The waiter came over, setting down the crawfish étouffée for Easton and my blackened catfish and left to get us another round of drinks.
She took her spoon and pushed it through her stew of rice and peeled crawfish tails. I grabbed my fork and knife, ready to cut into a meal I wasn’t the least bit hungry for, but I stopped, seeing her take a small piece of bread and dip it into the stew. She brought the bread up, dripping with creole sauce, and caught it with her mouth, sucking the tip of her thumb before starting to chew.
Glancing up, she caught me staring. “What?” she asked more as an accusation.
I cut into my food. “You’re only allowed finger foods when we go out to eat,” I deemed.
I heard her snort. “If we go out again,” she corrected.
She picked up her spoon and we both started eating. I ate the fish with the sauce and all of the rice, quickly realizing I was hungrier than I’d thought. I rarely just sat and ate, unless it was with Christian, and more often than not, we were both interrupted by phone calls or texts at the dinner table.
Business dinners were a lot of talking and drinking, so Mrs. Giroux’s home-cooked meals were much appreciated. It was my fault I chose to eat them at my desk as I worked.
I raised my eyes, watching her eat and loving the sight of her sitting there: her dark hair spilling over her shoulder, her skin glowing in the light of the ostentatious chandelier hanging above her, her downcast eyes as she licked her lips after taking a drink.
I wasn’t thinking about work or home. At the moment I wondered only what she was thinking.
“Why do you want to go into politics?”
I stopped, looking up. She watched me silently, waiting.
I shrugged slightly, setting down my silverware and relaxing into my seat.
“I have money,” I pointed out, picking up my drink. “Now I’m bored, and I want power.”
She set her spoon down, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. She cocked her head, unamused.
My chest shook with a laugh before I took a sip and set down my drink. She didn’t take any bullshit, did she?
“I’ve been on top of the world my whole life,” I told her, fingering the glass. “I grew up attending private schools, and my father made sure I had everything I could ever want. College was a blast. Being on my own, money I didn’t earn or question where it came from sitting in my pocket…” I trailed off, staring at the table and narrowing my eyes.
“I didn’t concern myself with anything that brought me down,” I confessed. “I was arrogant.”
I stopped and smirked at her. “Well, more arrogant than I am now,” I added. “I was self-serving and selfish.”
The waiter stopped and set down the drinks, leaving just as quietly when neither of us looked at him.
I raised my eyes, meeting hers. “When I was nineteen I got a girl pregnant.” I swallowed the lump, remembering that day I’d wished so many times I could go back and redo. “She wasn’t even really my girlfriend,” I added. “It was new, and it was casual, and then all of a sudden my connection to her was permanent.”
Easton’s expression was emotionless as she listened.
“And you know what?” I continued. “I still didn’t change. I threw money at her so she’d go away, and after a year or so, she married someone else.”
I looked away, feeling ashamed. “A great guy who wanted her even though she had another man’s kid, a guy who was there for my son.”
My throat tightened, and I forced my breathing to slow. I’d worked very hard over the years not to think about Christian waking up in the middle of the night or having stories read to him by someone else. Times when he was small and helpless and needed me and I was nowhere around.
I was never there.
“I thought I was a man.” I spoke quietly. “I wasn’t even close.”
She dropped her eyes, looking saddened, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Did she think less of me now?
Of course she did.
“When I was twenty-two,” I went on, “I was in my last semester of college and ready to be done. I had to take this social science course to fulfill a requirement. I forget what it was called,” I told her, “but I remember, very well, arguing with the professor one day. He was giving us some prison statistics. Percentages of the inmates’ races, percentages of repeat offenders…”
I tipped back the drink, finishing it off, setting the glass down, and clearing my throat.
“Everyone thought that the inequalities in prison culture were shocking, but I didn’t care. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”