Page 95 of David's Love

Truthfully, I wish we could have more than this.

Her hand slides over the sleeve of my suit jacket.

“You did your best,” she says. “I don’t think anyone could care more about her than you did. No one had done more for her.”

Her words catch me unprepared, cementing my belief that we are too lonely, living too far from each other.

She pulls her hand away.

“Julie said you met a woman,” she says, a grin tilting her lips.

“She did?” I murmur, amused, leaning back in my seat. “She couldn’t keep her mouth shut, could she?”

“You know her.”

“What did she say?”

“That she might be the one.”

“She wants her to be the one,” I say, relaxed.

Her eyes stall on my face for a few seconds.

“She might be right,” Miranda murmurs.

She’s always read me accurately. And she’s seen a lot on my face since her sister sent my life into a tailspin.

She tried to comfort me but, sadly, couldn’t offer me any answers.

No one could make sense of Anna’s actions.

People said she must’ve changed her mind. Distance does that to people. And I wanted to believe them, but allmy brothers in arms came home and married their sweethearts.

I was jealous. I’m not gonna lie. I had the same plans.

Instead, I came home to find a woman who was no longer mine.

“What makes you say that?” I ask, tipping my gaze to my drink to evade her eyes.

“That smile, right there,” she says, and I raise my eyes and catch her pointing to my face.

I chuckle to put a dent in her conviction.

“Julie says a lot of things. I think she wants me to get married.”

She takes a drink of coffee and shakes her head.

“I doubt that. Julie doesn’t believe in marriage.”

“That’s a shame,” I say, and she wags her finger at me in disagreement. “I’m not a good role model,” I argue.

“As if I am,” she retorts. “It has nothing to do with us.”

“I think it does,” I say.

She ponders her next line.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Most people her age don’t believe in marriage,” she comments, and a kernel of burning awareness races down my spine.

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