Fourteen
Nate sat on a bench under one of the palm trees and watched Jen walking toward him. Her hair was loose and blew in the spring breeze. Her legs were bare beneath a miniskirt and her shoulders bare under the sleeveless top she wore.
She took his breath away. Just looking at her made him realize how much he’d missed her the past two days. And now he had to deal with playing it cool and seeing if she was going to leave him and go work for one of his friends. It didn’t matter that he knew she wouldn’t be leaving him because she wanted to. He knew he set it up when he’d ignored her confession of love and not told her how he felt. He still wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it.
“Hello, Nate,” she said, sitting down next to him.
“Hello, Jen.”
“Why did you ask me to meet you here?” she asked, pushing her sunglasses up on her head.
She looked tired. Like she hadn’t slept in a few days. He wondered if being apart had caused an ache inside her like the one inside him.
He knew he should start off with their relationship stuff but to be honest, the thing that was really on his mind was if she was going to leave him. Leave South Florida for New Zealand and Russell Holloway.
“Have you talked to Holloway?”
She shook her head and pulled her sunglasses off her head and back over her eyes. “No. Is that why you wanted to talk to me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, I haven’t decided if I’m going to call him yet. I’m really busy with rehearsals for the anniversary celebration. I want to think about this before I make a decision. The last time I did something impulsive…well, let’s just say it hasn’t worked out as I’d hoped.”
“Do you mean me?”
“Yes, I mean you. We haven’t seen each other in two days because you have been avoiding me and instead of talking to me about that, you want to know what my job plans are.”
Nate knew she had a point and felt that this wasn’t going at all the way he’d planned. “It’s a valid question, Jen. You are at the stage of your life where you are redefining yourself. I want to know if you are going to walk out the door.”
She wrapped an arm around her waist. “Would that matter to you?”
“Of course it would. I care about you, Jen. More than I can say, but it’s there,” he said.
“I need more than that, Nate. I told you I love you and that’s still true today but I don’t want to be like the other women you’ve dated and see you in the papers all the time and think what might have been. It would be easier for me to pretend that this meant nothing. That I could get over a broken heart by calling Russell Holloway and making plans to leave you and Luna Azul.
“But I know it’s not that easy. I didn’t fall in love with you on a whim. I fell in love with the man I got to know over the past few weeks. The man who talks to me in the middle of the night and isn’t afraid to let me see the person behind the flashbulbs.”
Nate had nothing to say to her. Everything she said made her more vulnerable and put more power in his court but he felt like the weak one. The scared one. And one thing he did remember his mother saying was that no woman wanted a weak man. That weakness was the most unattractive thing about any human, most especially a man.
“I want to say the right thing here, honey, but I really don’t know what that is,” he said, opting for honesty and hoping she’d understand all that he didn’t say.
“That is lame. I told you I love you.”
“I know that. I’m not trying to be lame.”
“No,” she said, standing up. “Why can’t you say you love me? You can say you want me, but there’s no mention of love. Why is it? Do you really not care for me?”
Nate knew this was getting out of control and he had no idea how to fix it. “You are getting upset and that’s not the way to have this conversation.”
“I’m not upset—I’m disappointed that I’ve finally found a man I can love and he can’t say that he cares for me.”
“You know I care for you, Jen.”
She shook her head. “That’s not enough.”
She turned to walk away and he was scared that she might really walk out on him. That this would be the last moment they had together.
“Jen, wait. I can do better,” he said.
She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “I know you can. I think that if it is so hard for you to admit how you feel for me then maybe you don’t really love me.
“And that’s okay. I can see why I’d fall in love with you. But I’m not from your world and you are used to a level of sophistication that I don’t have, and maybe my normal life is just not exciting enough for you.”