"Does it fit?" Jeff's voice startled me.
I tried to wiggle the ring off quickly, as if ashamed to be wearing it. Jeff knelt in front of me and laid his hand over mine. His eyes drilled into mine.
"Does the ring fit?" he asked again.
I nodded. "It fits perfectly," I said, my voice breaking into a whisper at the end. "It's beautiful, Jeff."
Jeff nodded. "It's beautiful, like you." He took my left hand in his right, adjusted the ring with his thumb, staring at it rather than at me. "If you're wearing it, does that mean...?" He trailed off, as if giving voice to his hope would banish it from coming true.
"I don't know. Yes. I don't know."
Jeff laughed. "Sounds like you're still confused."
I shrugged. We were both staring at the ring on my finger rather than meeting gazes.
"I was just looking at it," I said. "I was hoping looking at the ring would, like...I don't know, provide an answer or something. I ended up thinking about Mom and Dad."
He frowned, knowing how seldom I thought about my parents. "Your folks? Why'd you think of them?"
I drew a long breath and let it out. "I don't know, really. I just did. They were so unhappy together. They had great sex, but that was the extent of their relationship."
"It's kind of weird that you know that about your parents," Jeff said, making a face of disgust.
"That's how they were. I saw them together more than once. I heard them all the time." I hesitated, then let my thoughts pour out to Jeff. "I don't want to be like them. I don't want to have a marriage based on that. I don't want to be married if it's not going to last. I'd always thought I'd never get married, then Bruce happened. Fucking Bruce. I was only with him because I thought he was all I could get. I can't believe I wasted so many years of my life on him. After I broke up with him, I swore I'd never get married."
"He was an asshole," Jeff said. "I never liked him. I never thought he was good enough for you."
I let out a mirthless laugh. "God, Jeff, you don't know the half of it. He was beyond asshole and into some other territory. There aren't words for how fucking awful he was to me. He never hit me, but he was verbally abusive. He'd call me names. Tell me I was fat. I needed to lose weight so he'd be more attracted to me. Told me I was only good for one thing, and I wasn't even that good at it."
Jeff rocked back on his heels, the towel wrapped around his waist coming loose. "Are you serious? He said that to you?"
"All the time."
"I never knew." Jeff seemed shocked, hurt, insulted.
"No one did," I whispered. "I never let on to anyone. I thought it was all I was worth. All I deserved. I thought for a long time my parents had split because of me. I know differently now, of course. I thought guys like Bruce were the normal way for guys to treat girls. He was my first, you know? My first real boyfriend, and I thought I loved him."
Jeff moved to sit on the bed next to me. "Anna, I--"
"It doesn't matter now, Jeff. I'm fine. I learned after I left him that I didn't need to take that shit. I deserved better. Well, I learned that the hard way, in some ways. But I learned it. My point is, after him I never wanted to get married. He'd assumed we'd get married and I'd stay home and have his kids and fuck him whenever he wanted and cook his dinners. That's what he told me. It's why I left him, ultimately. He told me he was gonna buy me a ring and we'd get married the next summer and proceeded to explain what he expected of me." I laughed. "It's funny, though. I tolerated his verbal abuse for, like, three years, day in and day out. I took it, and thought it was fine. I thought it was worth it for the times he was good to me, when he'd buy me nice things and take me to nice dinners and stuff. But when he told me he expected me to cook for him and wash his fucking underwear, I lost it. I told myself I'd never tie myself to a guy, after that."
Jeff shook his head in disbelief. "Anna, listen, that's not what I--"
"I know, Jeff," I said. "I know that's not what you expect. I love you. I know you better than that."
"So what does that mean for us?" Jeff hesitated, then said, "What does that mean for what I--for...god, I can't even say it."
"I don't know. I love you. I can't imagine anyone else knowing me the way you do. But get married? It's such a scary thought, Jeff. I don't know why. I trust you. I know you. I like our relationship. I don't want it to change."
Jeff let the silence hang for a long time.
"Anna, listen. I know what you're afraid of. Like you said, you don't want our relationship to change. But you gotta understand something. Marriage isn't some magical thing. Putting the rings on and saying 'I do' doesn't make the marriage. It doesn't mean you'll love each other any better. All that comes from what you've already got. Marriage only means as much as you make of it. To your parents, it was something expected of them. It was a burden, a rope tying them together. They were meant to be...I don't know, ships in the night, or something. Passing by each other, a few nights of good times, then going on their way. But it doesn't always work like that. Sometimes a night of pleasure turns into a child, and a family that wasn't meant to be. I think that's how it was with my mom and dad. He didn't love her. He stayed with her as long as he could, but she wasn't enough. Jim and I weren't enough."
He took my chin in his fingers and forced my gaze to his. "But you and I, we've got more. You know we do. I told you I loved you enough to let you go. I do, and I mean that, but don't think I'll let you go easily, and don't think I'd ever get over it. You are what I want in life, Anna." He leaned in to kiss me, soft, slow, and sweet. "The time I've spent with you is better than anything I've ever known. I don't want it to ever end."
A tear carved a tickling line down my cheek, caught at the corner of my mouth by Jeff's lips. I slid my fingers around the back of his neck as he kissed my jaw, the corner of my lips, my cheekbones, my throat. My heart hammered in my chest, as if anticipating something my mind wasn't aware of yet.
Words came out of my mouth, and I heard them as if from someone else. "I'll marry you, Jeff."
When I heard myself say it, tears flowed, and I felt the meaning hit me. I did want to marry him. Only him.
Jeff's lips froze on my skin between my breasts. "What?" He straightened, fear of having misheard warring with joy in his eyes. "What did you just say?"
I took his face in my hands. "I said I will marry you. Yes. Yes. I love you, and I want to marry you." I kissed his lips, long and deep. "I don't want it to ever end, either."
"It doesn't have to," Jeff said, breaking the kiss just long enough to speak.
His fingers tangled with mine, and I felt the ring on my finger as a warm weight. It felt right, there on my finger. I've never been much for jewelry besides some simple earrings and a necklace. Rings always felt odd on my fingers when I tried them on. This one, Jeff's engagement ring, felt as if I'd always worn it.
I was still naked, sitting on the bed, chilled by the morning air, Jeff's free hand skimming up my ribs. The damp towel around his waist was tucked in near one hip, coming loose as he sat next to me. I kissed him, reached for the edge of his towel and worked it loose, pulled it free so he was bare to me. I trailed my fingers up his thigh to his sack, massaged it in my fingers.
Jeff growled, twisted on the bed, and in the space of a single heartbeat had me flat on my back, his cock probing my entrance and sliding in.
"You just showered," I said, caressing the ridged muscles of his broad, powerful back.
"I'll shower again," he said, tangling the fingers of both our hands together above our heads. "Say it again, Anna. I heard you, but I'm not sure it's sunk in yet."
I smiled, wrapping my legs around his ass and pulling him deeper into me. "I want to marry you, Jeff." I rolled my hips, feeling him slide deep and slip out. "Has it sunk in yet?"
He laughed, moving into me in a serpentine glide. "I don't know. I might need to hear it once more."
"I love you, Jeff..." My breath was ragged, my motions desperate as Jeff brought me to climax almost inst
antly. "I'll marry you."
He buried his face in my neck as he came with me. "Oh, god, Anna...you don't know what it means to me...oh, god...hearing you say that."
"I don't know why I hesitated," I said, as we moved together. "We belong together."
"We always have," Jeff whispered. "It just took you longer to see it."
"I see it now."
I did see it. Sweat mingling, breath merging, pleasure synchronizing the beating of our hearts, I knew then I would only ever love him, be with him. I couldn't fathom, in that moment, how I'd ever missed it.
In moments of sharing love so powerful it winds the fabric of your soul around his, you can't help but feel the perfection of true intimacy. It goes beyond the sharing of physical sensation, it goes deeper than the vulnerability of nakedness, or the expression of emotional connection. It becomes an instant of timeless unity, in which you and he cease to be discrete identities and become something new, something more.
You become each other for those brief eternities spent clinging together in sweat-slick surrender.
When compared to such raw completion, marriage ceases to be quite so frightening, and begins to seem the most natural next step: binding yourself, your whole self, voluntarily, to the man who knows you most deeply.
CHAPTER 2
I twisted Jeff's ring around my finger nervously. A cup of coffee sat untouched in front of me, tendrils of steam rising from the tawny liquid. My heart thrummed, my stomach flopped, and my mind raced.
What the hell am I going to say?
My purse sat open on the booth bench next to me. The black box containing Chase's ring stared at me, daring me to think I could do this without completely losing it.
"You sure you don't want nothin' to eat, hon?" the waitress asked.
I shook my head and willed her to leave me alone. I needed these minutes before Chase showed up to get my nerves under control. The last thing I could do right then was eat. Which should say a lot about how nervous I was. Food was normally my greatest comfort. A piece of pie, or an order of fries with ranch, or a bowl of chicken lemon rice soup would usually soothe me under most any circumstances.
These weren't usual circumstances.
I'd never broken anyone's heart before.
I saw his black Ducati pull into a parking spot, and I nearly vomited just watching him stride into the Denny's where we'd agreed to meet. It was public, which was bittersweet. I knew I needed a buffer against him. I didn't want to do this in public, but I didn't think I could handle being near him in private. I knew myself better than that.
He slid into the bench across from me, unzipping his leather jacket. He ran his palm over the sandpaper stubble on his scalp, heaved a deep breath, and planted his elbows on the table.
"This isn't a good news meeting, is it?" he asked.
I shook my head, not trusting my voice yet. I sipped my coffee, burning my tongue.
"Well, then, out with it," he said. "Don't beat around the bush."
My breath trembled as I drew it in to speak. "Ican'tmarryyou."
Chase laughed. "Slow it down. I'm not gonna faint, okay? When you wanted to meet me here, at a fucking Denny's, I knew what the answer was going to be."
"I'm sorry, Chase. I just--I can't be around you in private. It's too hard." I sipped my coffee again, more to buy time to think than anything else. "I care about you. I had a really great time with you, and I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me, but--"
"But I'm not enough. Not good enough."
"Goddamn it, Chase. No. You are amazing. You're an incredible lover, a great guy, and--"
"If you say, 'you'll make some woman really happy someday, but it's just not me,' I swear to god I'll lose my fucking mind," Chase said.
He flagged down a waitress and ordered a cup of coffee.
"I don't know what else to say. It's the truth. You're amazing, and you deserve someone amazing. I'm not that someone. It's cliche and stupid and I hate the way that sounds, like it's a line from a bad romance movie. But it's true."
The waitress brought Chase's coffee, giving him a long, hungry once-over before walking away; Chase seemed oblivious to her attention.
Chase stared into his coffee. "It's not just about me, is it." It was phrased like a question, but his tone made it a statement.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, is it that you don't love me, or that you love him more?"
I hesitated for a long moment before answering. "A little of both, I guess. I love Jeff, with all my heart. He...he asked me to marry him the day before you--before you showed up. I would have said yes anyway. You coming here like you did, it really threw me off. I do care about you, Chase. Maybe, yeah, there might be a part of me that wonders if I could have fallen in love with you. If we could have been great together. But...all the rest of me says I belong with Jeff."
He dumped several creamers into his coffee and followed it with several packets of sugar, stirring it until it sloshed over the side and ran down to pool on the table. He drank his coffee too fast, staring over the top into the middle distance.
"I should have come after you sooner," he muttered, almost to himself rather than me.
"I don't think it would have mattered, Chase. Maybe if you had followed me to Detroit that same day, and forced me to listen to you then, maybe. But do we really want to play 'what if'? I don't. It is what it is."
Chase growled. "I hate that phrase. It's so empty and...fucking meaningless. 'It is what it is.' Just another way of saying, 'I don't feel like coming up with a real explanation.'"
"Haven't I given you an explanation?" I asked, irritation replacing nerves. "I told you honestly what I'm feeling, and why I'm saying no."
"I still think you could have loved me, if you had given it a chance. But you didn't, and now it's too late." Chase's voice was low and thick with emotion.
"I don't know what to tell you. What if part of the reason I ran like I did was because I knew it wouldn't have worked? I don't want to end up like my parents. They had a great physical relationship, but nothing else. I think that's us."
Chase's gaze snapped to mine, and he slammed his mug down. "You think that's all we have? That's all I'm good for?"
"God, Chase, quit being so damn melodramatic. No, that's not what I think. You're good for more than sex. I think you're sweet and talented and so much else. But I do wonder. Is that all we have? I don't know. Maybe not. But the question is there, and that's reason enough for me."
"And you know you have more with Jeff."
"This isn't about Jeff. I'm not talking to you about Jeff."
"Do you talk to him about me? About us?"
He's not taking this well. I didn't know how he would take it, but I wasn't expecting this.
"Chase, that's not the point." I focused on breathing and sipping coffee until I was calm enough to be rational. "What else do you want me to say? Do you need to hear it bluntly? I do not want to be with you. I want to be with Jeff."
Chase took a deep, shuddering breath. He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I guess that's it then. Hearing you say it that way..."
I placed the ring box on the table in front of him, next to his coffee. Chase gingerly opened the lid, took another shudder-wracked breath. He was barely keeping it together, I realized. My own eyes burned, feeling the hurt radiating off him.
He lifted the ring out of the box, stared at it for a second, then put it back. He slapped the lid closed and put the box in an inside pocket of his leather jacket. He finished his coffee, silence aching between us.
"Bye, Anna. Good luck with life."
He slid out of the booth and practically ran out of the Denny's. As he turned away, I could have sworn I saw him touch his eye, like a tear was streaking his face, but then he was gone, leaving me to wonder. His bike roared to life, and he peeled out of the parking lot at a breakneck pace.
I managed to keep it together long enough to pay the bill for both coffees and get into my car before I broke down. I cr
ied long and hard for Chase. He had given me something priceless in my newfound confidence, my belief in my own beauty and sexual power. I didn't think he could ever understand that, and I wished I'd tried to impart some of that to him, but it was too late.
I forced myself to stop crying. I'd cried more in the last few days than I had in most of the rest of my life. It was done, he was gone, and I could move on. I could go back to being happy with Jeff.
I drove home, found a note from Jeff on my counter:
Anna,
Had to go help an old Army buddy move. I'll be back later this evening and we'll go out. I've got reservations at Maggiano's.
If you need to talk, call me. Hope things went well. You know what I mean. I love you.
Jeff. XOXO
Yes, he actually wrote "X"s and "O"s on the bottom of the note. It was cute enough to make my heart melt even further. I folded the note and put it in my purse, along with all the other notes Jeff had written me. I wasn't sure why I was saving them, other than it felt wrong to throw them away.
My roommate Jamie came home not long after I did. We'd rarely seen each other lately, as we were both gone a lot. She always had a boyfriend, someone to spend the time with, but it was never serious. I'd spent most of my time at Jeff's lately, so this was the first time I'd seen her since our conversation after I got back from New York.
"Anna, I feel like I haven't seen you in forever," Jamie said, giving me a hug.
I hugged her back, holding tight. "It's been a while," I agreed.
"You've been with Jeff, then?" she asked, pulling away and looking at me.
Being my best friend, she sees everything in my eyes. But she still asks.
"Tell me."
"There's nothing to tell," I said. Talking about it would only upset me all over again.
"Bullshit," Jamie said.
She dumped her purse on the table, stuck the charger in her phone, and plopped down at the kitchen table, sipping from her venti skinny white chocolate mocha. She always got the same thing from Starbucks. I teased her about it pretty relentlessly, since she's never, ever had anything else for as long as she's been going to Starbucks.
"It's not bullshit. I don't want to talk about it."