few months, and Bailey wanted to go back to feeling like a regular high school kid again for as long as she could. She started acting strange around me, and I thought she might be trying to distance herself to make it easier when she…”

Tears filled his eyes. It no longer mattered that I was mad at him. Reaching over, I took his hand and laced our fingers together.

Dawson cleared his throat. “Anyway, her mom pulled me aside one day and told me Bailey really wanted to go to the junior prom. I hadn’t told Bailey yet, but I’d already asked Allie Papadopoulos, the girl I’d been seeing, to go with me. But there was no way in hell I could let Bailey miss junior prom if she wanted to go, so I canceled with Allie and asked Bailey instead.”

I smiled. “That was very sweet of you.”

He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. Because I was an asshole seventeen-year-old and kept seeing Allie even though I’d told Bailey we’d broken up. Allie wasn’t happy about me going to the junior prom with someone else, but by the time the day rolled around, Allie wasn’t feeling well anyway.” Dawson took another deep breath. “Bailey’s treatments wiped her out pretty easily, so we didn’t stay at the prom long. Long story short, Bailey asked me to kiss her. She said she didn’t want to die without ever being kissed. So I kissed her—and, then, and then… I kept on kissing her…and we wound up having sex, even though I had a girlfriend and didn’t have those types of feelings for Bailey. After, she told me she loved me. I didn’t know what to say. I loved her too—just not the way she’d meant it. But I didn’t want to hurt her, so I said it back.” He paused and took a breath. “The very next morning, I woke up feeling like shit, and it wasn’t just because I’d cheated on Allie and crossed a line with my best friend. I literally felt like shit. My glands were swollen, and I was shivering even though I was sweating. A little while later, Allie called to tell me she had mono.”

Dawson closed his eyes. “I wasn’t at school the following week because I was sick. But apparently, Bailey told someone we were a couple, and it got back to Allie who was also home sick with mono. Allie got pissed and sent a text to Bailey telling her she was sleeping with me and I’d only gone to the dance with Bailey because I felt bad for her. Bailey called me crying and asked me if it was true that I was with Allie. I didn’t want to lie to her, so I came clean and told her the truth. The next week, before I could see her in person and try to fix things, Bailey came down with mono. I’d given it to her, and her weakened immune system couldn’t fight it. I broke my best friend’s heart and then killed her.”

My heart clenched. “Oh my God, Dawson. You can’t blame yourself for that. You didn’t know you were sick.”

“I knew my girlfriend hadn’t been feeling well, and I didn’t think before I kissed Bailey.”

“You were seventeen and doing what someone you loved wanted you to do.”

“I didn’t make the right decision.”

“What would the right decision have been? To not kiss her and break her heart by rejecting her? I think if I were in her shoes, I would’ve wanted the kiss more than a few more days.” I shook my head. “Did my sister’s cancer bring this all to the surface for you? Is that what’s been going on?”

“There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“What?”

He took a deep breath and turned to face me. “I was your sister’s bone-marrow donor.”

I blinked a few times. “What?”

He nodded. “I was her donor.”

“What? How? Why wouldn’t you have told me that?”

“I didn’t do it for the right reasons. I wanted to save your sister because of what I did to Bailey.”

“Did you think that would upset me?”

“It felt wrong. And then she got sick. And the doctors thought she was rejecting the transplant, and I thought—holy shit, I did it again. I decided what’s right or wrong for someone else, and they’re going to pay the consequences again.”

“Oh, Dawson…” I covered my heart with my hand. “You did something beautiful. Twice. And what happened after is just part of life. Even if things hadn’t improved for Frannie, it wouldn’t have been your fault.” I shook my head, feeling awe as I looked at the man in front of me. “I can’t believe you did that and didn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry I kept it from you.”

Still in shock, I couldn’t stop shaking my head. “I was starting to get jealous because you kept asking about my sister even when you were clearly avoiding me.”

“Can you forgive me for not telling you and then not being there for you these last few weeks?”

“Forgive you?” I pulled him into my arms. “I should be thanking you. You gave her the most amazing gift, and you gave me the gift of more time with my sister.” I hugged him tight. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

After a long time of holding each other, Dawson pulled back. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Oh God. What else?”

He took my face in his hands and looked straight into my eyes. “I love you, Naomi. I think I have from the first moment we met.”

“I love you, too.” My eyes filled with tears, happy ones this time, yet I couldn’t help but laugh. “Though the first time we met, I gave you a black eye.”

His lip twitched. “But I showed you my dick. So no wonder you stuck around.”

I smiled, feeling hope bloom inside of me. “Welcome back. Believe it or not, I even missed your big ego.”

Dawson rubbed his nose with mine. “How about we go back to my place? And I apologize properly.”

I bit down on my bottom lip. “What did you have in mind?”

Dawson’s eyes shifted over my shoulder. He lifted his chin, guiding me to follow his line of sight. When I did, I found Leo once again bent over Sheldon, humping away. “Maybe a little of that, for starters?”