Page 24 of The Lover
Ialmost did it. I almost said the words. I woke up and I was facing him. He was already up. He was looking at me and playing with a piece of my hair.
It would have been so easy.
I love you, Jake. Take me home.
But I didn’t. Because again, I thought this had to be his move. He had to choose me. He knew how I felt, and in many ways I knew how he felt. But Jake wasn’t a man who would fall in love easy. I knew that.
His mother had left him when he was a boy. There had to be scars from that. Trust issues. Not that he ever talked about her leaving, or talked about her at all for that matter. Sometimes it was like she never existed, but of course she had.
He’d dated Janet for nearly two years, and never once had I ever heard him say he loved her.
Which thank God! Right?
A. Janet would have been horrible for him. B. I wouldn’t get to have him.
I had Jake. I mean I HAD Jake. Because in my mind, no two people could share what we did for two days and not want a lifetime of that. It was ridiculous to even think it. But he had to get to that conclusion himself.
“I am really good at sex,” I told him.
He laughed.
“Seriously. Who knows how you’ll be until you do it? Shy, awkward, hesitant. Not me. I fucking rocked it.”
He touched my nose with the tip of his finger. “You destroyed me.”
Now I was smiling.
So this was the time to say it. To end this farce of a divorce. To go back home and live with Jake and the whole happily-ever-after thing. Except he didn’t say it. Instead, he got us both up and we took a shower together. No funny stuff. I think our bodies were both too worn out for that.
We dressed and I took my bouquet of flowers, which were wilting but not enough for me to consider throwing them out. We got breakfast again at that same place and Jake drove me back to my dorm.
We were quiet for a minute when he turned the engine off, and I thought he might do it then. Ask me to come home. Tell me he loved me.
Instead he sighed, and I knew some really hard stuff was rolling around in his head.
“When should I come back to pick you up? For the summer.”
“Uh, actually I might be able to get a ride from someone. There’s a girl from Jefferson I know who goes here, and she offered to drop me off.”
“We’ll need to talk about what happens when you’re home. Come up a with a plan.”
I nodded. Because there was no one in Riverbend who was going to think it was normal for Jake and me to live together now that we were divorced. Not that I was overly concerned with my reputation, but it was more than that.
Jake and I knew it. If we were going to live in that house together, it was because we would have made a decision. Or at least he would have made one.
I was already there.
So I knew exactly what I had to do.
I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“That’s not how lovers say goodbye,” he told me. Then he proceeded to kiss me senseless.
Another sigh. This time from me.
I smiled. “Best birthday ever, Jake.”
“Yeah. It was. You’ll call me Sunday?”
