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“I love you too, Jesse, but—” She glanced at him tentatively from beneath her lashes.
He took both of her hands in his. “Take a walk with me?”
“A walk?” She pursed her lips. “Where?”
“Wherever we end up.” He smiled. “C’mon.”
“Okay,” Chloe agreed with a slight nod. “Give me five minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later, Chloe reappeared from her bedroom looking much the same as she had when she left him—like the most beautiful woman in the world. Jesse took her hand and they walked in the direction of the lakefront.
They stopped at a food cart to grab some lunch and sat down at a picnic table in the shade. It was an unusually hot day, even for July, and the beach was packed with people soaking up the sun or taking a dip in the cool water to escape the heat of the city.
Jesse handed Chloe a hot dog, chips, and her Diet Coke. He looked out at the lake and chuckled. “You know, when I was a little kid I thought it was the ocean.”
Chloe was about to take a sip of her drink and paused. “You what?”
“Yeah, because it’s so big that you can’t see to the other side—like the ocean.”
She giggled.
“I even had Ky believing it. My mom and my aunts would take us here on a hot day like today while our fathers were at work.” A little boy chased a little girl past their table. He watched them for a moment. It made him smile. “Dillon and Brendan would laugh every time I asked if we could go to the ocean. It wasn’t until first grade, when Miss Crain showed us where we lived on a map, that I realized why. Because it wasn’t the ocean at all—just a really big lake.” He popped a hot dog in his mouth and ate it in two bites.
Chloe had her lips pressed together and he could tell she was struggling not to laugh. That made him laugh. Then she lost the battle and they laughed together. They laughed so hard the little boy and girl stopped chasing each other to stare at them.
Jesse swiped tears of laughter from her eyes and smacked a kiss to her lips. It made him happy to see her laugh, and it made him even happier to share laughter with her. He held her face and rubbed him thumbs across her cheeks. “You see, Chloe, not everything is what we imagine it is.”
She cast her gaze toward the lake and he softly gripped her chin and forced her to focus on him. “I love you, Chloe, more than I can put into words.” He paused. “Maybe love isn’t the way you imagined it would be. Maybe it just looks different—even bigger and better than you ever dreamed of. You think because I love another that I love you less, but that isn’t the way it is at all.”
Chloe tilted her head as if she were trying to understand what he was saying.
“It’s because I love him that I can love you even more.”
The little boy was back to chasing the little girl. He grabbed her ponytail and she shrieked.
Jesse chuckled at the sight and took Chloe’s hand. “Let’s go back and I’ll explain what I mean.”
She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Okay.”
They strolled in comfortable silence, hand in hand, until they got to the sidewalk on the avenue. “When I was a junior in college I came home for spring break while my girlfriend at the time went to Florida to party with her friends instead. That was the first time…”
“You were with another man?”
“Yes. We were attracted to each other for a long time before that—I was anyway. But that’s when we finally, you know.” Jesse looked over at Chloe walking alongside him. She seemed curious rather than repulsed. “We didn’t just fuck, Chloe. I loved him and that was very confusing for me—at first.”
“Why?”
“Because I loved Bethany too, and I didn’t think you could be in love with two people at the same time. Because we’re taught that there’s only one way to love—one man and one woman. I’ve come to learn that isn’t true, not for everyone anyway. And not for me.”
“What happened to Bethany?”
“She didn’t love me.” He shrugged. It didn’t hurt to admit that anymore. “Bethany was with someone else down in Florida. They’re married with two kids and live in California now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Bethany wasn’t meant for me, that’s all.”
They were back at Chloe’s greystone and neither one spoke again until they were inside her apartment. “God, it’s wicked hot out there. I’m so thirsty. You want something to drink, Jess?”
