Page 96 of The Edge of Summer
“Couldn’t give it to her?” she guesses.
Either Jodi truly is a gossip or I am much easier to read than I thought. Probably a bit of both.
“I knew it was a bad idea, getting involved with her. But I couldn’t help myself.”
“I said the same thing about Jodi.” She offers me a grin. “I was freshly divorced and had just moved here. I wasn’t looking to start anything, but some things are beyond our control.”
Control.
Everything about Delilah made me feel out of control. From the moment she walked into my life, I haven’t been the same. I tried so hard to resist her pull—the hold she so effortlessly had on me.Hason me. I thought putting an end to our arrangement and letting her go would free me from her, but I am more tangled up in her now than I ever was before.
“That’s an awful lot of thinking you’re doing over there. Care to share?”
Words creep to the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to voice them. Vera regards my internal struggle. When I don’t say anything, she checks her watch. “Jodi is probably up now,” she says. “Let’s head back.”
When we arrive at the house, Jodi is in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. Like they’ve done this a million times, Vera takes the basket of fresh eggs from my hand and begins washing them in the sink. Most of them will be sold at the local farmers’ market later in the week, but a few will be used for our breakfast this morning.
For a moment, I simply watch them. They dance around each other the way my parents do—with expert precision from years of doing life together.
When I was younger, I didn’t put much stock in what my future would look like. I knew that I wanted to carve out a place for myself at the firehouse, but everything else was a little fuzzy. Once I found my footing with my career, I startedto feel like something was missing. When Kristina came along, I thought I had found it. I was wrong.
How can you be thatwrongabout a person? I read fires for a living, yet they seem to be more reliable than Kristina ever was.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Jodi scolds. When she turns to me over her shoulder, there is an unmistakable twinkle in her eyes. “Set the table for us.”
I chuckle, but do as I’m told. I pull three plates down from the cupboard and find the cutlery in one of the drawers. As Vera tends to the omelettes now cooking on the stove, Jodi pulls a jug of orange juice from the fridge and pours three glasses.
“Did Vera manage to knock some sense into you?” Jodi asks. “Or do I have to do it?”
Her wife tuts. “Let the poor man eat his breakfast first, love.”
Jodi rolls her eyes. “He has had more than enough time to come to his senses. These are desperate times.”
“Damn, I thought you were on my side,” I say with a laugh.
Her lips purse. “I am on your side, Luke, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit idly by while you act like an idiot.”
We sit down to breakfast in silence. Jodi and Vera talk amongst themselves, but I hardly hear them. I’m too stuck in my thoughts. After a while, Jodi sets her knife and fork on her plate with a loud clank. Vera and I both look at her in surprise.
“You wanna know what I think?” she asks.
I set my own cutlery aside as I face her. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway.”
A wry smile stretches her lips. “I think it was your pride that got hurt, not your heart.” I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me a look that has my jaw snapping shut. I may be in charge at work, but this is Jodi’s house and here, she makes the rules. “You have had people looking up to you for practically your whole life. You’ve always been steady—sure in everything you do. But Kristina threw you for a loop. Made you question your judgment. But I don’t think you were in love with Kristina any more than she was in love with you.”
I lean back in my seat, stunned. I can’t say that’s something I’ve heard before.
Vera sets a hand on my arm. “Think about how you feel with Delilah. How she makes you feel. It’s different, right?”
Different is an understatement. Even my best days with Kristina pale in comparison to a regular day with Delilah. This realization hits me hard. Have I really been holding on to all this shit with Kristina for no reason?
Jodi turns to Vera with a soft smile. “Love is taking a leap of faith, falling and hoping they will be there to catch you, and all the million other clichés. But most of all, love is knowing that you won’t always get it right and trying anyway.”
“It’s ultimately your decision,” Vera says.
“But you would be a damn fool not to listen,” Jodi adds.
Thinking about giving Delilah more is scary as hell. With all the good comes all the worries about how it will inevitablygo wrong. It’s fucking terrifying, and I hate that. But…I hate not having her even more.
