doing well at letting go of an unrealistic sense of responsibility. Nothing in his expression now suggested he’d even been thinking about his mother.
So that wasn’t the problem.
He tried another not-so-random sortie. “You mad at Coach McGarvie?”
Hunching his bony shoulders, Carson didn’t want to meet Ben’s eyes. “Not really,” he muttered. “I haven’t been together. That’s not his fault.”
“Anything I can help with?” Ben asked. Years of practice kept his tone easy, not too pushy. Kids this age didn’t respond well to pushy.
Carson sneaked a look at him before his gaze skidded away. “Nah.”
Was that some kind of shame or embarrassment he was seeing? Ben wondered. Hard to tell in the dim lighting.
“You know, I’ll listen anytime you want to talk,” he said.
“Yeah. This is—” He hunched again as much as shrugged. What “this was” remained unsaid.
A girl? Carson was sixteen, a junior in high school. What could be likelier? Ben watched more closely than he let on, though, and he hadn’t seen any particular yearning looks. Not the kind he’d been directing Olivia’s way on the rare occasions when he saw her, he thought ruefully.
He heard himself say, “You must wonder why I don’t date.”
His son looked at him in alarm. Ben worked to keep his amusement from showing. A parental figure planning to talk about sex? What kid wouldn’t be panicked?
“I figured, um...” Carson’s throat worked. “It was, you know, because things were so bad with Mom. And maybe because you have me...”
Ben reflected on what was actually a pretty darned perceptive answer from a teenager. “I guess at first it was because of your mother. And it’s true I wouldn’t want to set a bad example for you.” He’d never been the woman-of-the-week kind of guy anyway, though.
“Grandma was whining the other day. She said she wanted, um, more grandkids.”
Seeing the fleeting expression of pleasure on the boy’s face, Carson gave silent thanks to his mother. Both of his parents, really. They’d accepted Carson without question as family. They openly called him their grandson. Even if Ben married and his wife started popping out the babies, neither of his parents would ever act as if the new, related-by-blood grandkids were any more important than the one he’d already given them. And because of that, he hadn’t regretted for a minute returning to his hometown, even if it meant he had to keep seeing Olivia and face her complete indifference to him.
If she really was indifferent.
No, he was kidding himself. She’d retreated at warp speed today when he tried to get personal.
“Hey, here comes our pizza,” Carson said, recalling Ben to the present.
They’d ordered an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pizza that would probably have Ben suffering from regrets a few hours from now, but, damn, it smelled good. Carson fell on his first slice like a starving dog. Ben wouldn’t have wanted to risk his fingers trying to take it from him. He grinned crookedly, remembering that age when it seemed he couldn’t ever get full. And Carson, he suspected, might end up several inches taller than Ben.
Mel had never talked much about her son’s father; in later years, Ben came to suspect she didn’t actually know which of many men had fathered him. The fact that she hadn’t put a name on Carson’s birth certificate seemed to corroborate that theory. Whoever the guy was, he had to have been tall and likely a good athlete, too, since Mel had never seemed inclined that way.
Ben had taken only a few bites when Carson reached for his second slice. Unexpectedly, though, he set it on his plate rather than immediately stuffing it in his mouth. “So, how come you don’t date?” he blurted.
Had there been a good reason he’d raised the subject? Ben asked himself. Oh, yeah—to open up the possibility of talking about girls and sex. It suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“Waiting for the right woman, I guess,” he said with complete honesty.
Carson’s eyes were a bright blue, his hair a sandy brown that, like most of the other boys, he wore spiky. Right now, those blue eyes were sharp enough to make Ben feel like squirming. “There aren’t that many single women in Crescent Creek. I mean, your age.”
The last was a little condescending. Middle age wasn’t exactly looming, damn it; Ben was only thirty-five. But what Carson had said was right: most of the really appealing women his age were already married. More so in rural Washington than would have been true in the city, but he didn’t get to the city much anymore.
Ben braced himself for Carson to ask about Olivia, since he did know they’d gone together in high school, but instead his stepson picked up his slice of pizza, then set it down again.
“Don’t you ever, you know, want to have sex?” His voice cracked at the end, and he turned his head quickly, cringing at the possibility that anyone had heard him.
More than you can imagine.
Ben heard himself make a sound he couldn’t quite classify. A groan? Damn, he wanted sex...but not with just anyone. With Olivia. He hadn’t been able to picture anyone else in his bed since he’d set eyes on her again after his return to Crescent Creek. Two years and four months ago, to be precise.
Carson suddenly blushed. “Or, oh, wow, maybe you are and you’re just making sure I don’t know about it.”
“No.” That came out so harshly, Ben had to clear his throat. “I’m not. And, yes, I do. Want to.” Was he blushing? “Unlike a lot of men, I’ve just never been into casual sex.” He hesitated. “I’m not saying that as a parental lecture, but to me, the whole thing is awkward when you’re with a woman you don’t feel much for. Sex with a woman who is essentially a stranger doesn’t hold any appeal to me.”
All the color left Carson’s face. He looked...shocked.
And Ben had no idea why.
For a strange moment, they stared at each other.
Then the sixteen-year-old gave an elaborate shrug and said, “You know that’s totally abnormal, don’t you, Dad?”
Ben let himself relax. Even enjoy the rare reference to him as “Dad” and not “Ben.” “Yeah,” he said, “but then I chose to spend my life working with teenagers, and what’s normal about that?”
They exchanged grins and resumed eating. It wasn’t until considerably later that Ben realized he still didn’t have the slightest idea what was weighing on his kid.
* * *
THE MINUTE OLIVIA opened the front door and smelled dinner cooking, she realized her mother was trying to make amends. Wonderful. What she’d really like was to go straight to her bedroom. Now she had to be nice instead.
In a better mood, she’d have laughed at herself for her sulkiness. As it was... She sighed and went to the kitchen.
Mom even wore an apron as she tore lettuce into a bowl. At the sight of her daughter, she offered an uncertain smile. “I didn’t hear you come in. I hope you didn’t already have dinner.”
“I’m just late. It smells good.”
“Beef stroganoff.”
“I can tell.” She forced a smile. “What can I do?”
“Oh— If you’d like to set the table?”
Olivia did escape upstairs briefly to dump her messenger bag and change into slippers, but then she went back down. Were they actually going to have a real conversation?
Apparently. Olivia had no sooner spooned stroganoff onto her noodles than her mother said, “I’m sorry I took you by surprise