“Huh.” Diane continued to study me, like she found my story heartbreaking and fascinating, but mostly heartbreaking. “And you never told them who you were?”
I picked up as many of the taco fixins as I could carry and brought them over to the kitchen table. “Didn’t see a reason to.”
“How can you say that?” She turned, keeping her eyes on me no matter where I walked in the kitchen. “You were—are—their son.”
“No, I wasn’t.” I returned to the stove and spooned the meat into another waiting bowl. “I was never anyone’s son.”
Diane exhaled, it sounded sad. “Jason.”
“No, Diane. Listen.” I put the bowl on the counter and gave her my full attention. “There wasn’t space in their lives, and I wasn’t going to demand something they had no desire to give. They gave me up for a reason. I didn’t belong to them just like they didn’t belong to me.”
“Haven’t you ever belonged to anyone?” Her frown severe, her words tinted with anger, everything about Diane—how she stood, how she glared, how her hands opened and closed on the countertop—screamed restlessness and frustration. But not pity, and that was good at least.
“I haven’t,” I admitted, keeping my tone plain and taking the dirty pan to the sink. I’d never belonged to anyone, and that was the truth. But also, it was all I’d known. Hard to miss something if you’ve never known it.
“Well! That’s just—” The cut off words were sharp with irritation, and I glanced over my shoulder to look at her.
I didn’t need to. She’d marched to the sink and stood at my side, glaring up at me with a ferocity I’d never seen in her before. I’d seen her fierce, but not like this.
“What?” I tried to read in her expression why she’d be irritated with me and guessed at the reason. “Telling my biological parents who I was wouldn’t have done any good. It would have just—”
“Forget those people.” She waved away my explanation, flinging her hand to the side like she was flinging my biological parents out of existence. “Do you want to?” she demanded, and the question had a ring of challenge to it.
My eyes moved between hers. I didn’t understand what she was asking. “Do I want to see them again?”
“No.” Diane inched closer, her tone quieter. “Do you want to belong to someone?”
Rearing back, I turned completely from the sink, and watched the scowl on her gorgeous face morph into something soft and searching.
“Because—” She lifted her hands like she might grab me for a hug, but then stopped herself, folding her twisting fingers under her chin. “Because I’d like you. I’d like you to be mine. Very much.”
Chapter Fourteen
*Diane*
“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.”
Simone de Beauvoir, La Vieillesse
I could see I’d shocked him.
Which meant I needed to make my case before he found his wits enough to reject the offer. “I’m not in my twenties, Jason. Or even in my thirties. I’m not looking for a good man to start a life with or start a family, build a home. I’m middle-aged, hopefully at the center point in my life, a woman past all those youthful considerations and worries.”
“Are you saying . . .” He swallowed, his eyes still moving between mine like he expected me to take it back or disappear. “Are you saying you want a future with me?”
“Yes. I do. I don’t know if it’s a forever future, but I’m not sure I believe in forever anymore, and I don’t think I want to.”
Jason lifted his chin and the move felt defensive. “How do you mean?”
“I once committed myself to a forever of unhappiness, of low self-worth, of struggle to please another person. I’d resigned myself to it, thought of it as a Godly duty. I’d made my bed, and I was going to sleep in it come hell or high water, because that was the noble thing to do. But now the idea of forever makes me cringe.”
“What?” He lifted a teasing eyebrow, but he was obviously still struggling with how to respond to my offer. “You don’t think staying committed in a marriage is noble?”
I could see he wanted to lighten the mood, but I wanted him to know where I stood. I told the truth, “No. Not always. Not if one party is shouldering all the burden, not if both people aren’t striving to be worthy of that commitment, and especially not when one of those people is a sociopath. Staying in a marriage like that isn’t noble, it’s spiritual suicide. And I don’t think Saint Peter would take kindly to me knocking on the pearly gates without my spirit.”
A surprised chuckle left his chest and he crossed his arms, leaning a hip on the counter. I got the sense he was still uncomfortable with the idea of belonging to me. And that was fine. If he didn’t want it, if he didn’t want a future with me, so be it. But I needed him to understand that a future between us was possible.
At least, from my perspective, it was possible.
“Jason, the considerations I’d been taught were important when I was younger aren’t a factor now.” I shook my head for emphasis and dared to take back the step he’d ceded. But then I halted because he winced, his eyes falling to the floor at my approach. “All I want, all I need from you, is honesty and care. That’s it.”
He made a slight sound, like my words pained him, and my brain went into overdrive. How could I convince him? And if I couldn’t convince him, how did I backpedal fast enough to not ruin everything? How did I get us back to where we’d been?
Damn it, Diane! You should’ve kept your big trap shut.
Why did I always want more? Why couldn’t I just let things be?
“Listen, I—” Now I stepped back. I sensed he needed space and for once in my life I wasn’t going to push. “You already know how I feel about you. And I’ll be just fine if you don’t want more than what we’ve already got. I don’t want to ruin this thing between us for however long it lasts.”
Jason shook his head, his face scrunching tightly, and he closed his eyes. “No. No, I—Diane. No. I do want more than what we’ve already got, and you haven’t ruined anything.”
“You do?” I couldn’t help the reedy note of hope that entered my voice or the way my heart gave a happy leap.
He opened his eyes, but he still didn’t give them to me. “I have to confess something.”
“Is it as serious as you look?” Inspecting him, my heart quit its happy leaping. In fact, it sunk while I held perfectly still.
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his forehead, and then glanced up abruptly, his eyes hooking into mine. “I’m not great at gauging what severity means to civilians.”
“Civilians meaning not motorcycle folk?”
“And nonmilitary folk.”
“You were in the military?”
“I was, but that’s a discussion for a different time.” He tore his stare from mine and walked past me, mumbling something that sounded like, “Or maybe never.”