Chapter 28
Susanne
“The results came back.” Susanne sipped the special juice Tavish had made for her that morning in an effort to help settle her stomach. He’d used lots of fresh crushed ginger, and it felt good in her throat.
Beyond the metal railing of the apartment balcony, Singapore glittered and thrived, the water a silvery glimmer of light in the distance.
The sun was warm on her skin, the humidity just right.
She’d wanted a long vacation in the place where she’d spent so much of her childhood, and—with what was happening—Tavish had deferred a semester and come with her.
“What did they say?” He dragged over his chair so that he sat facing her rather than on the other side of the metal table on which he’d put the pitcher of juice. “Suzi, tell me.” He took her hand, began to do that massage thing on her palm that always made her feel good.
Eyes closing, she leaned back in her chair and smiled. “I’m glad I picked you up that day.” She met his gaze. “I thought I’d sow a few wild oats before settling down into life as a sophisticated old lady. We’ve had fun together, haven’t we?”
His throat moved. “Yes. I thought we were having fun and that was it, but…I really like you. I wish we’d been born at the same time.”
“Sweet boy.” She managed a little more of the ginger drink, then put the glass down on the table. “It’s lung cancer. Bad, but not terminal…yet.”
His pupils flared in front of her. “You’ll fight it,” he said, and while it sounded like an order, his voice was raw beneath.
She didn’t think he was pretending; he was too young, too unfinished. “I don’t think so, Tavish.” Susanne had lived the reality of a long, devouring illness with her husband, would wish that fate on no one.
Her forever-laughing man had become a ghost of himself, a querulous stranger whose eyes had begged her for surcease. “I’m choosing to live as I’ve always done, go out as myself in my home rather than a shriveled creature in the hospital.”
“Susanne, no.”
“I’ve always gone my own way, darling, you know that.”
Tavish blinked and looked away. It warmed her that he would grieve her.
“Will you stay with me?” she asked. “Not to be my nurse—dear God, no. I’ll hire someone for that when needed, but to be what you are to me. My friend and lover. We’ll stay here, in the place where I spent the happiest years of my childhood.”
She touched the side of his face, his skin smooth since he’d just shaved. “It’s selfish of me to ask. You won’t graduate with your class.”
“I don’t care about that. I care about you.” Rough voice, his Adam’s apple moving as he swallowed. “Of course I’ll be here.” The sunlight sparked off the signet ring on his finger as he squeezed her hand. “Whatever you need, I’ll be here.”
In that moment, with this boy who had become so much more to her than a lovely flirtation, Susanne realized that she’d been lucky.
She’d loved and been loved by two good men in her life.
Not the same way—how could a relationship that would never even reach the five-year mark compare to one of decades? —but loved all the same.