Love Lessons

art of me that liked it that way.”

He paused to draw a breath, then added, “Those things I said about not having the right education or not fitting in with your friends—those were just excuses I told myself. I knew they weren’t insurmountable obstacles between us, but it was easier to pretend that they were. Like I said, they were excuses for me to walk away.”

The words hurt. But as he had said, she deserved to hear them. “And have you come here today to tell me you’ve changed your attitude about those things?”

He shook his head and pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the pocket of his shirt. “I came to show you this.”

She took the crumpled sheet from him curiously, unfolding it after an encouraging nod from him. It was a grade sheet, she saw immediately. He had taken four classes, a total of thirteen credit hours. He had two As—one in the four-hour class—and two Bs.

“This is a very good transcript,” she said slowly, looking up at his face again. “Why did you want me to see it?”

“You’re a scientist. You need proof,” he said lightly, though his eyes were entirely serious. “That’s why I made myself wait this long to come to you, even though I knew I was taking a risk that you’d have moved on. Forgotten all about me.”

Forget about him? Fat chance, she thought, though she remained quiet as he continued speaking.

“It took commitment to get those grades. I had to work my butt off. And I did it for me, not for you. Not for anyone else. It took commitment to sign the papers for student loans I’m going to have to pay back eventually. I knew when I signed them that I couldn’t just walk away this time. Scared the socks off me, but I signed them. For my sake.”

She had to speak up then. “I never cared whether you had a degree.”

He nodded. “I know. You really didn’t care that I was a maintenance worker. I was the one who wasn’t any more committed to that job than I was to my classes. I liked the job well enough, but when I looked ahead long-term, I knew it wasn’t what I really wanted to do. It wasn’t the commitment I wanted to make. Bob helped me understand that, too.”

“What did he say?”

“It wasn’t what he said. I just took a good look at him. That delivery job? He loves it. He sticks with it because it’s exactly what he wants to be doing. He likes being outside, likes being mobile, likes gabbing with all the people he encounters during the day. He says maybe someday he’ll aim for a promotion, maybe a district supervisor in the same field, but in the meantime, he’s genuinely happy with his job. He could go into a group of your friends with his head held high and genuine pride in his work because he chose that job for the right reasons. I didn’t have that same satisfaction in my own job, which I chose mostly because it didn’t require much of me.”

“And yet you did it very well,” she pointed out, hating to hear him criticize himself quite so harshly.

He nodded. “Yeah. Even when I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t the responsible and committed type, I took pride in my work. That’s one of the things that convinced me that maybe I wasn’t a hopeless cause, after all.”

“I never thought you were hopeless,” she murmured.

“No,” he said quietly. “You always said you supported me no matter what I wanted to do. Whether it was maintenance work, or teaching and coaching, you didn’t really seem to care. All you ever asked for from me was honesty. And I wasn’t giving you that. That’s what you were trying to tell me.”

She nodded. For the first time since he had shown up at her door, she allowed herself a glimmer of hope.

“It wouldn’t be easy being involved with a debt-ridden college student. Your friends who are further along in their careers would think you were lowering yourself, maybe. Even though they were perfectly nice to me when I did spend an evening with them,” he added quickly. “Well, except for Julia, maybe, but I could win her over with time.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you could,” she murmured, fighting a sudden, inappropriate urge to smile.

“So, here’s the thing,” Mike said after another deep breath, looking as though he were launching back into the prepared speech. “I don’t need your money—I have loans and a part-time job to cover my education. I don’t need to be tutored—I made those grades on my own. What I need is someone to be by my side—on my side—as I work toward my goals.”

He held up a hand when she started to speak. “I haven’t told you what I have to offer in return,” he reminded her. “I’m an entertaining guy. I know how to help a serious workaholic relax and have fun every once in a while. I’m handy around the house. I have a good track record of rescuing runaway cats. I’ve got some terrific little nieces and nephews I’d be happy to share with an aspiring book-and-chemistry-set-giving aunt. I’ve got a heart filled with love. I’ve spent the past six months learning how to make commitments. I’m prepared to make one to you, as soon as you’re ready to accept it. And I can be patient. I’ll give you as much time as you want, to decide if you’re willing to take another risk on me.”

He had said so much, given her so many things to think about—but only one statement stood out to her. Had he really said he loved her?

Looking increasingly anxious as she continued to remain silent, Mike asked, “Is it no use, Catherine? Do you want me to go?”

Norman butted her leg again, meowing rather loudly.

She moistened her lips. “You’ve been so busy blaming yourself for everything that went wrong that you haven’t given me a chance to tell you how I contributed to the sabotage.”

He shook his head, looking suddenly stubborn. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I was the one who—”

“My turn,” she broke in. “Hear me out. You said you were using the excuse that you weren’t good enough for me. I had the same fears, you know. I was protecting myself, predicting the worst, refusing to fight for us for similar reasons.”

“How could you possibly think you weren’t good enough for me?”

“It wasn’t like that, exactly. But I was afraid that maybe I wasn’t interesting enough to hold your attention. Your other friends seemed so much younger and zanier and more fun. Prettier, wittier, more impulsive. For all I knew, you would grow bored with dating a boring scientist with staid, quiet friends. So maybe I wanted to be the one to end it first, before I got hurt.”