Dr. Jones smiled and said, “I don’t see the problem.”
“I never said there was one.” He crossed his arms over his chest defensively.
She didn’t speak. But her sympathetic gaze told himyou didn’t have to say it.
He sighed and leaned his head back against the couch. He squeezed the pillow a little tighter, pondering this one last thing about Lance. The onelittlething that was tripping him up.
“He’s always taken care of others. His brothers, his mother—what if he’s not actually into me, but just—” he didn’t finish. He couldn’t. Words became trapped in his throat.
“What if you’re just someone else to take care of?”
He nodded because she’d hit the bullseye.
To her credit, Dr. Jones didn’t dismiss his fears. She sat back and thoughtfully tapped her pen against her note pad.
“You said he was in a relationship before you.”
“Yes, for several years.”
“Did he take care of her? Was that the foundation of their relationship?”
Tanner thought it over. Even after meeting Julie the other night, Tanner hadn’t asked much about her. He hadn’t felt the need to. From Tanner’s point of view, she was just the backstory to the clutter in the guest bedroom. When he’d met Lance, he’d seemed annoyed about how things ended, but it hadn’t been much more than that, so he hadn’t dug any deeper. Yet from what he did know—
He shook his head.
“They were together for about three years. It was more for the sake of convenience than anything else, and when her career took her to New York—” he thought of how Lance had put it. Of the way he’d described their breakup. “He didn’t want to live that life.”
Dr. Jones nodded and scribbled some notes before she looked back at him.
“I won’t tell you that you’re wrong. I think there is a valid reason for your feelings. Children who’ve grown up in difficult homes and who learn to take care of others often repeat that behavior in their relationships throughout adulthood. It’s—soothing to them.”
Tanner didn’t feel reassured at all. He opened his mouth to make a comment, but she continued before he could interject.
“That in no way means you’re aprojectto him. It’s probably his—love language of sorts. How he shows his love to those who really matter. Same way you want to fix his entire house or help move his younger brother out of his dorm.”
Tanner blew out a breath. He understood, he really did, he just wasn’t sure it was all that reassuring.
“Does he resent them? His mother, his brothers?” she asked.
Tanner thought of the animated way in which Lance spoke about his siblings, about growing up and going to all their football games. It was never anything but positive, like he’d genuinelyenjoyedit.
“No,” he replied, shaking his head.
“Then I don’t see why he would resent you.”
“But I’m not one of his brothers,” Tanner pointed out.
“Exactly. You are not an obligation. He chooses to be with you—a choice, not an obligation. That makes a world of difference in how he treats you and shows his love for you.”
He sat in silence, thinking hard about the possibility that she was right about this, and he’d been looking at it all wrong. With a soft sigh, she cocked her head to the side thoughtfully as she sought the right words to summarize Lance’s behavior in a way that would put Tanner’s heart and mind at ease.
“People like Lance—caretakers—they don’t resent the people they love. Not unless they feel the relationship is one-sided.” In her gentle, sensible way, she just handed Tanner the final piece of the puzzle he’d been looking for all along.
Tanner laughed and flopped back against the couch. “I have a feeling you and him will be the end of me, Doc!”
She laughed along with him.
“The end of broken Tanner, maybe, but the start of a much happier one. Of that, I have no doubt.” Tanner held onto those words the same way one does to those spoken by aprophet. He could have left it at that, and he almost did, but then he glanced at the clock and noticed he still had a few minutes. Noticing his hesitation, she smiled encouragingly.
