No Regrets (16 page)

A week later, on Monday after work, I was parking my car in a familiar shady corner of the park.

I thought I was managing the break-up all right. I’d been busy at work, which had actually helped. And I’d made a point of hanging out with friends more than normal last week, so I wouldn’t sit at home moping about not having a hot man to spend the night with. And I might have cried in bed at night. A few times. A lot. But I knew I’d made the right decision, and I didn’t regret it, even a week later.

It hurt, though—a lot—as I got out of the car and couldn’t help but remember having sex with Josh in the backseat. He’d been so passionate and sweet and
real
, somehow, that day. Maybe it would be easier not to come to this park at all, to find a new place to run, a new way to exercise.

But I’d always loved this park, long before I’d met Josh. I’d taken Polly to this park so many times. I wasn’t going to give it up, just because I’d had to give up Josh.

I had a good run and actually enjoyed it, and I was feeling tired and pleased with my efforts as I walked slowly back to the car.

The first thing I saw was the dog.

I couldn’t help it. When I was at the park, I always noticed the dogs first and only then moved my eyes up to their owners. This one was a Husky—a small one, young and a little too thin—and it was standing near my car.

It wore a bright red collar, and my eyes lifted to the bright red lead. The lead was held by a very fine, masculine body wearing khakis and a blue dress shirt.

I’d slowed down now, and I came to a stop in the middle of the parking lot when my eyes finally lifted to a familiar, handsome face with a square jaw and vivid blue eyes.

He was standing with the dog, right beside my car. Evidently waiting for me.

I was so surprised and so confused and so giddy with a feeling that couldn’t be real, that couldn’t be processed, that I literally could not move.

“Hey,” he said, his voice carrying over to where I stood, which was some distance away. “If you don’t want to talk to me, then I can leave.”

And that got me moving because there was no way I was going to be that person—one who wouldn’t talk to him, when he’d obviously made a point of coming here for a conversation.

With a dog.

I walked over to him, suddenly wishing that I wasn’t sweaty, and that my face wasn’t bright red, and that my hair wasn’t in a messy ponytail. He looked so pulled-together, so sexy, and so much like Josh.

So much like
Josh
.

When I stood before him, I said, “Hey,” since that was the only thing I could think to say.

“You must have had a good run,” he said, looking strangely hesitant, very unlike his normal laidback confidence. “You’ve been at it a long time.”

“How long have you been waiting here?”

“A while.” He glanced down and then up at me again.

I twisted my hands together, excitement and fear both shuddering together in my chest. “What…why were you waiting for me?”

“I wanted to see you.” His eyes met and held mine now, and he took a step closer. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay. We can definitely talk.”

He raised a hand to rub his shoulder. “I don’t just want to talk to you, Leslie. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you a lot.”

The words were like balm to my heart, but they also made the shuddering excitement drop back into my gut. Because this was why my excitement had been mingled with fear. “I’ve missed you too, Josh,” I said, softly so he wouldn’t hear I was disappointed. “I really have. But we can’t go back to where we were. It just wasn’t working for me. It wasn’t…right.”

“I know it wasn’t right.” He sounded almost urgent now, and he took one more step closer until he took one of my hands in both of his. “I’m so sorry, Leslie, about how I treated you.”

“No! No, Josh. You don’t have to apologize. You were always honest and open, and I knew exactly what I was getting into when I decided to be with you. You don’t have to apologize for anything. If I wanted more, it was my own fault.”

“But I wanted more too. I kept wanting more and more from you. And then I kept taking it. Because I wanted you so much. I kept taking it, without giving you anything in return.”

I was almost choking on the surprise and emotion, and it took me a minute to get clear in my mind that he’d actually said what I’d heard. “You did give me something,” was the reply I managed to articulate. “You gave me a lot.”

“I didn’t give you what I should have.”

I pulled my hand out of his and flattened it on his chest. “Josh, it’s really all right. You don’t have to feel guilty. I meant what I said about not having regrets about the time I spent with you.”

He cleared his throat and reached up to take my hand off his chest and twined it in his again. “You’re not understanding me. I’m not any good at this.”

“No one is any good at apologizing, but I keep telling you that you don’t have to.”

“Leslie, I don’t want to apologize. I mean, I do, but I’m trying to say something else.” He looked down again, toward the dog who’d been sitting quietly at his feet.

I looked down at the dog too. “Is this that Husky that you were keeping in the office?” I asked, distracted momentarily by the dog’s pale eyes and soft fur.

“Yeah.”

“Did you adopt her?” I asked, processing that detail and suddenly excited again at the possible implications.

“Yeah.” He sounded almost sheepish.

I was breathing faster now, and I felt dangerously emotional as I raised my eyes to meet his. “I’m really glad.”

“You were right about that. You were right about everything. I knew it was wrong—to hold myself back from commitments, relationships, being with people for real. I lost the last few years with my mom because I was protecting myself with that selfish isolation. And it didn’t even work. It didn’t protect me from anything. It hurt even more when I lost her.”

There was naked emotion in his voice now, and it made my eyes burn with unshed tears. “I know it did.”

“And I’m not going to do it again—give up everything I could have with someone in some fantasy of making the world hurt me less. I’m not going to do it again. Baby, I’m not going to give you up.” He’d gotten urgent again, and he raised my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against my fingers.

“Josh,” I said, swaying slightly as I realized that what I’d initially hoped for on seeing him could actually be happening. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I don’t want just sex from you.” His eyes were raw, naked, hungry. “I want everything—all of your generosity and intelligence and kindness and humor and the passion that you’re so afraid to let out. I want all of it—no holding back—and I want to give everything to you.”

“Everything,” I repeated stupidly.

Evidently, he thought it was a question. “Everything. I wouldn’t hold anything back from you either. Even knowing it will take everything I have. I know I don’t have as much to offer you, but whatever I have, whatever I am, it would be yours.”

I licked my lips, which felt completely parched. “So you want…”

“A commitment. A real relationship.”

I stared at him, frozen, trying desperately to catch my breath. The surge of joy was so overwhelming I couldn’t begin to fit it into my expectations of the world.

This wouldn’t be happening. Not to me. Not after I’d resigned myself to my regular life—which would never include a hot, amazing guy who was crazy about me.

“I’m crazy about you,” he said, glancing down before he met my eyes again in that gesture I was recognizing he used when he was nervous or self-conscious. “If you didn’t know before.”

“I didn’t know.”

He kissed my hand again, this time on the palm. “I’m sorry you didn’t know. I shouldn’t have been so afraid of my own feelings. But I really think I can do better. If you…want me.”

It took me a minute, since I wasn’t sure my legs would keep holding me up, but I finally managed to raise my free hand and press my palm against his jaw. “I do want you.”

He took a sharp, loud breath, his expression transforming briefly in what looked like overwhelming relief. Which told me he must not have known. He must not have been sure what my response would be.

But he’d put himself emotionally on the line like this anyway.

Since I was afraid I might pass out from the waves of emotion slamming into me, I distracted myself by saying, “What is your dog’s name?”

“Lucy.”

I knelt down to stroke the dog’s soft fur, and she scooted over closer to me hesitantly, as if it took a while for her to believe I was going to be sweet to her.

Someone had beaten this dog with a baseball bat—not all that long ago.

“She’s come a long way,” Josh said, obviously reading my mind. “At first, she shrank away whenever anyone tried to pet her.”

“Hi, Lucy,” I said. “I’m very glad to meet you. I had a dog named Polly. She was a Springer Spaniel.”

Lucy seemed to like my voice because she scooted even closer and her tail began to wag. Just a little.

And I burst into tears, right there on the pavement of the parking lot.

“Oh, my God, Leslie,” Josh murmured, kneeling down beside me on the ground. He pulled me into his arms and I shook against him for a few moments. “I’m so sorry about everything, and I really do understand if you think I’m not worth the trouble.”

I pulled myself together pretty quickly and straightened up so I was kneeling beside him. “I think you’re worth the trouble,” I told him, wiping my face on the shoulder of my sleeve.

“Really?” For the first time, he was starting to look genuinely hopeful.

“Yeah.”

“Then Lucy and I would really like to be with you. For real. In everything.” He took my face in both of his hands again.

“Okay.”

With a muffled sound in this throat, he leaned forward and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around him and opened to his tongue, and the kiss was deep and clumsy and utterly real.

Just me and Josh. As we really were. No holding back or trying to be someone else.

And Lucy, evidently. She stuck her nose against my arm after a minute, snuffling around, evidently confused by this strange turn of events.

I pulled away from his mouth, laughing and crying just a little.

“I still love you,” Josh said, petting the dog with obvious affection. “No need to be jealous.”

Lucy wagged her tail and snuffled her way toward my face.

“Well, I don’t know you very well yet,” I told her, “but I’m sure I’ll love you too.”

***

We went back to his apartment and had dinner together. Then we sat on the couch for a couple of hours, watching TV and talking.

He told me about how his family was doing and what he’d been doing to adopt Lucy and transition her to living with him. I told him about my week. I leaned against him on the couch, and he wrapped me in his arms.

And I’d wanted that. So much. For a long time now. I’d wanted to just sit and be held by him.

Only now was I able to do it.

***

A month later, Josh and I were waiting for a table at a restaurant near his apartment, since I was spending the weekend at his place, and we were arguing about what to do with Lucy when we flew out to Arizona in a couple of months for his father’s birthday.

He thought we should just board the dog in a kennel while we were gone, since that would be easier to arrange, but I was worried that Lucy was still too nervous and sensitive and that being put in a kennel would be traumatic for her.

“But who do we know that we can trust to dog-sit?” Josh asked, for like the fourth time in twenty minutes. His voice was kind of growly because he was getting impatient. “I’m not going to leave her with a stranger.”

I was getting impatient too. “Surely you have some contacts. You’re a damned vet! You’re just being stubborn because you don’t want to change your mind.”

He opened his mouth to snap back some sort of response, but the hostess came to tell us our table was ready, so we followed her to our booth, which was in the far corner of the room.

We had to smile to thank her and then smile at the server who came over to take our drink orders, and by that time the momentum of the argument had been interrupted.

Our bad moods hadn’t, though.

Whenever I looked up from the menu, I glared at him, and he was rolling his eyes as if I was unreasonable.

As if
I
was unreasonable.

After we gave the server our meal order, I leaned back in my seat and tried to get my irritation under control. “Josh, I’m really worried about her. You know it’s hard for her to meet strange people still. She’ll be surrounded by strangers at a kennel. Not to mention a lot of loud, barking dogs. She’s going to be scared.”

Lucy lived with Josh, but the dog felt like she belonged to both of us. I loved her so much.

He groaned and rubbed his jaw, and I could tell his bad mood was lessening. “She’s going to be nervous either way. She’ll be just as nervous if we take her over to stay in someone else’s house.”