by Donya Lynne
“You’re different.”
“How so?”
“Because I know you.”
“You didn’t know me when we met.”
Mark had her there.
“Look,” he said. “Just talk to them. Be yourself. Smile and say hi. If you’re at the store, ask a guy if he can help you get something off the top shelf. Stuff like that.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Because it is.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Why is this so important?”
He paused. It was just a tiny hesitation, but Karma caught it. “Because when I leave in a few months, I want to make sure you’ll be okay.”
A tiny knot of sadness broke inside her heart.
When he left.
In only a few months, Mark would be gone, and she would be alone. Of course he would want her to find someone else. This was his way of teaching her how.
“I see,” she said.
Another pause. “But I’m not gone, yet.” He almost sounded a little sad himself, as well as a touch possessive.
She had to keep reminding herself not to get too attached. Mark didn’t plan on staying. He couldn’t have made himself any clearer on that point than he had.
What would happen to her when he left? Would she revert to her old ways, or would she remain the woman Mark was bringing out from her shell? Thinking about the near future made her sad. She didn’t want to be reminded that he wouldn’t stay in Clover forever.
Meeting Mark had been the most incredible wake-up call. He had a way of unraveling her defenses and making her feel safe with just a glance, with only a word or a touch. He was whimsical and playful, but overflowed with grace, dignity, and power. She felt comfortable around him, which wasn’t something she could say about other men she had been attracted to. She and Mark clicked. He got her, and she felt like she got him…that they understood one another. How would she find that connection in another man after he was gone? She was beginning to think she wouldn’t be able to.
“Karma? Are you there?” he said quietly.
She hadn’t said anything for several seconds. “Yes, I’m here.” She settled her head on the back cushion of the couch.
“Are you okay?”
“Just…I don’t know. I guess I just wish you were here.”
He paused. “Open the door.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Open the door.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the door, then, suddenly hopeful, sprang off the couch. When she pulled the door open, Mark stood on the other side, his phone against his ear.
“You didn’t really think I was going to leave without saying good-bye, did you?”
A smile crept over her face, and she lowered her phone as he stepped inside.
He took her phone and set it next to his on the arm of the couch, then cupped her face in both hands. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she whispered, a split second before his lips came down over hers.
As he swept her away on a sea of warmth and bliss, all her worries and fears dissipated. This was what he did to her. Every time they were together, there wasn’t room for sadness and worry.
There was just Mark and her. Kissing.
And once more, everything was perfect.
* * *
Mark kissed the crown of Karma’s head as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders on the couch. She snuggled into the crook of his body.
He really had planned to leave for Chicago tonight, but the flight had gotten in late, and he was just too tired to make the drive. So, he had rescheduled tomorrow’s lunch meeting with his boss to one o’clock instead of eleven so he could drive to Chicago in the morning. Tonight, he would spend a little time with Karma. He’d begun to miss her and really didn’t think he could go a whole week without seeing her.
There was something about Karma that called to him. When he was with her, he felt safe. She warmed him in all the right places, and he found that he smiled more than usual around her.
Honestly, his suggestion that she start talking to other men was his way of putting a little distance between them, because he was growing too close. He couldn’t afford to fall for her, because he had meant it when he’d told her that when his assignment at Solar was finished, so was their relationship. Falling for Karma wasn’t an option, and he couldn’t let her lose sight of the inevitability of his departure.
Even so, now that he’d told her to talk to other men, he wanted to take it back. He didn’t like how it felt when he thought about her flirting with others while he was gone. Maybe she would find a man more to her liking and end their affair early.
The idea of that happening should have filled him with relief, because then he wouldn’t have to be the one to end it later. Instead, thinking she would break things off with him first rattled his heart.
He pulled her a little closer and kissed the top of her head again.
“You’re touchy-feely tonight,” she said, wrapping her arms more securely around his waist. He liked how she held him as though she would never let go.
“I…” The words missed you caught in his throat. Thinking them and saying them were two different things. One was okay, while the other was a path he couldn’t go down. “I just, uh…I just want you to know that I know how hard it is to talk to strangers. I know this makes you uncomfortable, because when I did the same thing, it was uncomfortable for me, too.” His excuse sounded silly, but it was a decent save from going down the path of the emotionally involved.
“You?” She sat up and faced him.
“Yes. I know it might seem hard to believe, but at one time, I was pretty shy, just like you. He tapped her nose with the tip of his finger. “But trust me, it gets easier to talk to the opposite sex the more you do it.”
“My dad always taught me to never talk to strangers.”
“In which case, you and I never would have met, and I wouldn’t be here now.” He swept his palm over her silky hair. He couldn’t stop touching her. “And that would be a crying shame, wouldn’t it?”
She laughed. “Touché.”
He plucked her hand from her lap and twined his fingers around hers. “Exactly. And I like being here with you.”
“Me, too, but I simply can’t imagine you being shy.”
“Why not?” He laid his cheek on the cushion and gazed into her luminous eyes. Being with her was so damn easy. He didn’t have to force anything and could just be himself.
She slid down and placed her head on the cushion beside him, mirroring him. They were like lovers in bed, staring at each other after making love. “You just don’t strike me as the shy type.”
“Well, I was.” He tucked his leg between both of hers as she curled toward him. “I’ve never told you about my childhood, have I?”
“Not much.” Her gaze filled with curiosity, as if she knew he was about to invite her in to his secret world. One not many were privy to.
“Well, I was brutally teased.” He sighed. “You know how you told me about how the kids teased you?”
She nodded, growing more serious.
“I had a similar experience.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“Remember when I told you that my parents are dancers, and that my mom taught me how to sew?”
“Yes.”
“Well, she also made me take dance lessons.”
Fond adoration shone from Karma’s eyes. “Dance?”
“Yes. Mostly Latin style, but ballet, too.” He remembered the endless hours he spent in the studio during summer vacations and how, when school resumed in the fall, so did the teasing. “That didn’t go over well at school,” he said.
“Did you have to wear a leotard?” she joked.
“Yes. The slippers, too.”
She giggled. “I bet you looked adorable.”
“I looked gay.”
Karma laughed.
“I have nothing against gay people,” he said
with a chuckle. “But when you’re not gay and people think you are, it can be a problem.”
“I can imagine.” Her amused expression was a fraction short of comical.
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m sorry.” She pursed her lips and snuggled closer. “Please, go on.”
“By the time I was in junior high,” he said, “the other kids teased me on a daily basis. And in Chicago, kids can be rough. I got beat up a lot, but my parents just told me to tough it out. That they would stop giving me a hard time if I ignored them. I wanted to take karate classes or something to teach me how to fight back, but they wouldn’t let me. So, I went to school, got called a faggot or a fruitcake or worse, got pushed and shoved in the halls between classes. I was miserable.”
Those had been rough years.
Karma offered a compassionate smile. “I’m sorry.” She kissed his cheek. His skin warmed where her lips touched him. If anyone could understand what he had gone through, it was Karma.
He brushed her hair affectionately off her face then continued. “When Rob and I became friends, we both got teased. The other kids called us lovers and taunted us. They called us all kinds of names. Why Rob put himself through that just to be friends with me always baffled me. I know now it’s because he got teased, too. He was a pudgy kid.” Funny how the passage of time could change so much. Mark was now a successful businessman and Rob had leaned out and lost his baby fat in high school. “Rob saw how badly I was teased and could relate. Nobody else wanted to be our friends, so we became friends with one another. Like attracts like, right?”
“I never thought of it like that, but that makes sense.”
“Anyway, except for Rob, I hated everything about going to school. Every day was hell. I didn’t talk to anyone before I met Rob, and even after I met him, he was the only person I talked to. Even when I became a big basketball star in high school I didn’t talk to anyone. Some of my teammates still thought I was gay and kept their distance, but they respected my skills on the court enough not to make fun of me anymore.”
Karma’s fingers squeezed his. This was a side of him he had never let her see…his vulnerable side with the painful past. But he wanted her to know she wasn’t alone, and that she wasn’t the only one who had demons to face.
“Anyway, I couldn’t talk to girls.” He chuffed. “I remember this one girl, Cassie. God, I had such a crush on her in seventh grade. I tried asking her to the spring dance with me. What a disaster.”
“What happened?”
“She laughed. And not just laughed, but told all her friends so that they could laugh, too. It was pretty traumatizing. I’d put myself out there to this girl who I was crazy about, and she turned my life into a living hell. It took until my junior year to try again.”
“Kids can be mean.”
“For a guy, it can be pretty deflating. So, yeah, if I hadn’t been scared enough about talking to girls before, Cassie made it terrifying. I was afraid of the rejection and of looking stupid…being laughed at.” He met her gaze. The pain of old memories haunted him. “I was seventeen before I kissed a girl and eighteen before I had sex. And that was a joke. I mentioned that before. I was awful. Like your Brian, fumbling around like an idiot. She knew more than I did, and I spent myself in less than five minutes.” He paused, not wanting to remember the dark times but unable to avoid them. “I really liked that girl, too, but she ended up dumping me during prom.”
“During?”
“Yes. Can you believe that? I’d bought the tux—because, well, my mom refused to let me rent one—and I’d bought the corsage, paid for dinner at the nicest restaurant in Chicago, rented a limousine, paid for the tickets, and when we got to the prom she spent the entire evening with some other guy. I ended up riding home in the limo by myself.”
In hindsight, it was like the prom had been a warm-up for what Carol would do to him later. Was he destined forever to have such awful luck with the opposite sex? Nothing good had ever come from any significant relationship he’d been in, which confirmed his decision never to fall in love or become seriously entangled again.
Karma remained quiet, her gaze sharp, almost penetrating, as if she was putting the pieces together about his inability to commit.
“It took me a while to figure things out when it came to women.” He looked at her hand on his chest. It felt good there. Like it belonged.
“What happened? How did you do it?” Hope and curiosity sparked in her gaze.
“I met a dancer at my parents’ studio. Her name was Carol. We dated for almost two years. I was her fill-in dance partner at first, but it became clear she had major talent, so my parents found her a partner she could grow and compete with at the international level since I was set to attend business school.” His mind drifted to Antonio. “Things didn’t work out between Carol and me after that, and we broke up.” Bitterness edged his voice, and it was clear from Karma’s expression that she heard it.
“Was it a bad breakup?” she said softly.
Bad didn’t even begin to describe the nightmare he had endured at Carol’s hands. “You could say that.” He looked away. “But it was my own fault. I was young and stupid. I still didn’t know anything about what women wanted or needed. I was inexperienced, fumbling my way around, maybe even a little selfish. I didn’t treat Carol well enough. I chased her away. I didn’t put her needs before my own. I didn’t talk to her enough. I thought I knew what she needed, but after she left, it became clear that I didn’t.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell Karma what had really happened. If he started down that road, he would end up in the bathroom with his head over the toilet. Some things were better left unsaid. “But by leaving me, she made me see I needed to change. That’s when I began reading…studying, like I mentioned before.”
“Studying women?”
“Yes. I knew I had to make myself a better man. I thought I could win her back, but…”
“You didn’t.” Karma met his gaze.
She had to see the pain haunting the depths of his eyes…memories best forgotten.
“I failed with Carol,” he said. “And, like I said before, I don’t like to fail.” He took a deep breath as the shortcomings of his past pushed front and center.
“Is Carol why you’re not a long-term kind of guy?” she asked tentatively.
Even though he couldn’t tell her exactly what had happened with Carol, he could at least acknowledge the truth. “Yes, something like that.” He forced a smile. “But my point is I never wanted to be that man again. A man who couldn’t please a woman or be what she wanted or needed.” He caressed her cheek. “I didn’t want my past to affect my present or my future anymore. But I had to force myself out of my comfort zone to do it. I had to learn how to talk to women, and not just talk, but listen. Just like you need to learn how to talk and listen to men. So that you’re ready when the right one comes along. So you can talk to him instead of letting him pass you by.”
He cupped her face and stroked her eyebrow with his thumb. Once more, the thought of Karma talking to another man sent ice through his veins, but what could he do? His course was set. His path was laid out before him. Eventually, he would leave and Karma would move on, whether he liked it or not.
Karma got it now. And the power of her understanding was borne of a past not unlike her own. Mark understood her. Why? Because he had also dealt with childhood bullying. Who better to understand the torment she had endured and vice versa? Like attracts like. Isn’t that what he had said a few minutes ago? But unlike her, he had overcome. Now he wanted to help her do the same.
She thought of all he’d told her. About the teasing and Carol. Especially about Carol. He couldn’t commit to anyone because of how he had failed with her. So, maybe seducing women and succeeding with them helped him atone for whatever guilt he still felt over what had happened with his ex. In his way, he was proving to himself over and over again that he wasn’t a failure. Only, he never allowed himself to fully reach the pinnac
le of success, because he never allowed a relationship to reach the level of commitment.
Was he scared? Was that why Mark insisted on keeping relationships short term? Because whatever had happened between him and the women of his past had been so traumatic he never wanted to risk being hurt again? He had a history of giving away his heart only to have it crushed. Maybe that was why he couldn’t commit, because doing so felt like he was setting himself up for failure.
He said he had changed so his past didn’t affect his future, anymore, which was all well and good. Karma was all for finding ways to release what held you back. Wasn’t that why she had embarked on this journey in the first place? Only, with Mark she got the impression that whatever had happened in his past was affecting his future. If what had happened with Carol was his reason for maintaining emotional distance, wasn’t it obvious that he still wasn’t past it and that it was, in fact, impacting his decisions for now and tomorrow?
What if Mark was so caught up in the past that he was unable to see what appeared so plainly visible to her? He was so intent on helping her find the right man, but what if that was him? What if he was so keen on guarding his heart that he let happiness pass him by?
She wanted to point that out, but instinct held her tongue. She didn’t think pushing him would help. It might even cause him to retreat further into his self-imposed emotional prison. No, this was something he would have to figure out on his own, without her interference. He was here to help her, not the other way around.
They gazed at each other for another long moment, then Mark said, “I should probably go. I just wanted to come over and tell you good-bye before I left.”
“Are you still going to drive up tonight?”
“No. I’ll leave in the morning.”
“Good. I don’t like the idea of you driving this late. You look tired.”
“Not too tired.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just this.” He drew her to him and kissed her. Passion erupted as he persuaded her mouth open with his tongue and sought out hers.
This was a good-bye kiss to end all good-bye kisses…and one to fill her mind with all sorts of ideas to keep her warm while he was gone.