With coffee sitting in front
of them and the waitress gone, Kerry looked at Tito with solemn eyes. "Say
what you need to say."
"Do you love her, or
are you just upset because you betrayed her trust?"
"Doesn't one go with
the other?"
"Not necessarily. If
you just felt guilty for betraying her you'd probably be over it by now and
have moved on." Tito took a drink of coffee, studying Kelly over the rim
of the cup. "Excuse my honesty but you look like hell. I'd be willing to
bet you often have trouble sleeping because even now you're still going over
everything, wondering how you could have done it differently. You dream about
her. I know I did."
"What?" Kerry
growled.
"Oh, not her."
Tito smiled slightly. "I dreamed about the man whose trust I blew. Don't worry;
Pia and I are just friends, nothing more. So, back to what I was saying, you do
love her. You didn't know her long enough, or get to know her well enough, to
be able to say you're in love with her, but you do love her."
"For whatever good it
does, yes I do. If I could go back and change things I would in a
heartbeat." Kerry started to pick up his coffee cup then put it back down.
"Did you—manage to make things right with that man?"
"You could say so,
since we're living together now," Tito replied with a wide smile.
"How did you--?"
Kerry asked hesitantly.
"To be honest it took
time, and it might not have happened if we hadn't been forced to work
together."
Kerry nodded. "So you
didn't just face him down and apologize."
"No, and I had two
years when I could have tried, and didn't, because I was that sure he wouldn't
have believed it. Or, more that he wouldn't have believed that since I betrayed
his trust once I wouldn't do it again."
"It's a loose/loose
situation, isn't it? At least it is for me because she has no reason to trust
me. As you pointed out, we hardly know each other when it comes right down to
it."
"Is it worth it to you
to try to change that? I'm only asking because despite the fact that she won't
admit it, even to me, I know she cares about you. I'm not sure she doesn’t
still hate you on one level, but she also loves you. I can see that in her
eyes."
"She talks about
me?" Hope flashed across Kerry's face.
"Not so much any more,
and let me tell you when she was I picked up a few new swear words to add to my
vocabulary. That woman has a mouth on her. She's swearing less now. Now she
looks sad when you're name is mentioned, even obliquely. I think she misses her
'White Knight'."
Kerry looked at him in
surprise. "She told you about that?"
"She did."
"Wow," Kerry said
softly.
Tito nodded. "You're
still that to her, somewhere deep in her heart. So now, you have to do
something about it. I'm selfish. I want to see her happy again. She's back to
smiling on the outside, finally, but it's only on her lips, rarely in her
eyes." Tito shook his head, grumbling, "I don't usually wax
so—poetic."
Kerry chuckled. "Yeah,
the leathers would have clued me in about that." He sobered, running a
hand through his hair. "I need to get some more time off."
"That would probably be
a good start. This isn't something you can do by phone or email."
"No shit," Kerry
said fervently.
No comments:
Post a Comment