Page 45 of The Love Duet
That hurt.
That hurt, but he was also right.
I was putting my feelings before his experiences, and I was talking to him like I knew him better than he knew himself, and that was just stupid.I was acting like knowing him for a month made me so in tuned with what he thought and felt, and that wasn’t the case at all.I was arrogantly remarking on something that I knew nothing about, and it was hard not to feel stupid and ashamed.A shower, haircut, and some new clothes had only changed Josiah’s appearance, none of it had changed what he’d gone through and was still going through, and I really was a fucking idiot.
“You’re right,” I said, straightening my back, ready for the reprimand that I deserved.“I’m sorry.I’m asking questions like I know what you’re going through, and I don’t.I’m also not a professional to comment on what kind of progress you are or aren’t making.”I let out a heavy sigh, making sure to look him in those dark bedroom eyes of his.“I was overstepping, and I really am sorry.”
“Christ, you’re a piece of work,” he muttered as he dragged his hands down his face, and I could feel my stomach dip with the insult.
“Maybe I am,” I conceded.“But it never comes from a bad place.”
Josiah shot me a look as he let out another deep breath.“That’s not what I meant, Pepper.”
“It’s fine-”
“I didn’t mean it like you’re a bad person or have bad intentions,” he said, talking over me.“I just meant that I never know what to expect from you, and that can be both a good thing and a bad thing.A person like me need stability, and you’re a...Christ, you’re like a rollercoaster of life.You’re upbeat, friendly, strong, capable, outgoing, motivated, and just...you’re a lot.You’re everything.You’re like life personified, something always happening around you.Jesus, even when I’ve seen you speaking with your friend, Roxanne, you sign like you’re saying your final goodbyes before a meteor’s bout to strike us all dead.You’re...alive, Pepper.You’re alive, and that’s all that I meant.”
I’d never heard such a complimentary rejection in all my life, and though Josiah had delivered it beautifully, rejection still sucked.He’d said that I wasn’t the woman for him, and now I had to figure out what to do with all my feelings for him.
“I understand.”
“What is it that you think you understand?”he asked, his voice dark again.
“That I’m not for everyone, and that I should learn how to mind my own business,” I said, glad that my voice didn’t waiver.
Josiah let out a dark laugh, and I had no idea how I kept making things worse.
~
Josiah~
Pepper Milo was beautiful and insane.I mean, she had to be insane if she thought that she wasn’t for everyone.In fact, she was the perfect person that everyone should have in their life, and I was a dick, taking my frustrations of my life out on her.
“That’s also not what I meant,” I clarified for her.“While, yes, sometimes it’s imperative to mind your own business, do you honestly believe that I’m offended by your concern?Because I’m not.I’m simply trying to explain that your version of happily-ever-after is no longer an option for me, Pepper.As much as we’d like to believe that love conquers all, it doesn’t.It doesn’t, and so when it doesn’t, then we have to learn to navigate around that loss.”
“You’re only forty-seven, Josiah,” she said, facing me down like I wasn’t a foot taller than she was.“You talk like there’s nothing more out there for you, and that’s not true.”
While this might cost me my new beginning, I knew that I had to tell her the truth.The last thing that I needed was for Pepper’s good intentions to push me towards blind dates that I had no interest in, and she seemed the type.She was so invested in everyone having their own little brand of happiness that she even got along with her ex-husband to the point that they were actually friends, and that shit was just wild to me.
Walking further into her office, I didn’t stop until I was around her desk, standing in front of her, and despite that one pantleg was longer than the other, her shirt was untucked, and her blonde hair was braided into a contraption that was coming undone, I’d never seen anything so goddamn beautiful in my life.Pepper always looked like a lovely smatter of chaos, and I’d be willing to bet my life that she was just as uninhibited in bed as she was in her everyday life.
“Do you want the absolute truth about what’s going on with me?”
She immediately nodded.“Of course.”
I held her gaze as I said, “Every single fucking time that Kenneth Query comes into this shop, I want to punch his smug face in.”Pepper’s blue eyes widened in shock.“Every time that I catch Jacob and Dustin checking out your ass, the fact that they’re minors in high school is the only thing that keeps me from smacking them upside their heads.Every time that you get a male customer, and he’s not over sixty, under thirty, or married, I get annoyed as fuck, Pepper.So, if you want to talk about where my mind is when it comes to dating...well, there you have it.”
“Why...”She had to clear her throat, and it was taking everything in me not to just throw myself on her mercy.“Why haven’t you...you said anything?”
“And what am I going to say, Pepper?”I asked, my voice doing that thing that it did whenever my emotions were running high.“In what world would a woman like you want to go out with a guy like me?”
“Don’t do that,” she replied through clenched teeth.“Your current circumstances don’t define who you are as a person.Quit talking like you have nothing to offer.”
“You know what else doesn’t define a person?”I shot back.“A random act of kindness, Pepper.Me saving you that night doesn’t automatically make me a hero.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded.“But I’d say that twenty years of military service does.”
She really was going to be the death of me.
