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“Good,” he said. “You’ve worked hard to get where you are. Don’t make light of it.”
“Can I tell you something?” she asked. “Ooh, wine. Yes, please. You’re the best boyfriend ever.”
He laughed and opened the bottle of wine that he’d pulled out of the fridge to show her and then handed over the glass.
“Go on and tell me what you wanted to.”
“A few weeks ago my mother started to act weird when I said I was going on this trip.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because my last boyfriend always wanted me with him when he wanted it. I didn’t mind it. He traveled a lot so we didn’t have a lot of time together. But when he wasn’t traveling, he didn’t like me with my friends.”
“Okay,” he said. “No one should control that much of your life.”
“Exactly. And my mother asked how you would feel about me going on this trip.”
He frowned. “What would it matter how I felt?”
“See,” she said. “That isn’t the answer I wanted to hear.”
Now what did he do wrong? “What answer did you want?”
“Well, it is the answer I wanted to hear but not the face. I’m not sure the expression you were going for, but it was forced. I can tell. To me, this is my job and anyone I’m with should understand that I might need to work late or travel now and again.”
“I do understand that,” he said. “It’s no different than me owning my business. I work long late days too. I don’t want to be with someone that gets annoyed over that.”
“See, that is what I wanted to hear. The look on your face showed confusion and it made me wonder if you thought I worried you’d think you have no right to have an opinion. Or that I didn’t care about your feelings. I don’t want that.”
His head went back and forth. “I missed you. I’m not going to lie. But being gone for a few days made me realize howmuchI miss you. I understand your job as much as you understand my job.”
She started to laugh. “Your job lets me turn the lights on.”
He smiled and walked over to check the potatoes and drain them. “In a matter of speaking. But what I understand of it is itisyour job. You have responsibilities and you love what you do. The same as me. If we can’t accept and understand that about each other then there is a problem.”
He’d never want to tell her what she could do for her job.
“Exactly,” she said. “And I said those things to my mother and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you feel the same way. That is why I love you so much. You understand me. Or we understand each other without saying a word.”
“We do,” he said. And since she brought up her ex he wanted to see if he could get some more with it. “So your ex didn’t like you not being with him. Was he controlling too? I know you said that he’d always make comments about doing what you wanted.”
She sighed and took a healthy gulp of her wine. “He wanted me to make the decisions so that I was happy. I get it, but when someone does that, they are hiding more. That’s worse. He wasn’t controlling like you think, but he was deceptive.”
“You know I want to know more about that,” he said.
“We worked for the same company. I told you that. He wasn’t my boss or anything, but he was in a management position. Many said I got my promotion because of him.”
He knew this. He wanted something more though. “Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore. What hurt the worst was he just left. He didn’t support me or stand up for me when rumors started. Then out of the blue, he breaks up with me and moves out of town.”
“What?” he asked.
He was trying to get over the fact the guy didn’t stand up for Sage but then to break it off and leave. There had to be more to that.
But it was making sense now why her family was so protective of Sage too.
“I don’t like to talk about it because it’s embarrassing. It caught me off guard. Everything. All of it. He ended things and he moved. End of story. It was just more fuel for those at work.”
