Could he make her laugh the way I did?
She smiled. “I meant obviously Jake believes in all that. See the pair of them.” She lifted her chin toward Haven and Jake, who were throwing each other little glances.
“And you don’t believe in all that?” I was suddenly fascinated by what her response would be.
I willed her to look at me, but she stared into her glass. “Yeah, I believe in it.”
Ashleigh
The boys had gone to watch sports, and I knew I was about to face an interrogation from Haven. “So you two had lunch?”
I tried to brush it off. It really was no big deal. “Yeah, Luke called and asked me at the last minute. We used to do it all the time. It’s not like I crossed some morally reprehensible line for lunching with your brother.”
Haven cocked her head. “I haven’t said a word. Do you think you might be a tad defensive? I just thought you were making room in your life for Richard, that’s all. I want you to be happy.”
“I saw Richard last night. There is plenty of room for him.”
Haven tapped the side of the pan with her wooden spoon. “And how’s the sex? Has it improved?”
“I don’t remember saying it needed improving on.” I threw a glance over my shoulder to check the boys weren’t listening.
Haven raised her eyebrows at me. I think I had said something like that, but hearing her say it sounded bad. Richard was a good guy.
“It’s not bad. He’s sweet and caring and very attentive,” I said. The sex had been . . . nice. But it was true, my world had not been rocked.
“And you want him to shove you against the wall and fuck you properly,” Haven replied. She’d hit the nail on the head, as always.
I sighed. “Maybe. I mean, he’s great in so many ways. I really should like him more than I do. He’s nice to me; he’s good looking; he has a good job. It’s just . . . there’s something that’s not quite right, like I’m not quite feeling it. But then maybe I won’t feel it, right? Or maybe it will come with time.” I wanted her reassurance that staying with Richard was what I should be doing, because I wasn’t sure. Should I want fireworks? Is that what would make me happy? All these years of loving Luke hadn’t done it. Wanting more than Richard seemed selfish and immature when everything about him was so great . . . at least on paper.
“But whatever it is, you feel that for Luke?” she asked. We rarely talked openly about how I seriously I felt about Luke. I joked around with him, told him we’d get married someday, called him handsome, that kind of thing. And sometimes he’d flirt back. It was our game, or it had been. I didn’t do it so much anymore. The difference between Luke and I was that my mock flirting was covering real feelings. Feelings I’d had since that day under the magnolia tree. Along the way, I’d fallen in love with Luke. I’d given him my heart. Luke was the fireworks, but I couldn’t will him to feel that way about me. And he was almost certainly about to get married.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I feel for Luke. I know he sees me as his little sister. I’ve accepted that, which is why I’m dating Richard.” I wasn’t sure I had managed to fully wrestle my heart away from Luke, but I was trying. Maybe I just needed to give Richard and me more time. Maybe I needed to know him better, know him the way I knew Luke.
“I think that’s a great idea. He and Emma have been together a long time, and she’s in her early thirties—her biological clock is bound to start ticking sooner rather than later.”
My heart started thundering at Haven’s words. Had he agreed to marry her? Did Haven know something? “He told me that he’s feeling some pressure to move things on,” I said.
She blushed and looked away. “He told you?”
“Yeah, it’s what we talked about at lunch.”
“Right. What do you think?”
My stomach flipped over, once then twice. Fuck, I hated thinking about it, but more than anything, I wanted him to be happy. “I think he needs to decide either way—shit or get off the pot. He must love her. They’ve been a couple for ages. Whatever makes him happy.”
Haven pushed her lips together. “Yeah, you’re right. I just don’t think . . . Anyway. Back to you. Maybe Richard’s just not the right guy for you. You need chemistry. It’s not all about ticking things off a list. Just because he meets some arbitrary criteria doesn’t mean you’re destined for each other,” she said.
“Destined?” Had she really just said that? She’d become such a sap since she’d married Jake.
“You know what I’m trying to say.” She laughed. “It doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life with a man just because he fits the description.”
“He wants us to go away next weekend. To the Lake District. So I guess it will be good to have that time together. Hopefully I’ll figure out if there’s a future for us.”
“And if there isn’t, maybe you’ll meet someone if you do that course you were talking about.”
I turned the base of my wineglass on the counter, watching as the alcohol crept up the edges of the glass with the movement. “Yeah, I need to work out whether or not I’m going to apply.”
“Apply for what?” Luke asked, poking me in the waist as he walked toward the fridge.
“Did I tell you?” I asked him. “I’m thinking about doing an MBA.”
“You are? Wow,” he said as he turned his attention away from refrigerator. He rarely shaved on a Sunday, and the stubble on his jaw looked long enough to feel good against my skin. I needed to focus.
“You think I shouldn’t?” I asked. I hadn’t mentioned it to Richard because I hadn’t decided whether or not I should apply yet.
“God, no. I think it would be awesome. You should definitely do it. Do you want to change jobs, or will it help you get promoted and stuff?” he asked, setting two cold beers on the counter and staring at me.
“If I really want to be a director of nursing in a hospital, then it’s what they look for, and if I want to get out of nursing and do something wider in healthcare, I guess it will help too. We can’t stay still, can we? I can’t be wiping puke from my uniform for the rest of my career.”
His eyes were bright and his whole body seemed focused on me. I loved it when I had his full attention. “How come you haven’t told me about this? When do you start?”
Haven pretended not to watch us as she set about slicing the onions I’d asked her to deal with.
“I haven’t decided whether or not I should do it.”
“Why wouldn’t you? I mean, I think you’re totally awesome at wiping vomit and myriad of other bodily fluids from your uniform, and I’m sure your patients would miss you, but you’re a smart girl. You can do anything you want to.”
“You think? I mean, I know I’m a good nurse, but I worried that in a class with a bunch of crazy-clever people, I would . . .” Look foolish? Be the class dunce?
“You’re crazy clever. You could have done anything you wanted in your career. You can hold your own against a room full of management consultants. The thing is your heart is even bigger than your brain. That’s why you’re a nurse.”
I loved that that’s how he saw me. Luke always knew the right thing to say, and when he put it like that, I didn’t have a good reason not to apply, apart from the cost. I shrugged. “I have to sit a test and fill out an application form. The deadline is coming up.”
“You’d start in January?”
I nodded.
“Isn’t this great, Haven?” Luke asked.
“Yeah, she should totally do it.”
I grinned at them both. If I told them I was going to fly to the moon, they’d think it was a wonderful idea.