Page 103 of Resist

“I had no idea.”

“Most don’t, and I’m okay with that. Poetry isn’t very masculine, but it feeds my soul.”

“You learn something new every day,” I murmur.

“Hopefully.” His voice is quiet, introspective, and his head is angled as he studies me for a moment. “Tell me about him.”

“What do you mean?” I ask like he’s off base when I already know I’m going to talk.

“Is this the same man who had you tied up in knots a few weeks back at the club?” He asks the question, but it’s so much easier to look out the window at the people passing by than to acknowledge it. “The same man who had to do with that redhead who looked like she wanted to rip your hair out?”

“Something like that.”

My hesitation must speak volumes because he leans forward and places his elbows on the table. “Look, Vaughn. I’m not trying to get into your business. If you want an ear, I have one. If you don’t want one, I never saw you here. But sometimes, just getting it out helps.”

“Ahmed . . .” Half protest, half twist my arm.

“You are the most private of all of the staff at Apropos. I get that. I respect that. I’m not going to give you advice, but I’m not gonna lie when I tell you I’ve got a pretty damn good ear for listening. And I’m not going to bullshit you and tell you everything is going to be okay when romance is far from perfect.”

Our gazes hold, and I hate that talking to him is just opening me up to letting more people into my already private world, but at the same time, I’m miserable. And lost.

This needing-people stuff is for the birds.

I don’t trust my voice when I speak, and the waver in it tells me why. “We come from different worlds.”

“Isn’t that true for all men and women?” he asks, trying to add some levity to the conversation. “Mars. Venus. Whatnot.”

“True, but I mean in the sense that he comes from a world where things can be bought, where words can be said without repercussions because he doesn’t care what people think of him, and where . . .”

“Where what?”

“Where it seems there’s always someone standing in the wings waiting to replace you.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“What?”

“That you’re replaceable.”

“I am.” I laugh. “Believe me.”

But there’s something in the way Ahmed looks at me that has me holding off making any more of my self-deprecating comments.

“Just stop, okay?” he asks with a soft smile. “You’re one of a kind, kid. I see it night after night. The men eyeing you. Asking me questions about whether you’re single. The ones trying to build up the courage to ask for your number only to be shot down.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Without sounding creepy, you’re kind of everything a man wants.”

I shake my head at the compliment. “I don’t want to be that.”

“You have no control over that.” He laughs. “I think you’re looking at this all wrong, though.”

“How’s that?”

“You need to be looking for the sunset.”

“The sunset?” I part laugh, part question, suddenly thinking he needs to go home and get some sleep.

“Yep. The sunset. One of the poets last night said something that stuck with me.” He takes a sip of his coffee and stares at it for a beat before looking back up to meet my eyes. “He said that most people look for love in the sunrise, when they don’t realize for them it can be found in the sunset.”

His words hit my ears, and it takes me a second to process their meaning. That so many people look for love from the onset when they meet someone, when for many others it can be found when you think it’s almost over, the fire burned out.