Six
Five minutes into the blind date, it became undeniably evident that this was notthe one.Nevertheless, Micah Rose was a man of his word and, last Christmas, he had promised Wendy and Nick he would agree to a fix-up—if he was still single and unattached come the following holiday season.
One year later…he remained single and unattached. Hence, his evening out with Mark Stein, a perfectly pleasant man of twenty-eight. He possessed all the right stuff that qualified him as a candidate for “the one”—Nick and Wendy had chosen well—yet thesparkdidn’tcrackle.
Nothing.
Nada.
Well, maybe notnada.Mark Stein was incredibly attractive and sexually desirable. It had been some time since Micah was on a date that ended in the bedroom. He wasn’t a fan of one-night stands and felt a little cheap when he succumbed. Mark seemed like a very nice man and even reminded Micah of himself. Had he agreed to the blind date because he, too, was hoping to meetthe one?
Twenty minutes in, and Mark Stein became as equally enlightened as Micah that theirs’ was not a fated union. It all came to point in the Italian restaurant over a dinner of Chicken Cache Torie.
“You knew the moment you laid eyes on me, didn’t you?” Mark asked in a quiet, unoffended tone as he sipped Merlot and gazed at Micah over the rim of his wine glass, his warm caramel eyes partially squinted. They were very fetching eyes and affected Micah in a very sexual way. There was a promise behind that liquid sweet gaze that Micah felt most vapidly in his loins. But though he didn’t experience that destinedbondwith Mark—therewassomething special about him and Micah didn’t want to reduce the date to little more than a torrid sexual encounter. Something in the man’s lovely eyes revealed to Micah that he harbored a quiet anguish in his heart. A lost love?
“What did I know?” Micah replied, matching his date’s tone. He had no wish to run him off. Neither did he wish to mislead him about where he saw this going—ornotgoing. The understanding in Mark Stein’s eyes assured Micah that they were on the same page.
“You won’t be calling me for another date after tonight.” It wasn’t a question, but a simple statement of fact.
Micah sighed and fingered the flute of his wine glass. “Ishouldbe calling.” A small smile rested on his lips, his response sincere. “You are the whole package. You should be exactly what I’m looking for.”
“I guess that’s the one thing God didn’t grant us free will over,” Mark murmured. “Who we fall in love with.” He lowered his gaze to his glass. “Sometimes, it doesn’t seem likefateis very good at its job.”
That was a loaded statement if Micah ever heard one. “Sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience.”
Mark looked up. “You know what they say about it being better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all?” He shook his head slowly. “Don’t believe it.”
“Who did you love and lose?” Micah faltered as soon as the question was out. “If you don’t want to talk about it…”
Mark absently waved off Micah’s hesitation and took a drink of wine. “His name was Jeff. We went to high school together. We were both in the closet at the time—him a little deeper than me. We had this secret relationship going, but Jeff was very adamant that no one could find out.” Mark cleared his throat. “His father literally held his future in his hands. He was paying for Jeff’s college and for medical school. If he learned his son was gay, he would disown him and destroy Jeff’s hope of fulfilling his dream to become a doctor.”
This story didn’t have a “fairytale” sense about it. When a person tried to hide who they were, be someone they weren’t…it never ended well—especially for the one who loved them.
Mark confirmed this. “When we were almost caught making love,” he said, “Jeff got freaked out and said we couldn’t see each other anymore, that it was getting too risky. He even went as far as saying he wasn’t gay, rather bisexual…and that he’d come to the realization that he liked girls better than boys.” Mark smiled dully and shook his head. “I knew by the way he made love to me that that wasn’t true. I think he was trying to convince himself more so than me.”
“What happened?” Micah whispered.
“We broke up.” Mark twisted his glass on the table. “It crushed me. I was deeply in love with him and thought he was in love with me, too.” He shrugged. “Maybe he was, to some degree. But he wasn’t going to let anything stand between him and his dream. I actually thought that once we were in college and a safe distance from his parents, that he would want to be with me again, even if we continued to keep it behind-the-scenes. I wouldn’t have cared. I understood his situation. But he didn’t come back to me.”
Micah's throat was suddenly tight. “I’m sorry, Mark.”
Mark looked at him, a glimmer of the past heartbreak lingering in his eyes. “A part of me insisted I should fight for him, make him see himself for who he was. But I knew how important it was for him to become a doctor. I didn’t want to be the one to cause him to lose his dream. I’d rather have him walk away believing he was more straight than gay…than have him end up resenting me for the rest of his life.”
It seemed unfair that the ones who didn’t care about true love were the ones who had it handed to them on a silver platter—only to cast it aside. Had Mark proved to be Micah’s “one true love”, he would have eagerly grabbed him up and held onto him for dear life. Mark deserved so much better than he’d received from Jeff. “Did Jeff realize his dream? Is he a doctor now?”
“Yes.”
“Is he still…straight?”
Mark nodded. “The last I heard, he was engaged to a woman—so I’m assuming so.”
“You still have strong feelings for him, don’t you?”
Mark turned his eyes to the large window next to the table and gazed out into the winter evening. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I try not to dwell on the past. Maybe what I thought was love, was simply…hormones and infatuation.”
“Hormones and infatuation don’t keep a hold on you over the years,” Micah murmured.
“True,” Mark sighed. “I guess I just don’t want to admit that I was the only one invested in our love.” He held Micah’s stare. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe for one moment that Jeff should have sacrificed his future for me. I just…” he shrugged. “I just think that if he had loved me as much as I loved him…we could have found a way to make it work, to be together.”
