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“Delia, a guy in his position can’t date his…mentees. His job is to guide you professionally. He could have been fired.” He set the mug in front of me and looked at me grimly.
“I really loved him.”
“I know. Now, I know. But still, it—”
“I get it.”
“No, I don’t think you do. Maybe you will when you’re older.”
I grimaced a little.When I’m older.Jeremy used to love saying that, too. When he would tell me he couldn’t come to my birthday dinner or kiss me goodbye at the car, I’d understandwhen I was older.
Well, I was a year older, and all I understood was that he wanted sex without the relationship. Sure, he wouldn’t say it like that, but that’s how it felt in the end.
Changing the subject, I said, “Sorry I couldn’t stay to file the police report. I just—” I shook my head “—I was afraid to see that guy awake again.”
“I understand,” he said quietly, leaning against the counter in front of me, his elbows on the marble. “I shouldn’t have asked that of you.”
“Why did you?”
“I don’t have a good excuse. I just—” he broke off, looking down, before his eyes met mine, and continued, “My late wife, Quinn, was murdered after work one day at a bar. I guess this situation is…bringing up feelings.” He winced at the word ‘feelings’ like it was a dirty word, and I would have smiled if it weren’t for the serious subject.
He tugged at my heartstrings with his serious expression, the yearning in his green eyes. It was the look of someone who longed to be understood. He looked drained but needy at the same time.
“I’m sorry, Robert. That’s…awful.”
I felt so bad for feeling like he was judging me. Of course he thought what I did was dangerous. Of course he wanted toprotect me. He probably felt like if he could save me, it would be worth it.
“It was, yeah. Sometimes, though, it feels like it will never be over, like I’ll be forced to relive it over and over.”
He closed his eyes, and I wondered if he was reliving it right then, if his mind replayed the image of when he found out over and over.
I wanted to take that pain from him.
I wanted to reach out and touch his cheek.
Embarrassed by how badly I wanted to touch him, I twisted my lip into my cheek and sipped my hot tea, feeling the herby water coat my throat. He was right. It was surprisingly soothing.
And talking to him was soothing, too. It was hard to think about everything that had happened tonight when I was focused on Robert. “Who did it, if I can ask?”
“A regular at her work, someone she thought was a nice guy. I was deployed at the time. I thought—I think everyone thought it would have been me that…died early. No one was expecting that. I was going through something horrible every day overseas, and then to get that news was impossible to process. I had to come back to take care of everything and my daughter. I didn’t even realize how real it was for months. I was in a haze, taking care of funeral preparations and a new baby. Nothing made sense.But we made it through. She’s eleven now and so…normal. I can hardly believe it.”
“That’s more than my father ever would have done,” I said, raising my eyebrows over the mug as I took another sip. “He would have pretended he never got the message.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true. You don’t really know what kind of man you’ll be until you’re faced with a tough situation.”
“No, my dad was a shell of a man after a few deployments. He was never there for us. He started coming back more and more infrequently, and then when he and my mom divorced, he stopped altogether. Just a card a couple of times a year. I don’t even know who he was outside of the Army. I wonder sometimes if he ever loved us or if the Army was an excuse.”
I chewed on my bottom lip and looked up at him, hoping he couldn’t see on my face the despair I felt internally. It was embarrassing talking about my daddy issues when his wife had been murdered. It was like bringing a knife to a gunfight in terms of trauma.
He shook his head. “I want to say something to fix that. The truth is, I knew plenty of men just like that in the Navy. Some people join just to run from who they really are. They want a stamp that tells the world they’re a good person without doing anything good. We were all so close that it was hard to begrudge them their choices, but I know it was hard on their families. Being good to your country doesn’t…” He trailed off for a moment, then reached out for one of my hands. He touched my fingertipwith his fingertip, the briefest and smallest of touches, but it lit me up. “It doesn’t make someone a good father.”
I swallowed the rising lump in my throat. It was healing having someone who had been through the same situation as my father tell me that it wasn’t right, that he wasn’t good just because he served his country. He could still be a bad father.
“Anyway,” I cleared my throat and shook my head, smiling weakly, “I feel silly for bringing that up. You went through so much. My problems seem so small in comparison.”
“No, don’t say that,” Robert said, and he sounded so sincere that it choked me up all over again. The hand that was touching mine stretched out and linked fingers with mine, stroking my palm with his thumb. “Your problems are just as important as mine.”
It was such a small thing, but it made me feel so important. His touch made me feel so important, too, and I felt a stirring in my stomach.