“You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“No crazier than most men.”
“Well, that’s reassuring. Thanks,” I mumble.
He chuckles again. “The brain is a fascinating organ. I’ve studied it a little, what with the risks involved in this business. Read all manner of unexplainable things. I don’t think we’ll ever unravel the mystery of how it works.”
“You think I have some issue with my brain?”
He shakes his head. “No. Not at all. I’m just saying the brain is capable of a lot, and there is much we don’t understand about it. Who knows what our dreams are or why some people dream and others never do? Why some vividly remember their dreams and others forget them the instant they wake? Are they past recollections of a different life? Glimpses into the future? Is it a worry or concern manifesting in strange ways like a puzzle we’re unable to figure out? Or is it our brain trying to tell us something or guide us along a certain path?” He shrugs. “We don’t know. We never will. At least not in our lifetime.”
“Kendall would love you. She’s big into philosophy.”
“She the reason you carry that dog-eared paperback with you everywhere?”
I nod. “She gave me a copy of Meditations for my eighteenth birthday. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.”
“Tried reading it once,” he says. “There’s definitely some wisdom amid all the nonsensical ramblings.”
“That book speaks to my soul,” I truthfully reply, pointing to my inner arm. “Got a couple of quotes inked on my skin.”
He strains forward over the desk. “What’s it say? These old eyes can’t read it from here.”
“Divine tolerance and divine fury,” I confirm. “I’m equally split between the two.” I stand, carefully removing my sleeveless training top and showing him my back. “Got this done on Tuesday; that’s why it’s still a little red and swollen.”
He doesn’t need to put his glasses on to read the large lettering that is inked in a curved arc from left to right across the back of my shoulder blades.
You become what you love
He frowns at me. “That’s a big-ass tattoo. You shouldn’t have been training this week.”
“I barely felt the pain,” I admit, putting my top back on. “I’ve been so frustrated and worried about Kendall I can scarcely feel anything else.”
“Before you tell me the rest, tell me what you believe the dream is.”
“When I first started having it, I thought it was my subconscious turning my crush into reality, but the dream is so vivid, and it’s always the same. No detail is ever different. I think it’s a message.” I eyeball him. “I think our souls have lived before. I think we’ve been together in another lifetime and I’m meant to be with her in this one.”
“That’s pretty heavy.”
“I know.” Silence descends for a few beats. “You haven’t said anything about her age or the fact she’s my best friend’s mom.”
He shrugs. “Love is love. I’m old. I’ve seen what this life has to offer. Experienced plenty. I lost my Dolly far too young. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss her. The day my wife died, a part of me died too. If it wasn’t for this place and you hooligans keeping me sane, I think I might’ve lost the will to live a long time ago. If it’s meant to be, it will be. True love will always trump obstacles in its path.”
I wish Jimmy was my dad. He always knows the right thing to say, and he always really listens. Emotion clogs my throat, and it’s hard to speak. “I don’t know if I ever thanked you. You and this club saved me from myself.”
“No, my boy. You saved yourself.”
“I knew I was right to come to you. I already feel better, but I still don’t know what to do.”
“Fill me in on the rest,” he says, and I do, explaining, in summary, everything that happened from the time I moved here. How she has always looked out for me, welcomed me into her home, supported me when things were particularly shit at home, listened to me, and encouraged my dreams. I finish with a summary of what went down at my birthday party and last Sunday.
“Well, shit. That’s not good.”
“Nope.” I toy with the hem on my top. “Her husband is a cheating bastard, and I wish she’d leave him.”
“She might yet. Give her time to process it.”
“I’m running out of time. I’ll be leaving next summer for Connecticut, and I won’t be coming back.”
“You have the rest of your life, and Kendall is still young too. Perhaps the timing isn’t right yet.”
“How do I do this? I can’t spend the next seven or eight months tiptoeing around her knowing what I know and how I feel. She has feelings for me too. She admitted as much.” I swallow thickly. “I laid my heart on the line, and she rejected me, and now I don’t know what to do or where I go from here. Forgetting her is not a possibility. She’s the star of my fucking dreams, and she’s embedded in here so deep,” I add, tapping my head, “I can’t get her out. It feels like I’m going insane.”
“She didn’t reject you so much as she’s unwilling to allow the idea of you to be. She admitted she has feelings for you. No matter how inappropriate she might believe them to be, she’s not denying they exist. That’s what’s important.”
“I don’t know what else to do. She knows I love her, but it doesn’t seem like enough.”
“You made a rookie mistake, son.”
I tip my chin up. “In what way?”
“You came in too hard and too fast.”
“I always want to be honest with her. How is telling her I love her wrong?”
“I get it, kid. You got excited. She was at your place, wearing your clothes, sharing your space, and encouraging your ambition. You could see your dreams coming true, and you went full throttle. It’s one of the things I admire most about you. You see what you want, and you go for it. I imagine that is part of your appeal for her, but put yourself in her shoes. There is so much at stake. Too much to risk starting something with you, no matter how she feels.”
“What should I do?”
“Well, you shouldn’t interfere in her marriage. Kendall needs to make that call free of any influence from you. Otherwise, that could end up hurting you both down the line.”
That is easier said than done, but I get the point he’s making.
“The only thing you can do is be there for her, in whatever capacity she needs. You have had a friendship of sorts through her son. Extend a new hand of friendship. Let her know you understand nothing else can happen now but you are there for her as a friend. I’m betting she needs as many of those as she can get right now.”
13
VANDER
“Fucking asshole.” I toss my bag onto the back seat of my truck and slam the door, grinding my jaw and clenching my fists.
“Problem?” Crusher throws his bag in beside mine.
“I can’t head out to TJ’s after all. My fucking father has summoned me home.” I run a hand through my damp hair as a frustrated sigh heaves from my lips.