AllFreeNovel
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“I want to share your joys, too. And I want you to be the person who shares my joys.” Then the truth hit her. “Last week, when I got the news about the grant, I could have shared the news with any number of people. I probably should have first shared the news with the people who will be working on the grant with me. But I was so happy that I got to share it with you first.”
She sniffed and dug in her purse for some tissues. Of course, she didn’t have any, but when she looked up, Jason had a box of tissues in his hand. She yanked out four and blew her nose. “I want to be that person for you. Not because you have the right taste in movies, but because you’re you. And you are worth everything.”
“Well,” he said. He sat back from her, then leaned forward, all the time considering her. “That’s the prettiest apology I’ve ever heard.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be pretty.”
He smiled at her. “I know. But pretty words are part of what makes that apology come from you. And I love you.”
“Even the algorithms?” she asked, hopeful, but still uncertain.
“Especially the algorithms,” he insisted.
Silence filled through the truck again, but this silence was softer. Easy. Welcoming, even. This silence wasn’t hiding anything scary. It was just silence.
“Do you want to go in?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, but he didn’t reach for the door handle. “Before we do, Jill made me realize something when she convinced me to come get you.”
“She had to convince you to come get me?” Not that she would blame him, but the thought that he might have had to have been talked into coming for her hurt a little.
“Convince isn’t the right word. When she said where she was going, I told her that I would come get you. What she convinced me of is that I should hear you out. That I clearly missed you—I’d told her on Saturday morning that I was coming over to your house in the hopes of starting a relationship with you, but I hadn’t told her that we’d ended anything. I hadn’t told anyone. I hadn’t wanted to say anything to anyone, because if I told anyone, then it might be true.”
He shook his head. “That’s off topic. What she told me is that I should be grateful for the algorithms. You’re smart, and you’re dedicated, and when you decide on a path, you stick to it. She said the algorithms didn’t show me doubts about me, but that they were showing you doubts about your path. And that you needed to explore them in the way that you learned best.”
He reached out and took her hand in his. The truck’s heater had been off for a while, and the chill of the spring night had started to settle on her shoulders. The warmth of his hand worked magic, sending heat through her entire body and warming her down to her toes.
“She was right. More so than she realized. Those algorithms, and my repeated failed scores, aren’t the sign of your doubts about me. They are the first sign of you realizing you love me.”
Happiness giggled through her, though she gave him a fake scowl and asked, “Did I need to make the pretty apology?”
“Oh, yes. I needed to hear that. I needed to know that you realized what the algorithms actually meant. It wasn’t enough for me to know it.”
She squeezed at his hand. “I learned it. I’m still a little disappointed that math failed me and I might go back and rework the damn things until you pass, but I know it. I fell in love with a dear friend. I’m not sure there’s a better feeling than that.”
Contented silence filled the car for a couple seconds as they both settled into their new relationship, one different from what it had been on the Saturday of their marathon date. This relationship was a new beginning. They’d been tested and they’d passed. Not yet two weeks in, and she knew in her bones that they were no fly-by-night operation.
And with that thought, she remembered something else. “Who pays for the big date? Since we both win the bet.”
“The bet specified three months,” Jason said, then winced as he clearly realized both what he’d said and the implications of it. “Not that I don’t think we’ll make three months. I’m already thinking past months to years, but you do like to be precise.”
