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I shrugged. “Why do we have to define it? Why can’t we just allow things to go the way they naturally will?”
“I just don’t know if I’m ready for anything to get serious. I got out of a big relationship a little while ago. I also have so many things going on in my life that I just don’t want to start anything right now.”
“So far I hear a lot of excuses. If something feels right, then I think we should go for it. And why do we have to slap a label on everything? Can’t we just let things be?”
She stared at me for a moment as if trying to decide if I was joking or not. I looked back into her beautiful gaze without any flinching emotions at all. I was ready to take whatever excuses she might have had and toss them aside. I could tell that Kat had a wall up around her. It kept the world at bay. In fact, it was one of the things that attracted me most to her. She was a beautiful, strong, independent woman who had a lot of demons and so much baggage. It was deceptively hidden of course, but I’ve always been a great judge of people as well and I could tell that there was something else there lurking beneath the surface. That was in fact, what I found most intriguing about her. She was the kind of woman you might ever really get to know, unless you were one of the lucky ones. Then you should consider yourself damn special. And I wanted to be that special.
“Labels are convenient,” she said. “They are important because they draw the lines of expectations. That’s important. And right now, I don’t need a ‘kind of’ relationship happening in my life. I’m not looking for anything casual. I’m not looking for a booty call. And I’m not looking to fall in love with the perfect guy or anything. That’s what I meant. It wouldn’t be fair to either one of us for me to keep my mouth shut and let this develop deeper if my heart isn’t in it. You get that, right?”
“Sure,” I said. “I get it.”
I wanted to add more, to explain to her how I could tell that most of what she’d just said came from the voice of the defense mechanism in her brain. She was afraid to get close to someone. Maybe because of what happened to her parents. Or maybe she had other close loved ones die under horrible circumstances. I didn’t know. I wanted to ask more questions. I wanted to delve deeper, but I knew that would only piss her off at this point and she’d push me away quickly. If this would ever be anything at all, I would have to let her get there in her own time.
Life was too short to go chasing love where it didn’t want to be found.
Chapter Ten
Kat
Lance seemed to understand what I was telling him last night, but I wasn’t so sure he really did. Or if he did, then he definitely wasn’t too concerned with it. In a way that kind of turned me off, but it turned me on as well. He was so confident and so sure of himself, but not in a cocky way. Sure, some of that was borderline cocky, but truthfully deep down I did not see that. I saw a genuinely nice guy who felt that he didn’t owe the world anything and the world didn’t owe him anything. He was not going to let anyone make him waver on a decision. He was comfortable making those hard decisions.
“You are going out with him again tonight?”
Kayley appeared beside me in the bathroom as I was getting ready. She almost startled me, but I was so used to her just barging in there that it barely fazed me at all.
“If you must know, yes,” I said.
“Why? I thought you had the talk with him and told him that you weren’t going to date anyone right now?”
“Yeah, I did. But he asked me if I wanted to have dinner with him tonight and I said I would. It was kind of a spur of the moment sort of thing.”
Kayley looked at my reflection in the mirror and put her head on my shoulder. She had that devilish grin she always wore when she was up to no good or thinking some naughty thoughts. This was a good deal of the time. She had no patience for boredom.
“What?” I laughed.
“You can’t fool me.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you can’t fool me. I can tell you really like this guy, but you are just so afraid to admit it because it doesn’t fit snugly into your little plan, does it?”
“You are crazy,” I replied. “I do like him, but I’m not going to get serious with him. He just asked me to go to dinner at a great restaurant and it sounds like a lot of fun. He is fun to hang out with. We get along fantastic. So, why wouldn’t I go?”
“So, there are no romantic feelings between you two? There is nothing in the works?”
“No, nothing is in the works,” I said. “But… we did… um… kiss…”
“Yes! I knew it!” Kayley put her hands up.
I laughed but held my hand up. “No. You have to calm down. Nothing happened. I put an end to it because I decided I had to set him straight on some things. That was when we had the talk about everything. That isn’t going to happen again.”
“Wow, that must have been a big mood killer,” Kayley said. “But I doubt that it will stop there.”
“What makes you so sure? You are hardly an expert in the field.”
“No, but let me ask you this. Was it a good kiss? Did you enjoy it?”
I wanted to answer her fast. I wanted to tell her no, that she didn’t get it. But she was right on this. She did get it. I did feel electricity in that kiss. I felt fire, hunger, true desire, and total passion. I never wanted it to end. I wanted things to continue moving forward until there was no turning back. I wanted him. I needed him more than I ever wanted to admit. But for whatever reason, I would not let him in. I could not lower my guard and give my heart to someone.
