LOST WITH YOU - Lisa Ann Verge Page 0,53
paced in a tight circle, tethered to the nightstand by the phone cord. “But Dylan just gave me reason to believe he’s thinking long-term. “
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Well—”
“Is it that you don’t want him, or you don’t want anything long-term?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had to face this kind of situation for a long time.”
“Are you sure you didn’t get knocked on the head when that boat capsized? Because you’re sounding pretty confused now, and not in a way that I can help.”
“How am I supposed to be okay with…being with someone? Really being with him—not just in his bed.”
“Do you like the man?”
She worried her lower lip. She more than just liked him. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to step back into her minivan and drive away from him anytime soon, and that scared her to death.
Jillian said, “Hear this, Casey?”
Casey listened to the silence. She heard faint jazz music through the speaker. The tap of a pack of cigarettes on a hard surface. The sound of ice cubes floating in vodka. Jillian loved vodka tonics. “I don’t hear anything, Jillian.”
“Right answer.” Jillian made a grunting sound. “I don’t hear anything from you, either. Not a single emphatic ‘no,’ or an ‘I’m not sure,’ or even ‘I don’t know what I want.’ What I did hear in that silence was that you’re head over heels for this guy, but too terrified to admit it.”
Casey closed her eyes. “You know, you could tone down that city sarcasm for a minute or so. It might make you more sympathetic.”
“Honey, any idiot can nod and make I’m-listening-to-you noises. I’m here to make you see reality, which will do you a hell of a lot more good. And from where I’m sitting in my big empty bed, it’s really hard to muscle up sympathy for your plight, if you know what I mean.”
Casey sighed. “I shouldn’t have called.”
“Then you’re choosing to run away again.”
Casey winced. Jillian did this all the time. It hurt, this truth. It pinched deep and hard. But Casey knew she had to listen. Had to stop fooling herself.
Had to stop running away.
She sank down on the hotel bed and thrust her fingers through her hair. It had grown long and ragged in three weeks. She needed a new cut. Something softer, less severe, less controlled.
“You didn’t hang up,” Jillian said. “That’s progress.”
“I gave too much up three years ago.” Casey winced as the words left her mouth. She hadn’t wanted to admit the truth, but there it was. It took three weeks with Dylan to realize how she’d purposefully left behind everything she loved, including love itself. “I didn’t just leave my home and my dreams behind. I left my family, too. I’ve been a terrible sister. A terrible aunt.”
“There we go.” In the background, Casey heard the sound of a match scraping up flame. “You’re in the heart of the matter now.”
“You should give up that dirty habit, Jill.”
“Don’t change the subject. I’m down to one pack a day.”
“So you’ll be fifty when you die instead of forty-five.”
“Won’t I be pretty, though?”
Casey dipped her head. It was a familiar back-and-forth between them. A little comfortable repartee, Jillian would say, to ease the emotional intensity.
“It just all happened so fast,” Casey said. “My head can hardly keep up.”
“You shouldn’t be thinking with your head, not when it comes to this.” Jillian sucked in a deep drag on the cigarette. “Whether you stick with this guy for better or worse boils down to one fundamental question. Can you guess what it is?”
Casey fell back on the bed to stare at the stucco ceiling. “Do I love him?”
“Do you?”
“I do.” She breathed through the words, felt the solid truth in them. “But I’ve built castles in the air before. I’ve seen them crumble, too.”
“Nothing’s guaranteed in life.”
“I know. I told him the same thing.”
“You’re caught in a quandary. Frankly, if you’d answered right away that you were all in with this guy, I’d be worried about you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“It makes all the sense in the world. You’re examining some terrifying feelings. Your heart has woken up again, but you’re still afraid to be part of the world—to join his world. If you’d said ‘yes’ fast, I’d wonder if you were jumping into something out of desperation. If you’d blurted ‘no,’ I would wonder if you were running away again. But you’re riding the line, wanting him and what he represents but understanding how