Jasper #2
“Emmett.” I stopped. Tried again. “I have not been able to hold a relationship. You know this better than anyone—you watched me fail at every single one. Every woman I was with while I was in told me the same thing on the way out. That I wasn’t there even when I was there.
That they couldn’t build a life with someone whose head was always somewhere else.
” I paused. “They were right. I tried, and I was bad at it, and I lost every one of them for the same reason. When I came home for good, I put that part of myself away. Told myself I wasn’t a man who got to have someone at a kitchen table waiting for him.
I made peace with it. I thought the chapter was closed. ”
The river ran. A bird called somewhere in the trees above the far bank.
“And then?” Emmett said quietly.
“And then Cara.” I looked down at the coffee in my hand, gone completely cold now.
“I cannot tell you what’s different about her.
I only know that it is, and I have never said that to you before in my life, and I’m aware I’ve never said it before, and that’s the thing that is scaring me.
” I set the mug down. “I’m afraid that if I take this job, it does to her what the Marines did to everyone else.
That I’ll come back from a long case and sit across from her, and she sees that I’m not there.
That she gets tired of it the same way, and I lose her for the same reason I lost all of them.
I’m afraid the thing I’m good at, that I would love to do, and the thing I want, are not compatible, and that if I try to have both, I’m going to lose the one I want more. ”
A long silence on Emmett’s end. Long enough that I checked the phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“Jasper.” His voice was different now. Quieter. “I’m going to tell you some things, and I need you to actually hear them.”
“Okay.”
“Those women—the ones you lost while you were in—they were not going to be there when you came home, regardless of the Marines. I am not being unkind about them. I’m telling you the truth.
I watched them. None of them were right for you.
Katie had been looking elsewhere for the last six months.
Megan had been looking for a way out before your second deployment.
The one you almost proposed to was a good woman who was not in love with you, and I think you knew that and you were going to propose anyway because you were tired and you wanted to believe it was possible.
” He paused. “The Marines didn’t break those relationships.
The Marines sped up what was already going to happen.
I’ve wanted to tell you that for years, but you weren’t ready to hear it. ”
I gripped the railing with one hand. I didn’t say anything.
“And the second thing.” His voice stayed level.
“I don’t know Cara Darlington. I met her twice at Sweetbriar High fifteen years ago, and she had a book in her hand both times.
But I know what your voice sounds like when you talk about her now, and I have never heard your voice sound like this before, Jasper.
Not once. Not with any of them. That is information you need to take seriously.
She is not the pattern. She is something new.
You don’t get to assume she’s going to respond the way everyone else did, because she is not everyone else. ”
I let out a slow breath and looked at the river.
“The third thing,” Emmett continued, “is the actual answer to your question, and it’s this—you cannot figure this out alone.
I’ve watched you try to figure things out alone your whole life, and it has never worked for you.
You need to go to her and tell her what’s on the table.
Tell her you have an offer, and you’re leaning toward yes, and you’re afraid of what the yes is going to cost. Ask her what she thinks.
Bring her into the decision before you make it, because if you make it alone and it goes sideways, she’s going to feel like you were never planning to include her.
And that—not the job, not the hours—that is the thing that will actually break it. ”
I stood at the railing for a long moment without speaking. The cold had worked all the way through my jacket now, and I still didn’t go in for another one.
“I hear you,” I said finally.
“Do you?”
“I hear you, Emmett.”
“I’ve watched you fail to hear me on this our whole lives. I’m asking you to actually hear me this time. Go to her this week. Tell her about the offer, tell her what you told me, and let her tell you what she thinks. Stop trying to solve it by yourself.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“When?”
I hesitated, just for a second, and I knew he heard it. “Soon,” I said.
“Jasper.” He sighed, exasperated.
“Soon. I’ll tell her soon. I know I need to.”
“I’m going to call you in four days and ask if you’ve done it. I’m going to be annoying about it because I love you and because I don’t want a two-in-the-morning phone call from you six months from now telling me you waited too long.”
“Understood.”
“All right. Go drink your coffee.”
“It’s cold,” I joked.
“Go talk to her.” He hung up.
I stood at the railing for a long time after, phone against my thigh, looking at the river. The mallards had worked their way almost out of sight around the bend. The light was fully up now, the pale gold gone to something warmer. I picked up the cold coffee and drank the rest of it anyway.
The job was something I’d enjoy doing. I’d known that the entire time.
The partnership was the kind of work I’d been missing without knowing I’d been missing it—I could see myself in the office above the feed store, could see myself on a long surveillance with a thermos and a camera on the passenger seat; I knew working with Emmett would fulfill me the same way it had overseas, purposeful and clear.
I was good at it. I’d been good at it since I was eighteen years old.
But the rest of my life was Cara. I wanted to create something with her. I wanted it with my whole heart.
The rest of my life was a bookshop with three cats and a woman I could fall in love with.
The rest of my life was Friday dinner, and whatever came after.
It was the stack of books on my dresser that kept growing, and text messages late at night, and her voice on the phone after my shift.
The rest of my life was a woman who had said I read everything thinking about you lately out loud in the middle of her shop, and then lifted her chin and owned it.
Emmett was right. The Marines hadn’t broken those other relationships by themselves.
Those women hadn’t been the right women.
Cara was different. Everything in me had been saying so for weeks, and I’d been listening to it and trying not to listen to it in equal measure, and I was tired of the second part.
I was going to take the job. I’d known that before Emmett had laid it out this morning. The question was never really whether I was going to say yes. The question was whether I could keep Cara if I did.
And Emmett had just told me that the only way to find out was to go to her and ask.
I went inside, put the mug in the sink, and stood in the kitchen for a moment thinking about Friday. About the restaurant. About flowers. About the conversation I needed to have before we had dinner, and kept finding reasons to push past it.
I was going to tell her after our date.
I knew while I was deciding it that Emmett would not be happy with it—he’d said this week, and this week meant before Friday, and I was moving it to after, and I was telling myself it was a small adjustment when it was exactly the thing he’d just told me not to do.
But I couldn’t bring myself to complicate our date with it.
Not this dinner. Not the first real one.
I wanted one night that wasn’t already weighed down by something else. I picked up my phone and texted her.
Me: Good morning. I’ve been thinking about Friday.
Her reply came back within a minute.
CARA: Good morning. I’ve been thinking about you.
Me: Yeah?
CARA: Since Tuesday, if we’re being honest and real. Which I think we are now.
Me: I think we are too.
CARA: Good. Then—I’m glad it’s almost Friday. I keep waking up and counting the days and feeling ridiculous about it.
Me: Don’t. I’m counting too.
I smiled at my phone in the cold kitchen with the river outside and Emmett’s voice still in my head and the two-week clock on the offer ticking quietly in the back of my mind, and I told myself I would tell her after Friday, and I knew while I was telling myself that I was probably going to find a reason not to.
I shoved it all out of my mind. Today I was just going to think about Friday.