Page 81 of Flirting with Forever

She took another deep breath and the sight of her nervous had him reaching up to take her hand, gently leading her to sit next to him on his tiny couch.

“Because when you asked me if things felt different in the morning light, I wasn’t lying,” she said. “But I didn’t mean what you thought I meant.” She looked away and reached down to skim her hand over Ruth’s arching back. “I meant that, like I said, you were about to see me in the bright morning light, and I thought you already had such an issue with my age that you wouldn’t be able to ignore it all spotlighted like that. I get that I misunderstood that now. But think of it from my point of view. Last night I felt sexy and loose. This morning I felt hungover and ugly.” She turned her head to face away. “I didn’t want you to see me that way.”

John’s throat closed over the words he tried to say. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I thought you turned me away because you’d seen the situation in themetaphoricalmorning light and decided that you didn’t really want me.”

“I know you thought that,” she said, turning back to him, though her eyes stayed cast down. “But by the time I’d put the pieces together, you’d already left. We really misunderstood each other.”

“Misunderstanding doesn’t begin to cover it.” He impulsively reached forward and took her hand. It was the same hand that had had the imprint of a house key across her palm last night. It was the hand that had borne the evidence of how much she’d wanted him.

How could he have let that get lost in the mud of his own insecurities? How many times had he told himself that money wasn’t everything? And then, at the first sign of choppy water, he’d assumed that she’d changed her mind about dating a working-class public servant.He’dmade the situation about money. Not Mary.

He quickly kissed her palm and then placed it flat against his beating heart, knowing that she liked to feel his heartbeat. “Mary, do you know what Richie told me about you the other day?”

She shook her head, her eyes still down.

“He told me that I look at you like all the light in the world originates from inside you.”

Her eyes flashed up to meet his.

“And he’s right,” John continued. “What he said made instant sense to me because that’s actually how I feel. To me, Mary, you’re radiant.” He touched her hair with his free hand. “You’re sunny and bright. But it’s not just your hair or your coloring. It’s your mood that shines through.”

Her eyes fell again. “I know I’m a happy-go-lucky type of person, but I’m not always upbeat. There are times that I’m seriously down.”

“I know that. I’ve seen some of them. You know what I thought the first time I saw you cry? That it was like water caught in sunlight. It’s not about whether or not you’rehappy, Mary. You always glow with this internal light. You can’t help it. It’s your spirit. Your determination, your kind heart. The laughing, the smiling, it adds to it, but it doesn’t define it. I can’t define it either, really. Shit.”

He turned his head away to gather his thoughts, and when he looked back, Mary was staring right at him, obviously trying to figure out if she believed what he was saying or not.

He barreled on, determined to get the rest out. “I think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, and it has very little to do with clothes or makeup or whatever. It’s you, Mary. It’s your whole thing that you have going on. That’s the best I can describe it. It doesn’t have anything to do with age. I don’t want to date a twenty-five-year-old. Not even the twenty-five-year-old version of you. I want you, as you are right in this moment. With the sum of all your experiences making you who you are. I wouldn’t shave a single day off your life. This is who you are. And you are what I want.”

Mary blinked at him for a long moment and then shocked him when she burst into tears. She covered her mouth with one hand but looked up at him with red, watery eyes, tears practically pouring down her cheeks. Apparently, Ruth was concerned as well, because when John tried to lean toward Mary to hold her, suddenly there was a twenty-pound ball of yowling fur in the way, putting her paws on Mary’s shoulder and staring her in the face.

Laughter mixed with Mary’s tears, and she settled the cat on her lap. “It’s okay, Ruth. It’s okay.”

“What’s happening?” John asked nervously, having just poured his entire heart out and now desperately unsure if it had been well received or not.

Mary brushed at her tears with the shoulder of her T-shirt. “I always knew that people like you existed. That there was a man like you out there, and that I deserved him. But my mother almost,almosthad me convinced that I was wrong.” She held up two fingers a centimeter apart to show how close she’d come to succumbing to her mother’s beliefs.

“Someday,” John said, “if I ever meet your mother, I’m bringing a foghorn to drown out every single thing she says to you.”

Mary burst out laughing. “Then she’d just take it upon herself to email me her opinions and complaints.”

“Seriously, it sounds like your mother has a very skewed view of the world.” Taking a deep breath, John scooted forward and shooed Ruth off Mary’s lap. “I’d really like to be the person who counterbalances all her whacked opinions.”

Mary laughed again and then stood up all of a sudden. John felt like she’d ripped Velcro off one whole side of him. He’d been about to kiss her, but she was striding away into the kitchen, gulping more water from her glass, and then into the bathroom. She left the door open, and he heard the sink running.

“So,” she called through the open door. “You like me for the sum of all my experiences, huh?”

“And more,” he called back, wondering if he should keep sitting on the couch like a dope or if he should stand up and go to her.

She answered that question a moment later when she came striding out of the bathroom and toward the couch.

John was hit all over again by the sight of her long legs in those short red shorts. He liked her in a simple T-shirt with her wet hair in a messy knot. She looked like she had much more important things on her mind than how she looked, which he knew was the case even when she was in her fancy sundresses and high heels. Even so, this look felt private. Like in her casual clothes, she’d dressed for the honesty of this moment. Guest list: two. Well, three if you counted Ruth.

He grinned in surprise when instead of sitting back down on the cushion beside him, she plunked directly into his lap. Her long legs fell off to the side, and her arms went around his neck.

“I likeyoufor your hairy legs,” she informed him crisply.

He laughed. He liked this rascally version of Mary. She seemed so light. So free. Free of insecurity, he realized.

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