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“I never said I was in love with her.”
“It’spainfully clearto me that you are.”He throws my words back at me.
I let his statement settle into me, trying to summon the will to argue it.But I can’t.“It hasn’t even been two weeks between us.”
“It can happen in two days, two weeks, or two years.You never know when it’s going to strike.If you haven’t learned that from hanging out with my family, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
“You’re sounding more like Freya every day.”
“Maybe.But she’s right about some things.She sure was about you and Ava.”
I pull my eyes from the window—and my mind from the memory—and walk into my kitchen.“Look, Ava’s right.I might not like it, but she is.I’m leaving in six months.And their life is here.He’s got the best surgeons here,” I remind Mason.“Plus, his dad’s here—for what it’s worth, anyway.He’s got a good school and neighbors who look out for him.”
“So far, you’ve yet to mention Ava.What about whatshewants?”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing.Her lifeisher kid right now,” I explain, knowing he’ll understand it better after he holds his child for the first time.“And I don’t blame her for that.I’d be the same way if I were in that situation.”
“You would?”
“Of course.”
There’s a slight pause between us before he asks, “So if you were the kid’s dad, you’d… do what?”
“What do you mean,what?”
“I mean, if you had a kid with a heart condition like Nicholas does, what would you do?”
I shrug.“I’d fight to keep stationed right here, where the doctors are good.I mean, they were talking about sending me to Riyadh or someplace else OCONUS.That wouldn’t work, but at this stage in my career, I could probably manage to get an extension for a year in my current job, and then find another one near Annapolis.Lots of intelligence options in the area.You know that.Or worst case scenario, I’d do the geographic bachelor thing for a while, you know?”
“Exactly.I work with a guy who’s doing that now for a couple years.His wife’s in Tampa with their three kids, all in high school.He’s just roughing it in a studio apartment in DC and travels to see them all he can.Happens all the time these days.”
I open my fridge out of habit, then close it quickly, sick to death of the fact that everything in there screams “bachelor.”
Time to grow up and buy a chicken like other thirty-two-year-olds.
“Right,” I agree.“No different from me going on a deployment, really.”
“You don’t need to tellmethat.But did you tell her?”
“Tell her what?”I lean against my counter.
“Dude, you just said it.If he were your kid, you’d fight to stay.I mean, why not?The intelligence community is huge here.But she’s a civilian.She doesn’t know that.So, tell her.”
“Tell her?”
“Tell her you have options.Let this thing between you two develop into whatever it’s going to.If it grows into something that lasts, something that resembles a family, then you’ll find a way to make it work.”
My eyes snap to the Christmas tree that Ava brought me not long ago.
How much time has passed since that moment she gave me it?It hasn’t even been that long.Yet the feelings I have for her are so strong.
Over the next six months, could it turn into something that lasts?And would she let it?I frown, remembering how determined she seemed to cut things short between us.
“What if she doesn’t want to take the risk?”I ask it to myself as much as to Mason.
“Then you’ll be no worse off than you are now.”
I wince.“Dammit.”
