how I lost myself in Jennings’s arms. “I tried,” I defend myself.
“Tried,” Maris scoffs, before she pours more wine in my glass. “Care to elaborate?”
“Well”—I draw out the word—“there was Linus.”
“Ah, Jed’s bartender.” Maris shakes her head. “I knew he wouldn’t last.”
I glug back some wine. “Why not?” I demand. The hot former Navy cook made for some interesting nights after shifts I’d picked up during summers to put money toward Kevin’s college education.
“You kept saying he didn’t smell right. Too much grease from the restaurant. Next?”
“Quincy.” But even I cringe a little saying his name, knowing what’s coming.
And Maris doesn’t disappoint me. “I still don’t understand how you said his name in bed. Did you ever shorten it? ‘Oh, Quince, Quince,’” she gasps.
“Jesus,” I sputter. “That’s new.”
A wicked smile crosses her face before she takes a sip of her own drink. Putting it aside, she reaches across the counter to grip my hand. “Honestly, honey, of all the men you half-heartedly dated over the years, I truly only think you gave one a chance. What truly happened?”
I think back to the eighteen months I was together with Tony. And, yes, he could have made me happy if I was just a me. But— “He didn’t want Kevin. And the longer we went on, the more obvious it became,” I admit as I twiddle with the stem of my glass.
Maris rears back. “You never told me that. I mean, didn’t he propose?”
I nod. “That was the night I ended it.” My face takes on a faraway look in the dim light shining from the family area. “He’d taken me to his place to do it. There were flowers strewn everywhere, but God, Maris, all these years later, I still can’t forget the look on his face. Before I gave him my answer, I mentioned changing the guest bedroom into Kevin’s room. He recoiled, like I’d just said he had two heads.”
“Or told the truth about how small his dick was,” Maris growls.
“Or that,” I agree. “It was like all the blinders slid off. It was clear on paper we worked—two teachers with promising careers. But I had a stigma attached to me that he wanted nothing to do with. He stood up in what should have been this romantic moment and explained he thought I would transfer custody of my son to my brother, who was ‘doing the job anyway.’” I air quote the last, disgust lacing every word.
Maris slides her wine farther away and reaches for the tequila she keeps in a decanter. Pouring us each a shot, she mutters, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this.”
I shrug. “Why would I? I’m the one who ended it. Besides, your dad passed not long after. You had other things to be concerned with.”
“So you carried this load of crap for all these years?”
“It wasn’t so much a burden as it was a slap in the face,” I admit. I take my shot and shake my head at the quiver that floods my body from the burn hitting my stomach as it spirals out through my veins. “I never realized what scars I carried from what my parents did to me and Dean, Mar. I mean, how could you virtually disown your children for being human? For being gay? For having a baby out of wedlock? It took me close to ten years for me to trust that side of myself again to accept a date, and that was a single night out with one of Dean’s friends.”
“I remember you calling me in tears that night,” she murmurs. “You’d just come back from the salon and cut your hair.”
“You have no idea how much I cried before I made that call,” I confess. “I kept trying to make lists of ways to back out.”
“Why?”
“Because I was terrified. All I could think of was I was opening myself—and potentially Kevin—to someone who would let us down in the same manner my parents did. And maybe my judgment was right after all.” Pausing, I take another drink. “Putting Kevin first in my life was never in doubt, so I don’t regret turning down Tony two years ago. What it leaves me with is maybe I should have listened to your brother, knowing I owe Jennings an apology, but damnit.” I dash tears from my eyes. “I had reasons to be concerned about opening myself up too easily. I still do. Should I throw them all away? Where would we be now if