Fifteen
FIFTEEN
Kat
“I don’t know where to start.”
The disbelief I felt was tremendous.
Even though Graham and I had a brief talk this morning at the park, and I had gotten an idea of where his mindset had been all this time, I hadn’t managed to wrap my head around the fact that he had asked to take me out for dinner, so that we could talk.
All afternoon, as I attempted to take care of some of the usual weekend errands in town and tasks around my house, I continued to replay the conversation we’d had with one another that morning.
There’s nobody else. You were my first and only since my divorce.
Those words rattled around in my brain for hours. It had only been me the entire time, and there was something about that which felt undeniably special. How ironic that he had been my first and only since things ended with Charlie, too?
By the time Graham arrived to pick me up for dinner, I had gotten so worked up, I didn’t think it’d be possible not to make a fool of myself.
I was so nervous, and the way he looked at me when I opened the door didn’t ease any of the anxiety. There was something so warm and sweet in his stare, something he’d never shown me before now.
And that terrified me.
Because I didn’t understand why he was giving me that when he hadn’t ever given it to me before. Was it merely like he’d said at the park today? Had it simply been because we hadn’t seen each other in weeks that he wound up feeling something when I opened the door to him, or was it something else?
All the unanswered questions only served to make me cautious about what would happen between us tonight. I didn’t have a clue where this was going to lead.
It was only that hint of vulnerability Graham had showed at the park that made me think something was different about tonight. Of course, he’d only said he wanted to clear the air, to share the truth with me about why he hadn’t wanted to get involved in a serious relationship again. He hadn’t made any mention of something more than that coming from this dinner.
So, I wanted to have realistic expectations about the evening.
And if nothing else, I could relax just a touch at learning that I hadn’t been entirely wrong about Graham. Obviously, he’d had something horrible happen that led to his mindset, and deep down, I believed he was just a good guy that couldn’t stand the thought of me—or anybody, for that matter—thinking things about him that were untrue. I had to appreciate that part of him.
Now, we were here, and he was already struggling. I hadn’t exactly been very forthcoming with details about Charlie when I had the opportunity weeks ago, so I could understand his position.
“The beginning might be the best place to start,” I said.
He gave me a nod. “Her name was Chelsea. My ex-wife, that is.”
Ex-wife. I was still trying to come to grips with the fact that Graham had been married. “How long ago did you meet her?”
“It was about six years ago that I met her, and we were together for the five years that followed.” He lifted his drink to his lips, took a sip, and set it back on the table. “We’ve been separated and ultimately divorced over the last year or so.”
“May I ask what happened?”
One half of his mouth quirked. “That’s a big part of the reason I wanted to come out to dinner with you tonight, so yes, you can. At first, everything was great between us. Really, I thought everything was great right up until the very end. I seriously dated a couple of women over the years, but there hadn’t been anybody like Chelsea. There was something about her that just did it for me. We clicked and got along great. She was beautiful and outgoing and funny, and I knew very early on that I wanted to spend my life with her.”
As he paused for a moment to collect himself, I remained silent, considering how it was possible anything could have gone wrong between them. Graham sounded like he’d been head over heels for this woman.
He’d been looking at nothing in the distance, his mind clearly distracted by painful memories, if his expression was any indication. “I’d never loved anyone like I loved her,” he began again. “I never thought I could love anyone the way I loved her. And from the moment I asked her to marry me, and she accepted, I started dreaming about all the things I wanted for us in our future. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done for her.”
I knew this wasn’t the time or place to feel jealous, especially not in the face of Graham’s pain, but it was nearly impossible not to. What I would have given to have someone not only speak about me the way Graham spoke about his ex-wife, but to also have someone love me the way he had loved her.
If anything, listening to Graham’s story made me realize that I didn’t have a clue what romantic love was like. The only thing I did know was what it wasn’t, and I couldn’t think of a single thing I wouldn’t have been willing to give up for a taste of being loved by a man like Graham.
The more he shared, the more baffled I became. How could something that seemed so utterly beautiful end in divorce?
“Not quite two years ago, we learned that Chelsea was pregnant,” Graham shared.
My stomach dropped. Graham had a kid?!
Graham swallowed hard, his eyes dropping to the table and, suddenly, I wasn’t so sure this part of the story was going to leave me feeling like everything was as picture-perfect as everything before had been. Oh, God. What if something happened to the baby?
After taking another sip of his drink, Graham continued. “I was over the moon when I found out. I couldn’t wait to become a dad. Chelsea was just as excited, and it felt like my whole world, the life I’d hoped to have for us, was all falling into place. Everything was perfect, until the baby was born.”
Instinctively, my hand flew up to cover my mouth, my fingertips resting on my lips as I waited for him to share the rest.
I knew it.
I knew there was going to be some tragic story with the baby.
My heart was already breaking for Graham, and he hadn’t even told me the worst part of the story. Hell, he hadn’t told me a single bad thing yet. But it was coming. Oh, I knew it was coming, and it was going to hurt far worse than it already did.
“To make a long and painful story as short and painless as possible, not long after the baby was born, he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. There were all kinds of tests done on him, Chelsea, and me. As it turns out, the only way for him to have wound up with the condition is for both parents to be carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene. I am not a carrier.”
I blinked my eyes, feeling confused. “But if you weren’t a carrier, that means that…”
“He wasn’t mine.”
As the shock of his admission moved through me, my heart broke for Graham. What he’d just shared wasn’t where I had suspected the story was going, but it felt just as tragic. “I’m so, so sorry. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to learn that.”
“Thanks. Chelsea confessed to everything at that point. She told me she’d started seeing someone else about seven or eight months before she wound up pregnant. It was like having my whole world flipped upside down in the blink of an eye. I’d gone from being happily married and expecting my first child to filing for divorce and mourning the loss of the family and future I thought was mine forever.”
I pressed my hand firmly against my chest in hopes it would ease the ache there. “My heart hurts for your loss, Graham. It must have been so devastating for you.”
He nodded, dropping his gaze to the table briefly. “Yeah. It had been months and months of excitement and planning and anticipation, and just like that, it was gone.”
My mind was all mixed up. Part of me wanted to ask about how the baby was doing, but it felt insensitive. Graham had to have been devastated by the revelation that the woman he loved not only stepped out on him for months, but that she had also gotten pregnant by the man she’d cheated on him with. I could have cried for the heartache and sorrow he must have felt when he learned that the baby wasn’t his.
“I wish I knew what to say,” I murmured. “Saying sorry doesn’t feel like nearly enough.”
“It’s enough,” he assured me. “I’m just glad you know the truth now. What happened between us, between you and me, had nothing to do with you, Kat. It was all about me and what was going on inside my head.”
While that should have made me feel better, and I guess it did, to some degree, I mostly felt sadness. Even if I only knew tiny shreds of information about Graham, I was confident he was a good guy. He would have made an amazing boyfriend, husband, and father, and it broke my heart to know his ex-wife had taken away his desire to be any of that.
“Thank you for telling me this.” Graham’s features softened, the tension easing out of them. “I appreciate you giving me this tonight when you didn’t need to share any part of something so personal and life-changing with me. I guess I want you to know that I understand completely why you have no interest in getting seriously involved with someone again, why you insisted on our relationship being purely physical.”
In a move I hadn’t anticipated after the emotional roller coaster of a story he’d just shared, Graham reached across the table and placed his hand over mine. My belly trembled at the gentle touch, a different kind of ache forming at the center of my chest. Knowing the truth, knowing just how good of a man he was, I longed even more for him.
“I don’t think I can tell you just how sorry I am for hurting you the way that I did. That was the one thing I never wanted to do to you. To anyone, really. And I wish I would have handled the situation differently, because you deserved better.”
I had to take a few moments to collect myself, because the ache in my chest had spread toward my throat, and it was impossible to swallow. I didn’t trust myself to speak immediately.
When the pain lessened just enough, I offered a small, reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Graham. I’m not mad at you for it, not now when I know the truth about everything. You should know that I understand the fear you feel about moving forward with someone else. I think I understand better than most could, better than you can probably imagine.”
His hand squeezed mine. “Your former fiancé?”
I nodded.
“The day you told me about your sister’s engagement and why it upset you so much, you mentioned that I couldn’t possibly imagine how horrible it had been. I won’t sit here and compare my experience to yours, but I think it’s clear I can understand just how bad it can be. If you’re interested in sharing, I’d be curious to hear about it.”
My brows pulled together. “What?”
He rubbed his fingers lightly over my knuckles. “You don’t have to if you’d rather not. I just wanted you to know that I’m more than willing to listen. And beyond that, I’m curious to know what you’ve been through.”
I tipped my head to the side, and my eyes roamed over his face. I was searching for something, anything, that would tell me he was joking. Other than being willing to listen to the story about my sister’s engagement, Graham hadn’t ever sought out personal information about me. Was this merely him offering me the same courtesy I’d just given him to hear him out? And if so, what purpose would me sharing the same serve?
Unwilling to give myself any additional false hope, I felt compelled to clarify his intentions. “I don’t have a problem sharing the story with you, but why do you want to know?”
Graham’s gaze dipped away from my face and toward his hand covering mine. After taking that in, he removed his hand and sat back in his seat. When he lifted his stare to meet mine, something that looked a lot like regret flashed in his eyes.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for two weeks now, Kat. If I’m honest, I was thinking about you all the time before I walked away. But it was different then. For these last two weeks, I’ve been utterly miserable. And I was so twisted up about my own situation and what I didn’t want to risk having happen again that I pushed away a really good woman who made me feel happy for the first time in more than a year.”
If I didn’t think it would have made me look like I was crazy, I would have pinched myself. This felt like a dream, like I was imagining how I wished things would have happened between us instead of how they actually were.
Maybe it was my unwillingness to believe any longer that I might be lucky enough to get something worthwhile and meaningful in my life, but instead of spilling my guts about all that had happened between Charlie and me, I let out an uncomfortable laugh. “I’m sorry. It’s just… This is strange.”
“You’re still grappling with us being out to dinner together?”
I shrugged one shoulder, tilting my head to that side. “I don’t know. Maybe a little. But I think it’s a lot more than that. I think, more than anything else, I’m still feeling just a touch uncertain.”
“About me?”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I don’t want you to think I don’t understand why you were the way you were with me over these past few months or why these last two weeks went down the way they did. I understand completely. But this isn’t a side of you I’ve seen before, and I’m just not sure if the gruff man I met at the pub is the way you usually are, or if the guy who’s sitting across from me now is a better representation of who I can expect you to be.”
He sent a sheepish look my way. “I know I was grouchy that day you sat down beside me. I was also less than friendly whenever you tried to get to know me better in those final few weeks we were spending time together. All of that was the result of my mindset. You don’t know this, but the day you and I met at the pub was the day my divorce was finalized.”
I gasped. “Are you serious?”
He nodded.
Well, that explained a lot.
It also made me wonder if perhaps I’d been nothing more than the woman who helped him get over his divorce.
“I can tell what’s going through your mind, and it’s not the way it is, Kat,” he said. “I had moved on from my ex-wife long before the divorce was finalized. You were not a woman I used to get over her.”
At least there was that. “So, may I ask where you stand now? Because while I can understand why you felt the way you did about hopping into another relationship and appreciate your explanation about it, I need you to understand that I’m not looking to put myself in a place to be humiliated again.”
Graham’s expression turned guilt ridden. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell you how sorry I am about making you feel that way. It is my greatest regret, and I’d understand if you never wanted to speak to me again. But like I said before, I’ve been miserable these last two weeks without you around, and I’m beginning to think that’s not a coincidence. So, if you’re willing to give me a chance, I’d really like for us to be able to start over. I’d like to get to know you.”
It took everything in me not to react like a teenage girl. I kept my expression neutral as I replayed those words over and over in my head. Judging by the look on Graham’s face, I’d succeeded in not revealing anything about how hearing all of that made me feel.
He seemed slightly terrified, worried. God, did he think I was going to turn him down?
I might have seemed the picture-perfect image of cool and composed, but I was a mess on the inside.
Graham wanted me to give him a chance. He wanted us to start over, get to know one another, and perhaps become that something more I’d been looking for.
It was a wonder how I didn’t climb onto the table, throw my hands in the air, and start dancing.
But the urge to do something crazy like that was real. So, instead of giving Graham the answer he was seeking, I remained just like I was and stared at him. I did that and considered the possibilities for us, the questions I had for him. I wondered about the things I’d learn about him if we took this step, and I thought about how he’d respond to learning things about me.
It was on that thought I realized I needed to start at the beginning. I needed to share the truth of my position, of why I wound up sitting down on that stool beside him months ago.
If he’d given me the truth about his situation, it was only fair I did the same. I could only hope he wouldn’t see me as the enemy, considering I was the outsider in my situation. It was someone like me who’d broken up Graham’s marriage. Would he see me as nothing more than the same?
Either way, I had to know the truth.
But just as I was about to start, our waitress returned. “Okay. Here are your dinner salads and appetizers.”
Graham and I both sat back enough to give her the room to set everything on the table.
And while it shouldn’t have been that way, the interruption from the server left me wondering if perhaps I needed to reconsider what I’d just been prepared to do. I was done making mistakes, and I just couldn’t work out if this was another one of them.