Nick leaned forward in his chair. “Look, I know we both have our histories. I don’t expect you to talk to me about yours until you feel ready, but I want you to know that whenever you want to, I’d love to hear about your life. About your husband. About what happened.”
“It doesn’t scare you? I’ve got a lot of baggage. ‘Widow with child’ isn’t exactly high on the desirable traits list when you’re dating.” She laughed, but it came out sounding hollow.
“No, it doesn’t scare me off at all.” He hesitated. “And I want to be upfront with you about my past.”
“Your past?” Cassie’s eyebrows rose, along with her curiosity. Still, she demurred. “Nick, you don’t owe me any explanations.”
“I want to be completely open with you. My parents died in a house fire when I was pretty young. Not much older than Birdie. That’s probably the biggest reason I got into firefighting. The other stuff I mentioned earlier is all true too but losing them made me want to help other people avoid that same loss. After they died, my grandma raised me. She was old world, right off the boat—made me go to Ukrainian school every Saturday morning, as you’ve heard, and was super strict, but I loved her like crazy.”
He paused and cleared his throat. “She died last year, and I was alone. I had no family, no one to answer to, no one to hold me accountable, and I kind of went off the deep end. I started going out all the time. Partying. Dating tons of women. Women I wouldn’t have dared bring home to meet my Baba. Well, you met a few of them the other night. I’m sure you could see why.”
Cassie tried not to cringe at the memory of the women flirting with Nick.
“The thing was, I didn’t care about anything. I went to work and then did whatever the hell I wanted. I guess I should be thankful that I kept my head level enough to not lose my job.”
Without thinking, Cassie reached for his warm, rough hand. He gripped hers back.
“Nick, you don’t have to do this.”
“I do, though. Because as crazy as it sounds, that’s all changed. Meeting you and Birdie woke something up in me that’s been asleep for so long I thought it was dead. You’ve made me feel again. You’ve made me want to be the best version of myself.” He smiled sheepishly. “This is all probably pretty heavy for a first official date, but I feel so comfortable around you, and I wanted you to know you aren’t the only one with baggage here.”
Be happy. Live your life. Henry’s words from her dream echoed in her head and her skin flushed as she stared into his blue eyes.
The waiter interrupted their moment to set down the dinner plates. As they dove into their food, Cassie found herself opening up.
“I didn’t really date in high school. I met Henry in college. Love at first sight, it was like we were the only ones in the room, all the clichés you could imagine. We got married right out of school, traveled a bit, and then settled down. Birdie came along, and I thought I had everything I could ever want. Then, one day, it all fell apart.”
She took another sip of wine. The alcohol, combined with the cozy interior of the Italian restaurant, made her brave. “He took her out for ice cream after dinner. She’d learned to ride her bike that day, and he wanted to celebrate. I had an article deadline to meet for work, so I stayed back.”
Cassie closed her eyes, trying to hold back the barrage of feelings that assaulted her whenever she recalled that day.
“A semi-truck blew a red light. Henry died on impact, and Birdie barely survived. The doctors put her in a medically induced coma. I didn’t leave her side for weeks.”
“Is that why she didn’t talk for so long?” Nick asked.
Cassie shook her head. “We don’t know why she didn’t talk. They ran all kinds of tests, but there was no permanent damage that they could see. They told me it was psychological, which made sense. She went out for ice cream one night, woke up a week later and found out her dad was dead. It would be a lot for anyone, let alone a four-year-old girl. We didn’t have Henry’s funeral until I knew she would be okay. I couldn’t even grieve for him until she woke up. I had to take one tragedy at a time and thinking about him being gone while I didn’t know if I’d get my baby back was too much. I still feel guilty about that.” Her voice broke. “About putting my feelings for him on hold, like it didn’t matter that he died.”
“Of course it mattered,” Nick said. “But you were in survival mode. You were doing whatever you needed for Birdie. No one would fault you for that.”