Page 90 of A Journey For Jasmine

“I’d like to think so,” she said. “I guess it comes down to making the best of it when we find our calling.”

“I don’t know that running a marina is my calling,” he said, laughing. “You did like to throw parties and socialize so this works for you.”

“And you like to lead and manage,” she said. “You don’t care what the industry is. You have and can adapt.”

“I can,” he agreed.

“Just don’t try to manage your relationship with Jasmine.”

“Back to that again?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever leave it. I’m a parent and we always want what is best for our children.”

“So again, a comment about Jasmine’s parents and siblings being in town?” he asked.

“Maybe. I like Jasmine a lot. She’s different than Noelle.”

“Very,” he said.

“Is that a problem for you?”

“No.”

He wasn’t sure why his mother would think that. It’s not like he set out to find someone different than his late wife. It just happened.

“It seems to me you are more careful with Jasmine than Noelle.”

“Mom,” he said, sighing. “I think you need to get to work.”

She laughed at him. “I think so too. Sorry for all the questions and comments. I guess there is part of me that does miss being a lawyer and getting information.”

“Or breaking people,” he said. “You can’t break a person who has already been broken.”

He shouldn’t have said those words when he’d seen the sympathy in his mother’s eyes. “Wesley.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s all good. It really is.”

He finished his burger fast, threw some money on the bar and then left. If he didn’t get out of there, he was positive that his mother would come back for more conversation and he wasn’t in the mood.

When he got home, he went about doing his laundry and any other mundane chore he could think of to keep him busy. He’d been living alone for years, but now he was starting to wonder what it’d be like to have someone in the house with him more often.

The times Jasmine was here with him, the house just felt different. Nothing had changed, looking around, as much as it was the air surrounding them when they were together.

His mother commented on him being controlling or managing things.

He’d always been that way in his job because he had to be. Even in his marriage, Noelle was used to being taken care of. She wanted him to do things. He didn’t have a problem with it either.

He supposed that might be some of the problems he had with Jasmine because she started to pick and choose what she wanted him to do or make decisions on. He got it. Things needed to be talked about and he always wanted to.

Like having children. She didn’t want to talk about that. She’d made that decision on her own without consulting him and he wondered if he’d lost his chance back then.

He’d joked about not getting any younger, but he couldn’t fast track a relationship either because he wanted kids. That wasn’t smart or good for anyone.

Yeah, he was hoping to make a good impression on Jasmine’s family tomorrow, but he also knew her enough that it was more about whatshethought and not her parents.

She had some deep-rooted negative feelings about her childhood and he had to focus on getting her approval or agreement in life, not anyone else’s and that was exactly what he was going to do.

As controlling as his mother said he could be, he was letting his girlfriend take the wheel in her hands for this trip.

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