His mom was smiling. “Proud of you, baby.”
Levi moved to the door. “I’ve gotta go.”
“You’re going to go ask her to be your girlfriend for real, right?” his mom asked his back.
“I suggest groveling,” Tess said.
“Ditto,” Mateo said.
“Good luck, son,” his dad said. “You’re going to need it.”
Chapter 29
Jane pulled off the road for two reasons. One, because her defroster was on the blink and swiping her sleeve across the inside of the windshield to see the road better wasn’t working. Two, she was crying. Which might be why she couldn’t see the road.
Life officially sucked golf balls.
But hey, she’d been here before and had survived. All she had to do was keep one foot in front of the other and push through. So she swiped at her face and eyed her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Since when do you let anyone get close enough to hurt you? Because that’s just plain dumb. You know better.”
She did.
But she’d somehow come to believe that she’d been on a new trajectory, where the people she was slowly letting into her life could be trusted.
Turned out the joke was on her, because both the men she loved had just gutted her.
By the time she parked in front of her grandpa’s house, the tears were gone, but she had some things to say. She stormed up the walk and lifted her hand to knock, but the door opened before she could, taking some of the wind from her sails.
Her grandpa took one look at her and sighed. “You always were a nosy little thing.”
Fine. They were going straight to the thick of it then. Suited her perfectly. “How could you not tell me?”
“Easy.”
She gasped, actually gasped, and through the pain in her heart, stared at him.
Suddenly looking far older than his years, he seemed to cave in on himself. “Look, I knew if I told you, it’d be all you’d want to talk about. And I didn’t want to talk about it. Still don’t.”
“But—”
“Jane, do you know when I made my decision about treatment? A year ago, far before you came back into my life. And back then, all I could think of was getting to see your grandma again.” He looked at her with regret shining in his eyes. “I had messed things up with you and couldn’t even imagine a scenario in which you’d ever want to see me again. I honestly thought I was done here.”
She sat down before her knees could give out, right there on the top step of his porch. “I feel like I just found you,” she said through a thick throat. “I don’t think I can bear the thought of losing you again.”
He sat on the step next to her and took her hand. “I’ll still be with you. Just like I always have been.”
Her eyes filled. “But there are treatments that can make it so you can stay with me longer.”
He was already shaking his head. “What time I have left, I want to spend laughing with you, enjoying life with you, not you coming to visit me in a sterile hospital bed. Jane, I’d rather have three incredible months with you than three long, painful, terrifying years.” He looked her right in the eyes, letting her see everything he was feeling, which was enough to bowl her over. “Can you try and understand that?”
She had to force herself to really hear his words. To process what he was saying. She had to ask herself . . . if he hadn’t been her grandpa, if he’d been one of her patients, how would she feel?
If she was being brutally honest, she’d agree with him.
And something else. Levi had said no one was pushing her away this time, she’d done that all on her own. And he was right, painfully so. There would always be another job. There wouldn’t be another grandpa, not for her. “I’ll be here,” she said fiercely, clinging to her grandpa’s hand. “I’ll be here with you no matter what.”
The tension drained from his shoulders and he leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Thank you,” he said with such meaning, her heart squeezed.
And in that moment, she realized that Levi hadn’t been trying to be cruel or to underplay the seriousness of her grandpa’s situation or her reaction to it. He’d simply been attempting to help her understand what her grandpa wanted, from the point of view of a man who himself had never been fully understood by his own family.
This is real for me . . .
He’d put his heart on the line for her. He’d bared heart and soul to her, and she’d turned away from all he’d offered, basically doing to him what people had done to her for her whole life. She’d walked. She sucked in a breath, feeling a new wave of grief. “I messed up,” she murmured. “Big-time.”
“Not with me you didn’t,” her grandpa said genuinely.
She held on to his hand. “Thank you for that. But you’re not the only one I hurt today by thinking only of myself.”
“Levi?”
“Yes.” She swallowed hard. “He told me that what he and I have is real.”
He nodded. “I could see that in his eyes.”
“I walked away,” she whispered.
Her grandpa nodded again.
“You’re . . . not surprised.”
He let out a rough laugh. “After all you’ve been through, no one would be surprised to know you don’t trust love. But, Jane, people are going to love you just for being you. You don’t have to run from it or be scared by it. I know you’ve had very good reasons to do and feel both of those things in the past. But you aren’t your past.” He cupped her face. “It’s okay to let people in, let them love you. It’s a beautiful thing. You don’t have to live in the shadows of your past anymore. Once you realize that, you’ll be able to stop shoving it deep, where it festers inside you.”
She wanted to stop. She did. But could she? Was it that simple?
“That boy loves you. Go to him like you came to me. He’ll listen. Then you’ll listen. Just like we did here, you and me.”
She gave him a watery smile. “Funny, that was his advice to me to begin with.” She covered her face. “I handled it badly. I’m not sure he can forgive me. I’m not sure I would if I were him, but he wanted something real with me, and now I know I want that too, more than I could have ever imagined.”
Her grandpa stood up and offered her a hand, and then a hug that she really needed. “You’ve got a lot of people here who care about you. You’re not alone. This time, every time, it’s your choice to stay or go.”
She hugged him tight, but he pulled back and gave her a shoo gesture. “Go. Go do what you need to.”
She turned and started down the path, only to stop short, nearly tripping over her own feet.
Levi’s truck was parked at the end of the driveway. She could see his tall silhouette in the fading daylight, Levi leaning against his truck, presumably waiting for her.
It was snowing lightly, individual flakes floating in the air, silently making their way down in slow motion, sparkling on the ground, the trees, in Levi’s hair, dusting his shoulders.
He looked like the rest of her life.
He’d asked her where he stood in the lineup of her jobs and her love of going far and wide. She hadn’t answered. She’d been too scared.