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“I didn’t owe it to me, but I wish so much that you would have called.” I didn’t see the point. She was marrying another man, for fuck’s sake.
“I didn’t want to bring you anymore pain, especially on your wedding day.”
Her feet touch the ground, but her arms stay around me. “So much has changed yet so much is still the same, but I see you. I see how you hide inside your thoughts. I see how you watch, how you tick the boxes everywhere we go. I see you putting on an act that you’re the same guy we used to know. I see you, Jason Koster. The real you. That’s the man I love. Your secrets don’t scare me, but the reality of what they are, do. I can’t turn my love on and off for you. There’s always a steady stream when it comes to us, but I need time to understand, to learn more about the life you left behind. It doesn’t have to be today, but promise me that you’ll never lie to me, and you won’t keep your secrets bottled up inside.”
“I’ll make that promise if it means I get you.”
“I’m not a prize. I never was. But I like who I am these days, and I like you too much not to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
My body relaxes, knowing this isn’t the end and that maybe we can get past this.
She’s so damn strong or stubborn. Either way, I’m in love with this woman and so damn grateful. “I want to hear more, but maybe we can finish this over lunch. I’m starved, and I never expected to actually hear what you’ve been doing,” she says.
“If it makes you feel better, it wasn’t all bad. I was a stuntman in Hollywood on two films. And a bodyguard for a visiting dignitary in San Francisco for a couple of weeks, which is how I met the woman who became my boss for almost two years.”
Her mouth is hanging open again. I lift her chin to close her mouth, but she asks, “How close were you to this boss?”
“It wasn’t like that. It was strictly professional.”
“Stuntman, mercenary, and bodyguard. Is that all?”
Despite the sarcasm of her question, I continue, “Oh, and I worked at a mini-mart for a few months in a small town in the mountains.”
“Okay. This is a lot to process.”
“Not the stuntman or the mercenary, but the mini-mart is what took it over the top?”
She laughs, rubbing her temples. “Anything else I need to know right now?”
“I was shot once.”
Her eyebrows rise in surprise, and she takes a deep breath to release the tension. “Good Lord. I did not see that coming. Are you okay?”
Turning toward the truck, I wrap my arm around her shoulders, and we start walking. “I’m better now.”
19
Delilah
Sitting in the kitchen eating lunch, we’ve not suffered from a lack of conversation. “Is that scar on your leg from when you were shot?”
“Yes.” He bends down and rubs over the spot. “It was just a graze that became a story to tell.”
“It’s still pink. You were shot recently?”
As I watch him shift in the chair, his discomfort is still noticeable. He doesn’t avoid any of my questions, though. I’ve made a few observations over the past two weeks that I’ve determined are fact as of today. Jason is not the carefree boy from my youth when his biggest worry was a game of football on a Friday night.
He’s now a man who has struggled and fought with many demons. And most likely alone. As much as I hate that he’s capable of killing someone, I’ve learned that sometimes things in life are not as black and white as we’ve grown up to believe. How many times had I wished Cole dead after he took out his “justified anger”—as he called it—on me?
After exhaling and sitting back, he says, “A couple of months ago.”
My throat tightens, and I grip the sides of my chair. “You came back because you were almost killed.” I’m not asking, but I can see I’ve stumbled onto the truth.
He nods. “Even though this is only a graze, there were times I didn’t think I would live to see daylight. Near-death experiences make you grateful for another opportunity to make things right in your life.”
I relate to this too well. “Your turn.”
“Tell me about the tattoo. You didn’t have that when we were together. What made you get it when we weren’t?”
It’s a fair question. I was just hoping for more time before addressing it. But how can I complain when he’s already opened up so much to me? I can’t. After the heaviness outside this morning, I’m just going to be straightforward and rip the Band-Aid off this sore subject. “Cole had been pressuring me to get his name tattooed somewhere on my body.”
