Page 44 of A Return For Ren
“True,” he said. “It’s fine.” He looked at his watch. “It’s four. I appreciate you helping me put everything away and going with me. What do you think about an early dinner out? I can’t tell you the last time I had a meal when I wasn’t worried about feeding Max at the same time.”
“Four months,” she said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But it feels like four years.”
“I’d love to go to dinner. By the time we sit down and get our food, it will be five. I find I’m pretty hungry though lunch was filling.”
He laughed. “I’ll make it up to you for the cheap date.”
So he was thinking of it as a date too. “It was cozy and practical. That is what life is about. It’s not all about fancy and flashy.”
“Two words that don’t describe me,” he said.
She looked at him in his faded old jeans and a navy cotton shirt that was pushed up at the elbows. The sneakers on his feet were runners and she’d seen the treadmill in a spare room at his house, which told her how he kept in shape. He’d had some free weights too that he’d packed up and brought with him here.
“Do I look like someone that goes for the fancy and flashy? I play with paints and toddlers all day. I change diapers and wipe faces and clean snot off of baby’s noses at times too. The last time I had a dress on was Zane’s wedding. Before that...I have no idea. Not a real dress.”
She wore jeans and shorts to work. Nothing new either, as most things got ruined or stains she had to fight to get out.
She had a few sundresses and used to wear them in the summer when she was with Willow because it was fun to play dress-up with her niece and take her places.
But Willow had a new mom and other aunts she got to do that with and Zara got out of the habit.
“You were always so girly in school,” he said.
“I enjoyed makeup and doing my hair. I liked to look good, but I still didn’t wear a dress all the time. My father threw a fit when I tried to look too old.”
Many knew her father was on the police force. It was hard not to in this small area.
She didn’t think her father was that intimidating when she was a kid, but she supposed looking back many boys felt it.
Her dad had given Ren a hard time in the beginning too but then came around. It helped her mother was in her corner, but she’d never say she had a bad relationship with her parents. Either of them.
She thought she was close to them both. As close as most teens were.
Sure, she fought with her parents, but nothing like what Ren went through. Maybe that was why her father let up after a while and learned to trust her. That she wouldn’t make mistakes.
She did though. She was hurt so badly by Ren and her father had been livid.
Though she’d found that out years later from her mother. That her father had wanted to have a few words with the guy that broke his daughter’s heart. Even wanted to drive to MIT to confront him.
She hadn’t told her parents that Ren was back in town nor that she was spending time with him.
It wasn’t like her to keep secrets, but she knew at some point she’d have to tell them. Zane knew, but he’d never gossip about things like that.
She wasn’t even sure Zane talked to her parents all that much. Her parents called weekly to talk to Willow and Lily and Zane might say a few words but not much else.
“I remember he did,” he said.
She grinned. “He’s mellowed some over the years.”
“Haven’t we all?” he said. “So, dinner? Tell me a good place to go wearing these clothes. Unless you want to go home and change. You can put a dress on and I’ll try not to let my tongue hang on the asphalt, but I don’t have much other than jeans here.”
“I’m good like this,” she said. She had dark jeans on and a cotton shirt that fit her body well. It was purple and not so casual that it would look like she was in a gym. She had sneakers on too, but hers were fashion-forward for style rather than function.
“Lead the way,” he said, grabbing his jacket and keys.
She did the same, put her jacket on and snatched her purse off the counter. Now they were going on a real date and not one where the other threw together a quick meal.