Nathan shakes his head as he paces on the deck. “Why am I so afraid to trust what I’m feeling?”
“Do you love her?” he asks Nathan.
The answer is easy for me. I can’t tear my gaze from Nathan as he struggles with the decision. I know that he loves the bubble of fantasy aroundGoldie, but can he deal with the attachments that come withZoe?
“I’ve got to go home.” He heads back to the house without answering.
I give him a few minutes lead, taking time to ask Jayce about his fiasco with Madison, his son’s ex-girlfriend. I thought we had a mess, but his scenario is even more twisted.
I can’t focus. Where did Zoe go?
We part ways, and when I get back to the house, Nathan’s pacing behind the pool table Jayce had recently given us, assessing shot options. He stands the cue in front of himself, grabbing it with both hands at chest level.
“I called and she didn’t answer,” he confesses. “What if I blew it?”
“We’ll talk to her. First, you need to get straight with me though. You didn’t answer Jayce’s question.”
He haphazardly lines the balls up and takes a shot. The crack of the balls slamming together isn’t nearly as satisfying when I’m not the one doing it. We both watch a striped ball bounce off the edges before rolling toward the side pocket, teetering, then falling in.
I know better than to press him until the play is complete.
“Do you love her?” We’re going to have serious issues if he can’t admit it.
“We agreed. No fucking the maid. Then it was one time. Then two. Then two weeks.” He lifts a ball out of the pocket and rolls it to the center of the table.
“Your point?” I empty the pockets closest to me.
He sets the rack on the table and starts filling it. “We need order. We need stability. We don’t have time for this…” He waves his hand loosely in what I’m assuming he means to indicate a relationship.
“We have time for whatever we choose to have time for.”
“Then why haven’t we taken a vacation?” He swaps a few stripes and solids, getting them in their proper order, making sure all of the numbers face up.
“We loved our jobs. No need to change that until something better came along.”
“Something? So Zoe’s just an object to you? I’ll give you benefit of the doubt since you haven’t known her long, but she’s smart and—”
I slam my hand down on the rack when he tries to lift it. “Don’t accuse me of objectifying her. What we have is erotic and primal, but that doesn’t make it wrong. At least I’m not afraid to say that I love her.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“What do you know about her? Can you tell me what she went to school for?”
“Don’t pull that bullshit. Things are happening fast. Besides, I don’t love her because of whatever degree she pursued or might pursue. I simply love her.”
“How can you be sure?” He’s asking for himself, not me. His concerns are slipping through the cracks in his façade.
“You know how we used to live for our jobs?”
“Yeah.”
“I always knew something was missing. I thought that if I worked hard enough, I’d find it. Even when we got fame and fortune, and everything we wanted, emptiness still plagued me.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It made me feel greedy that after all the success we had, I wasn’t happy.”