“I don’t apologize well,” she said. “It’s a flaw. I have several.”
“I’m clear on that.”
“Is that you being funny?”
“No. Stating the obvious.”
She drew in a breath, then motioned for him to step inside. She closed the door behind him.
The small office seemed to shrink a little. There was nowhere for her to go and hide. She glanced at the floor, the walls, then back at him.
“I wanted to talk to you,” she began. “About before. And other things.” She twisted her fingers together. “This is hard for me. All of it. You’re right—I wasn’t looking to date anyone. I’m not sure I know how to be in a relationship, which is pretty tragic at my age. I’ve been married.”
“And divorced.”
She eyed him but didn’t think he was being sarcastic. “Yes, well, and divorced. It turns out I’m afraid to be vulnerable because being vulnerable means not being in control. I don’t want to have to need a man, and love requires, you know, need. It’s just I thought I was fine alone and I am, but I don’t think I want to be alone forever. And I’m afraid that by the time I get myself into dating shape, you’ll have moved on, which makes sense. So that leaves me thinking that I need to say yes, dating. Scary but ultimately good.”
She pressed her lips together as she realized there was still a very large elephant that had to be addressed.
“I’m sorry I’m not in love with you now, although I will say it was a really unfair question. It’s not like you’re in love with me and who asks that.” She ignored the voice in her head that whispered she actually had no idea if he was in love with her and decided to plow forward.
“I think the real question was did I see us going anywhere. So let me answer that. I would like us to go somewhere. I mean the relationship. I think we could date exclusively and have sex and if that all goes well, then start hanging out with my kids and your friends. And if that works, then we take the next step and so on.”
She paused as she realized she was the only one doing the talking. In fact Marcus hadn’t said much of anything at all. Oh, God! What if he was over her? What if he was already seeing someone else? After all, there were so many women lurking everywhere.
“And if you’re not interested, then we can pretend this conversation never happened,” she said, averting her gaze. “I’m done now.”
He looked at her. “You’re really bad at this.”
She hung her head. “I am.”
“I mean seriously bad. I’m going to have to date you because no one else would be able to get through that convoluted info dump.”
“Hey!” She jerked up her head only to see him smiling at her. “I’m sorry about before. The laughing and all of it.”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned theLword so soon.”
“No, you should not. Don’t do that. I have to get there on my own.”
He watched her carefully. “Is getting there an option?”
She squeezed her eyes tightly closed and took the first step of faith. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Works for me.”
She opened her eyes and stared at him. “What does that mean?”
“We can start dating. You seem desperate and as we’ve already discussed, not ready to be out on your own. I’ll have to protect you.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I could sock you really hard in the arm.”
“You could.” His tone was conversational. “Or you could kiss me and we could get going toward that next step.”
She stepped close. He put his hands on her waist and pressed his mouth to hers.
“We have to get better at this,” he said when they pulled back.
“Agreed.”
