I Can’t Let You Go 4

::FOUR::

I haven’t been on a date in a while, either. Ramon and Adriana are always trying to set me up, and, as much as I like Adriana’s cooking, I dread going over for dinner sometimes, knowing Adriana has probably invited a ‘friend’ along. For me. Hicks and Candice would do the same thing, after a while. It feels a little weird to even call this a date, and I know that if I were to say it out loud, it would sound strange to me. I look over at the kid with the purple hair, as he sweeps up behind the counters. Kids that age date.

A flutter in my gut as she comes out of the back, her coat over her arm. The kids’ smiling at her, telling her to go, he’ll close up.

She’s blushing a little, smiling shyly, as she approaches from behind the counter. She stops, a single step between us, biting the inside of her bottom lip and tucking her hair behind her ear. She whispers to me, “Dan thinks we’re cute.” One of us is cute, anyway.

My hand easily spans the width of her lower back, as I hold the door for her. A quick intake of breath, subtle, on both our parts, at the touch. Her fingers brush mine, as I let go, our hands having a will of their own, interlacing easily. A small flush of heat, our hands warm in each other. She’s still blushing a little, her dark eyes flick up to mine, as she squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back. It’s not an accident or a fleeting thing then, and neither of us minds, neither of us pulls away at the touch.

“Did you have a place in mind?” She asks, once we get outside, still standing comfortably close, deciding which way to go.

“To be honest, asking you was as far as I thought it through.” I had intended on going home, and taking a chance that I might meet her at the cemetery.

She breaks into a grin, a faint blush still there, but her shyness leaving. “What do you like to eat?”

“Anything but sandwiches.” Her puzzled look makes me laugh. “My partner brings me sandwiches. Every day.”

“So no sandwiches then.”

A small snort of laughter, her hair falling again. I reach over, tucking it back behind her ear for her, almost without thinking about it. Her hair is like silk, a thought that makes the next breath difficult. We stop at a small restaurant with a patio, at the end of the street, facing the university. Her thumb tracing a pattern over mine, a silent question. I would agree to anything right now, even sandwiches.

“It feels a little strange, doesn’t it.” Her voice is quiet, looking back at me, as the young waiter leads us to a shady table at the back of the patio.

“A little,” I admit, my hand on her back again, before I take a seat across from her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve dated.” Reaching out to hold her hand again, across the small table. The waiter had noticed my wedding ring first, having caught the exchange about dating. Jeanette bites her lip to keep from smiling, as the waiter spies hers as well. He’s discreet about it at least.

“I don’t even know if you drink, Jeanette?” The waiter’s offering the wine list. “White wine, please.” I order for us both, after a small nod from her.

She waits until he’s gone, before grinning, her dark eyes quickly flashing with mischief, before she lowers her head.

“You know we’ve confused him.” I say it quietly, watching the waiter through the opened windows.

“We could really confuse him and explain, that we’re married, just not to each other.” Her free hand covers her mouth, fleetingly, to suppress a giggle, as the waiter comes back. He pours her glass first, asking if we’re ready to order. She nods at me, and I order for us both, glad to have the waiter gone for a while.

“I like that I don’t have to explain. That I don’t have to explain with you, Jeanette.” Our eyes meet, holding for a moment.

“I like not having to explain, too. I like not having to pretend it didn’t happen, either. When people hear that you were married, it’s one thing. The minute people hear that I’ve been widowed, it’s like…”

“Like you’ve got something catching.” We’ve both felt the same way then, so finishing the thought is easy.

She laughs a little at that, her head dropping, the bridge of her nose crinkling. Laughing quietly. It’s a strange thing to laugh at, and liberating, at the same time. I’m not used to other people understanding that.

“Do your friends set you up on blind dates, too?” I ask her, when the waiter comes back, with our meals. I close my eyes for a moment, willing my nervousness not to show. I don’t want to be just another date to her, and it scares me a little how much I want it to be different with her. Alvarez told me to watch my heart. I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of it.

“They try. I guess it just never really took. It’s …hard for other people to understand.” Her voice is soft and quiet again, and I regret having asked her at all, regret that I needed to know, for myself. “It’s not like just getting divorced or separated. Hating an ex, or even disliking them is something people can understand. I don’t hate John. He’s just …gone.”

I hate that something I asked might have hurt her. I drop her hand for a moment, getting up, and taking the seat on her right, instead of sitting in front of her. Her hands free again, she’s pulling at the hem of her blouse, another nervous habit. I reach out, to take her hand again.

“I’m sorry, Jeanette, I shouldn’t have asked.”

Her hand squeezes mine, the small laugh again, breaking into a smile. “We could avoid it, like everybody else does.” A bigger laugh this time. “But it feels wonderful to not have to, to not have to pretend a big part of my life didn’t happen.”

I move my plate over from the other side of the table, moving my salad around with the fork, not really eating. I’m torn between wanting to know more about her, and not wanting to ask anything that’s going to hurt her. I know that it hurts to think about Stacy. I don’t want to hurt her, but I ask anyway. “How long were you married?”

“Thank you, Sean.” I must have looked confused. “For not changing the subject, for not asking me to pretend for you. Thank you.” She’s smiling again, a beautiful smile that tugs at my heart again. It wasn’t expected, so it seems all the brighter for it.

“John and I met at a party six years ago. I was twenty one. He was a friend of some friends of mine, I guess even then people were trying to set me up. He was a soldier, from here, at Fort Bliss, in Seattle visiting.”

“You’re from Seattle then.” She nods, before, continuing.

“I hadn’t intended to get so serious, but by the end of the week, I had fallen for him. We got married a few months later, and moved to Texas, so we wouldn’t have to travel to see each other. Emily came along not long after that.” Jeanette went quiet, at the mention of her daughter’s name. She thanked me, for not changing the subject, for letting her talk. I’m still scared of hurting her.

“They were walking across the street, from the park. It was just a few days away from Emily’s second birthday. I had sent them out, to finish decorations for a cake. They were hit by a drunk driver. The doctor’s told me they were both killed instantly. That they wouldn’t have felt it, that they wouldn’t have been in pain. In my heart I always hope that’s true.” She takes a deep breath, her eyes flick to mine, but won’t hold them. Maybe she’s gotten used to seeing pity, or worse, discomfort.

“Stacy and I knew each other since we were kids. We used to play together, and fight, and ride bikes, and all the other stuff kids do. And then she wasn’t a little kid anymore, and neither was I. We both went through short times when we saw other people, but I guess we both knew it. There wouldn’t be anyone else. We got married shortly before I signed on with the DEA, moved to a house on the beach. If someone had asked me to say what love was, I couldn’t say, but I loved Stacy, with everything in me, she saved my life. Without her I wouldn’t have been a very good person.”

“A year and a half ago, someone tried to kill me, for the work I do. They came into our home, while we were sleeping, and shot at us in our bed. It never even occurred to me that they would shoot her, at first. I ran out after them, getting shot again. Stacy was…” I had started to tense up, the pain of it hard to hide. I had tried to let go of Jeanette’s hand, worried I might crush her hand. She won’t let me let go, both of her small hands holding mine now. “She had lost too much blood. Her voice was so quiet, and then she was gone. I was unconscious, when help came. When I finally woke up in the hospital, she had already been buried. I…”

It’s the first time in the year and a half that Stacy had been gone that I really spoke about what had happened. Other agents knew what had happened, and the events were part of my file now. Hicks knew, but we didn’t really talk about it, the both if us too close to it to speak about it.

I blink against the sting of tears, one Jeanette becoming many, through the prism of them. Her own eyes shine with them too. She pulls my hand to her lips, kissing my wedding ring first, before resting my knuckles against her chest, her lips resting on the back of my hand for a moment. Our dinner forgotten, nothing else exists at this moment, the hurt expanding, seeming to take up all the space. Nothing else exists but Jeanette and I.

“Are you okay, Sean?”

Her voice is soft, kissing my hand again, our hands resting back on the table. Most women avoid the wedding ring altogether, avoid the topic of Stacy, like pretending neither of them existed will make everything easier. Her soft kiss, lips brushing over the skin of my ring finger, kissing the only tangible proof I have left of Stacy’s existence, my wedding ring. Jeanette still wears hers as well, neither one of us is willing to pretend our lives didn’t exist before they were shattered. The gesture has me swallowing hard. I could try to hide the way I feel about it, but I don’t think I would be all that succesful. She’s felt what I’m feeling. She knows already the ache in my heart.

“I…I haven’t talked about Stacy in a long time.”

“People ask, and say they want to know, but they don’t really want to know, and don’t know what to do with it when they find out.”

“I haven’t scared you off, have I, Jeanette?”

“If meeting you for the first time in a dark cemetery didn’t do it…” Her grin is back.

“So we’re okay?” I lean in a little towards her, our feet tangled up under the table.

“Are you going to see me again, Sean?”

Her question is so blunt, it caught me off guard, but why shouldn’t we be honest? “All I’ve been thinking of all week is seeing you again. Yes, I want to keep seeing you.” She blushes again, but doesn’t drop her eyes from mine.

“Then we’re okay.”

We play with our dinner, and finish our wine, the waiter leaves again, after I take care of the bill. We sit quietly, comfortably, with each other for a few minutes. The falling light of sunset threads Jeanette’s hair with gold, and I realize I’m staring again. It doesn’t embarrass her, and I catch her smile at me, when I finally realize I’m staring, and try to look down. She kicks me, softly, under the table, and grins at me.

I leave my hand on her back, as we leave the restaurant. A part of me wants to take her home, talk about nothing and everything. Sit out on my porch and drink coffee with her. Curl up on the couch and watch TV with her. Make breakfast with her. Somewhere in there, I’d like to to make love to her, but it’s far in the back of my head. It’s the little things you miss. The smell of a woman, the sound of her quiet footsteps in your house. Her voice, singing to herself, as she does some small thing that she wouldn’t even remember doing. To know that I have to leave her tonight, at some point, to know how much I don’t want to, to know how much I want to lose myself in her, makes me feel guilty again. Guilty because it was Stacy that I shared my life, all of my life, with, and now I look at Jeanette and I’m starting to want her in that way. Alvarez warned me to watch my heart. I look at Jeanette and I don’t want to.

Resigning myself to the inevitable, I ask her. “Should I call you a cab, Jeanette?”

She rests her hand on my side, looking up at me. I get the feeling she’s just read everything I’ve been thinking. I don’t know if that worries me or not.

“I live over the bookstore. Did you just want to go for a walk with me?”

“Yea, I’d like that.” I know I’m grinning, I don’t care. It’s only a little more than a half hour walk around the university, and back to the bookstore. I would have walked to the moon and back. We don’t talk, my hand resting at her waist, Jeanette settling into the touch. Her left hand slid over mine, on her hip, at some point during the walk. The warm metallic click of our rings touching, for a moment.

We go through the ritual of swapping phone numbers, when we get back to the bookstore. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

“I have to work until about seven, but yes, I’d like to.”

“Maybe I should just pick you up then?”

“I’d like that.”

I tuck her hair behind her ear, before she does it herself, the warm scent of her skin, her hair, filling me. Was it like this, the first time I ever kissed someone? Hard to breathe, my belly full of butterflies. I wonder if she feels the same way. One look into her her dark eyes and I know she does. The kiss is fleeting, and gentle. Soft lips, an intake of breathe, a taste of wine. For just a moment we are standing so close that I can feel her heart, racing, I know mine is too.

It’s harder to step away from her than I would have thought possible. I can still taste her, on my lips, as I call a cab, and go home.

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