He could have stopped there and I’d have nodded, but he didn’t.
“And I understand what you mean by what it costs. I’ve seen what it costs,” he said, quieter. “When you have it, and then it’s gone. Taking you with it.”
He didn’t say his mother or his father. He didn’t have to. I knew the story. I’d been folded into this family long enough to know it. And sitting there watching him hand me the edge of it, I felt an ache. Here was a man who’d decided, because of what he’d been through, that loving someone was signing up to lose them. And had built a life around never signing up.
It made me unbearably sad for a moment. Then I put it away, because he hadn’t shown it to me to be pitied.
Neither of us said anything for a moment. There wasn’t a fight in it, just the strange ease of being in front of someone who’d come up a hard road too, and didn’t need you to pretend you hadn’t.
“So we want the same nothing,” I said finally.
“The same nothing,”he repeated.
It should have felt like relief. It mostly did. And then it didn’t, because saying it out loud only made me more aware of how little I believed it, standing that close to him.
I reached for solid ground. “You know this is probably for the best anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
I huffed a laugh that didn’t quite land. “I’m a work in progress, Julian. I’m still finding my way back to myself. Half the time I feel like I’m holding all my pieces in my arms hoping I don’t drop one in front of anybody.” I shrugged. “You don’t need somebody who’s still under construction. You’d want someone who already has it together. The way you do.”
“Stop.”
“I’m just being honest about where I?—”
“You think you don’t have it together?” Something in his face had shifted, and it made the rest of my sentence dissolve.
“Julian, I’m barely?—”
“You rebuilt your entire life from the ground up, with a kid on your hip, not asking a soul to catch you.” He’d started and couldn’t seem to stop. “You’re incredibly smart. You see straight through people. You’re an amazing mother. But you keep talking about yourself like you’re half a person. Telling me you’re still trying to find the whole woman you used to be. But I’m standing here looking at her.”
My heart started racing and my breathing picked up. I couldn’t speak.
“We’re going to have to change that.” His voice dropped an octave and he stepped closer.
“Change what?” I could barely breathe.
“The fact that you don’t see it.”
I should have stepped back. Instead I closed the distance. “For the record,” I managed, finding a bit of nerve, “you’re standing very close for a man doing nothing.”
He smiled at me. “For the record, I wouldn’t mind being climbed.”
“Julian,” I laughed, “are you flirting with me?”
“Yes, Alyssa, I’m flirting with you.”
His fingertips grazed my cheek and his eyes dropped to my mouth. I rose up onto my toes, tipping my face to his, and let my eyes fall closed.
“MOM!”
Micah’s voice came searching through thetrees. “Mooom! Mr. Julian! Where’d you go?”
Julian didn’t startle. His thumb swept once across my cheekbone, and he tipped my chin, changing his aim, and pressed his lips to my cheek, close to the corner of my mouth.
“Back here, Micah,” he said against my skin, then straightened up and stepped back just as Micah crashed through the gap in the hedges.
“There you are!” Micah skidded to a stop, breathless. “Auntie Simone said cake was cut and you better come or Mr. Tre’s eating your piece.”