Love. She’d suspected, of course. But she hadn’t let herself acknowledge it.
“Of course you do.” She should have known that. Should have realized this impasse would arrive long before she was ready to confront it. “And you deserve everything you need. You deserve the world.”
She just didn’t know if she could give him what he deserved and remain intact.
The silence between them stretched, and she eventually realized he was done. He had nothing more to say. He was waiting for a more definitive answer from her.
About prom. About them.
Her thin, halting words barely pierced the still air of the sunny kitchen. “Can you give me more time?”
He nodded, but those lines on his forehead carved deeper.
Pretty soon, he’d respond differently, and they both understood it.
* * *
He’d pushed her again.Maybe too hard.
This time, Martin wasn’t so certain it was a mistake.
Especially as one week passed. Then two.
When he didn’t have Bea, he and Rose spent every night together. They discreetly arrived at school in separate cars and left the same way, but every other non-working moment belonged to them as a couple.
She taught him to cook cassoulet. He reintroduced her to the wonders of Pop-Tarts.
They talked for hours about various nerdy history topics, about their families, about their pasts, about everything. His chest still expanded with a surge of triumph every time he made her snort with laughter, and she didn’t seem to be guarding any more secrets from him.
They graded next to one another. Read the news next to one another. Loaded plates into the dishwasher next to one another. Slept next to one another.
And in between all those conversations and the tasks of daily life, they had startling amounts of passionate sex.
No. That didn’t quite capture it. Their lovemaking wasn’t just passionate. It was literally mind-altering.
In bed—or on a countertop, a table, the couch, the floor, etc.—what he’d understood about himself as a man and a lover fell away, replaced by the reality of Rose gasping above or below or beside him, her sex quivering as she bucked in orgasm.
He could give pleasure. Lots of it, as long as he had the right woman.
The tepid sexual response he’d accepted as normal for so long seemed to exist in another, sadder lifetime as well. Because how could he remember any other lover when Rose scratched him up, wrung him out, and made him come so hard, he couldn’t stand afterwards?
It was more than he’d hoped for, in bed and out. More than he’d ever imagined he’d have.
It wasn’t enough.
They hadn’t gone out on a public date. No one other than Bea knew they were together, not even Annette or Alfred. She hadn’t mentioned prom—now less than a week away—again.
And he was done accepting less than what he needed, even from those he loved. Even when he knew his needs weren’t necessarily reasonable.
Jesus, he loved Rose with all the devotion his battered heart could muster, and that was a lot. A lifetime’s worth. Maybe more.
But he was through waiting.
He found her in her classroom late in the afternoon, her shoes and jacket discarded as she sorted through her students’ end-of-year projects. When the door quietly clicked closed behind him, she looked up with a welcoming beam.
“Hey, babe. Let me just put this grade into the computer, and then I’m ready to go.” A few quick keystrokes, and she began shutting down her laptop. “What do you want to do for dinner? And no, I’m not having bologna again. M-A-Y-E-R isn’tmysecond name.”
Her bitter-coffee hair gleamed in the lamplight of her desk, and she was eyeing his silk tie with an expression that indicated she was remembering a particularly adventuresome night last week. When she gathered up her briefcase, it bulged with the end-of-year letters she wrote for her students, each one personalized, each one sweet enough to turn lemons into lemon-flavored Starburst.
