“Caroline,” Dawson said, and she seemed to see him finally.
“Oh, hey.” She beamed at him, but something stormed inside him. She scanned him down to his dirty work boots and back to his face. “You didn’t go home and change.”
“You’re super early,” he said, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. Everyone heard it, and the smile slipped from Caroline’s face. She glanced over to April and then Zona.
Dawson didn’t want to be here right now. “Can we talk outside?” He turned and headed for the front door without waiting for her to answer. Mercifully, she came with him, and another miracle occurred that Duke andZona’s house faced east, so the western sun blazed in the back while the front porch was bathed in shade.
He sat down on the bench, though he felt like pacing like a caged tiger. Caroline perched beside him, and he wasn’t even sure why he was annoyed.
“I got the dress for the wedding,” she said.
“Great.” He took a breath, held it, and let it all go. “Why did you come so early?”
“I was just pacing at home,” she said. “I figured I’d just come up and meet them. I mean, I’ve met them before, but yeah.”
He nodded, but a sting burned through him. “Did it occur to you that I’d maybe like to introduce you around to everyone?”
“I—no.”
“No.” Of course not. Dawson looked out across Duke’s front lawn, past the dirt road that ran in front of it, and into the pretty, growing fields he’d put in himself. “Why did you come so early?” he asked again, because he thought he knew the real answer—and he didn’t like it.
“I—I—well, I thought it would be nice to meet them—I mean, I’ve met them—get to know them by…myself.”
And there it was. Dawson’s insides felt like someone had injected some substance into his gut that was rapidly turning everything to liquid. So many things entered his mind, but Dawson didn’t know if he should say any of them.
Caroline would, he thought, and that got him to look over to the woman he’d been steadily falling for.
“Not everything is about you,” he said.
“I know that.”
“I wasn’t finished with my work for today.” He flipped his gross, sweaty shirt. “I didn’t have a chance to go home and shower. Zona and Duke aren’t ready for us to be here.”
Caroline nodded in a tight, controlled way, and that meant Dawson didn’t have to say more. “I just thought they might like to get to know me…outside of you.”
“And that’s what I don’t understand,” he said, his frustration rising like steam from a boiling pot of water. “I’m okay being me, and I love how you’re you. Have I ever asked you to be someone different than who you are right now? This minute?”
She shook her head and swiped at her eyes.
Be gentle.
The words came into his head, and Dawson took a breath, trying to find the voice that could be gentle. He didn’t know how to conjure that, but he’d had plenty of conversations with April that hadn’t driven her away.
“Caroline, sweetheart, I’d like to beme with you, because I thinkwewould be amazing.”
She laced her fingers through his. “We are.”
“See, I don’t think there’s a ‘we’ for you. I’m starting to think you can’t be part ofus. Part of a ‘we’ at all.” He wasn’t sure if he was making sense. There were so manysmall words in his head, making big thoughts and big sentences.
“Which I’m not really sure I understand, and my heart hurts so much at the thought of not having you and not being us. But you seem to have an idea of what you want, and I love that you absolutely know who you are.”
He exhaled, because he hadn’t planned to have this conversation. There was no way a man could ever plan to have a talk like this. No sticky note could prepare him for it. Caroline didn’t jump right in and defend herself or refute anything he’d said, which only made his heart wail even more.
“I guess I’ve been foolishly hoping you’d make room for me in your life,” he said.
“Dawson, baby, I have.”
“Room for you to be you, of course,” he kept going. “But I guess a version of you…with me. Anus. Awe. Something. I don’t know, and I’m going to stop talking now.” He did just that, and again, Caroline didn’t jump to fill the silence with any explanations.
