I shake my head. “Nope. We went on a few dates, and I only just barely fought off panic attacks on each one. I had to get tipsy to get to the point where I could even kiss him, much less anything else.” I groan. “We got to the point where things were…it was either full speed ahead, or a full stop.”

  James winces. “Let me guess. Full stop?”

  I nod. “I kept thinking of Craig. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it. I tried and tried to get past it, and the guy was honestly super sweet and understanding about it, but eventually I ended things with him because it wasn’t fair to him. We’d get close, and then I’d freeze and not be able to go any further, because Craig kept popping back up in my head. And after I broke up with Vince, I just…I didn’t see a point in trying anymore. So I didn’t, and I haven’t.”

  James sighs. “Until me.”

  “Until you.”

  “And you did get past it—with me. And then I said Renée’s name instead of yours at the critical moment.”

  I nod. “Yeah.” I drop my head again. “And I’m not gonna lie, it fucking hurt, James. A lot. I felt like I was finally making progress…like maybe, with you, things would be different. I was able to shut down the Craig-comparison-guilt loop and focus on you.” I look up at him, and I hate the pain and guilt I see in him. “And then…yeah. You said her name. And please, please, believe me when I say I understand, and that I don’t hold it against you.”

  James is silent awhile, and I let the silence stand.

  After nearly two full minutes of dead silence, James straightens, walks away to stand at the door looking out over the backyard.

  “You and Renée couldn’t be more different, honestly. You’re tall, super strong, athletic, with long hair…and you’re, um…” I can hear the blush in his hesitation, the hunt for a word or phrase. “You’re well-endowed.”

  I sniff a half-hearted laugh, unsure how else to respond to that.

  “Renée was…none of that. She was short, five-five. Hated working out. Had one of those ridiculous metabolisms where she could eat whatever she wanted and never exercise and she was just always relatively fit. Short hair, pixie short, like Audra’s, only the same color as Jesse’s. She had blond highlights for a while…” He shakes his head. “Anyway. She was short and skinny, a fact which she bitched about constantly.” He laughs. “One time, she spent literally three full weeks eating junk food and burgers and milkshakes and just crap. She said she was trying to, and I quote, eat her way to bigger tits.”

  I cackle. “Oh my god, no! Really?”

  He nods, laughing. “For real. Eventually she started feeling sick and gave up, and then actually spent, like, four full months working out somewhat regularly because she did gain weight from it, but it all went to her belly and thighs, and not her butt or boobs. That really pissed her off.”

  “I bet,” I say and can’t help another laugh. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “So she discovered.” He sighs. “She was wildly outgoing. Like, Audra and Ryder rolled into one—a tiny, foul-mouthed pixie with a wicked sense of humor and no filter. She and Audra would have either hated each other or be best friends, I think. She had a T-shirt made for herself, once. It said ‘Itty Bitty Titty Committee’ across the top, with arrows pointing to each of her boobs, labeled ‘chair’ and co-chair.’” He shook his head, laughing. “She did crap like that all the time, made fun of herself.”

  I just listen, let him talk. I’m not sure where he’s going with this, but I sense he needs to get it off his chest.

  “She made fun of me like it was her sole job in life. Growing up I was teased a lot. Bullied. I’ve always been big, but in elementary and middle school, before I really hit my growth spurt and discovered sports, I was just this tall, gangly, overweight, shy kid who never spoke. And Renée was my protector. She’d attack, verbally and physically, anyone who tried to pick on me, but then she’d turn around and make fun of me. But she always did it with love, and when we started dating and took things physical, she started using psychology on me.” He pauses a moment. “Pavlovian, you might say. She would tease me, make fun of me, and honestly it would get pretty brutal at times, but then she would…um, instigate things. Until I started equating her teasing me with things getting hot physically. Crazy, and something only she would think to do. It was intentional, too. She was sick of me being withdrawn and lacking confidence, so she went on the offensive. Psychologied me out my insecurities from being bullied, encouraged me to try sports, and eventually I…well, I guess you’d say I found myself. Took over the role of her protector, because she had her own hang-ups. She used humor to cover her insecurities over being so tiny.”

  “Sounds familiar. I make fun of myself in similar ways about being so tall. Not so much anymore, but I used to. I got teased a lot for looking like a boy. I was always tall, but puberty hit late: I was fourteen before I started filling out. So then I was a boy with huge boobs. My mom messed up a haircut the summer that I got my boobs, and I had to get it all chopped off, so I had, literally, a buzz cut, and these giant new boobs that I didn’t know what to do with. So, to cover my insecurities, to cut people off before they could hurt me, I started making fun of myself.”

  James nods. “It was the opposite for Renée. She hit puberty and filled out a little—went from being a literal stick to having some softer edges, some curves, but in all honesty, she was never anything but a short skinny chick. No boobs, like at all, and no butt.” He’s silent a long time. “God, she was beautiful, though. She kept her hair short, and it just suited her. She had these high, sharp cheekbones and a mouth that looked like a million bucks, but that mouth could flay the paint off a barn if something annoyed her.”

  I think I’m starting to sniff out where he’s going with this, but I continue to let him play it out at his own pace.

  “I was so attracted to her, so in love with her. I’d have killed for her, died for her. I’d have walked through fucking fire for her.”

  His love, his pain—it’s so raw, so real, so palpable. I ache for him. I’m not jealous, either. I just hate his pain. I want to soothe it, to comfort him, but I don’t dare. He needs to say this.

  “I was absolutely gone for her. I never even saw other women when I was with her. I mean, sure, I’m a red-blooded heterosexual male, and this world is full of beautiful women, so I noticed them. But they were just…people. I don’t know how else to put it. No desire, no attraction. She fulfilled me in every way there could possibly be.”

  “She sounds amazing.”

  “She was,” he agrees. “And then she died. And I wanted to die with her. I probably would have, were it not for Nina and Ella, and my boys. Those five people saved my life. I don’t think I’d have killed myself, but I think I would have just…died. But I had to keep going for my girls, so I did. I put my nose to the grindstone and set about rebuilding my life. Alone, with the girls. Being a single father. Running a business. Those things have taken up every single spare minute of my time.” He lets out a slow breath. “I never wanted to see anyone else. There were women around, obviously. We’re at Billy Bar a lot, and there’re always chicks around, and some of them have thrown themselves at me pretty hard. But I just…” He shrugs. “I haven’t been able to summon the will to care. It’s like…I don’t know how to put it. Like when she died, I did die, and I had to learn to live again without her. And for the most part, I have. I eat, I get dressed, I work, I spend time with my girls, and I have fun with the guys. But that part of me, the part that feels…well, anything…for women? It’s still dead.”

  “James, I—”

  He keeps going, and I lapse back into silence. “Then Imogen invited you to the pool party, and…for the first time since Renée died, I noticed you. As a woman, not just as a person.” He glances at me over his shoulder, briefly, and then turns back to the window. “I saw you. And once I did, I couldn’t…I don’t know. I couldn’t unsee you. And believe me, I tried. Not that I didn’t want to see you, I just didn’t want to see anyone. I believed that part of me was dead and I was better off that way. Despite the promise I made to her right before she died, I just never had a desire or an intention to even try to reawaken that part of me. Renée was it for me, and she was gone, so why bother?”

  Another long pause.

  “It’s the only promise I ever made to her that I haven’t kept.” He laughs bitterly. “And there’s a weird, ironic sort of guilt about that, too. But missing her, hating life without her…is still so strong.” He turns now and gazes steadily at me, with a deep pain in his expression, mixed with…something else. I don’t know what. “But I saw you. I saw you—as a woman. I was attracted to you, as a woman. And Nova, that’s brought on more guilt than I even know how to express, much less deal with. Because you’re so different from her. You’re everything she was not—and I don’t mean that as a comparison, like she was lacking anything or vice versa. Just that you’re polar opposites in pretty much every way. But I guess most of all, it’s the physical aspect that messes with me the most. Emotionally, I don’t think we’ve pushed into territory that prompts this level of guilt, but physically? My attraction to you is just…a fucking problem.” He shakes his head. “Shit, man. I don’t know how to even say it.”

  I shrug. “Say it how it is. Don’t mince words. You and I both appreciate hearing the blunt, raw truth, even if it’s brutal.”

  He nods. “Yeah, okay. So…” A moment of thought. “I’m just trying to put it into words. For myself, if not for you. I guess it’s that I’m so crazy physically attracted to you, and that you’re so differently built.” Another pause. “She was so self-conscious about being flat-chested. She wasn’t generally jealous, but if a girl with big tits was around, she’d sometimes ask me if I wished she looked like that, or did I want her to get implants.”

  “Ahhh. Now we come to the crux of it.” I keep my eyes on his. “You feel guilty being attracted to me, in part because I have the body Renée was always worried you’d leave her for.”

  He nods, tearing his gaze from mine, emotions boiling in him. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Exactly. It’s taken some soul-searching to realize that, too.” He groans, rubs his face with both hands. “I never felt that way. I never wanted to change her. If she’d wanted implants, I’d have supported her, if it was something she felt was important to her, but she only ever talked about that when something messed with her own insecurity. Like I said, I was totally in love with her, and even if there was a girl around with big tits or whatever else, even if they were literally hanging out in the open—which did happen once, on vacation—I only had eyes for her. And normally, she was confident in that, in my love for her. But sometimes, those insecurities would flare up.”

  “So you feel guilty for even being attracted to me in the first place.”

  He nods. “Yeah. Like I’m betraying her, betraying my attraction to her by being so attracted to you, being built the way you are—like you said, the embodiment of what she felt self-conscious about not being.” He frowns. “I’m not sure that made any sense.”

  “It made perfect sense to me.” I let out a breath. “So where does that leave us? Because I can’t change the way I look. I’ve worked hard to be confident, to love myself for being six feet tall, for being a dedicated powerlifter—having big guns and thick thighs and broad shoulders.”

  “I’m just explaining why I’m fucked up,” James says. “I’m glad you love yourself for who you are—you’re a gorgeous, amazing woman. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “James…” I sigh, hunting for words. “Honestly, I don’t know what to say.” I throw up a hand. “I’m attracted to you, James. That’s no secret at this point. I like you. What happened in my kitchen the other day—it was one of the best experiences of my life…until…you know. Not just since Craig, but…ever. Objectively, comparatively, it just was that good. I felt that good with you. And yeah, I feel guilt over that. It was like, Craig is gone, he’s dead, and here I am having a sexual experience that’s better than pretty much everything Craig and I ever shared. I loved the man—we had chemistry. We had good sex, sometimes even great sex. And you and I didn’t even have sex, not really, yet it was still just that good.”

  He swallows hard. “Same here.” He tilts his head back, growls—as if forcibly pushing down emotions he doesn’t want to fully let out. “That fucks me up, too. That’s a different guilt, piled onto everything else.”

  “There’s a huge part of me that really, really wants to explore this with you, James. Physically, sexually, I want to know more, feel more, see what could happen if we kept going, if we indulged and really gave into everything. Emotionally, I feel a connection to you, too, and—and yeah, I want to explore that, too.”

  I hold his gaze, and don’t try to hide the wild, turbulent emotion in my eyes. “But I’m scared. I’m scared of getting hurt, I’m scared of being rejected, and I’m scared I’ll get attached and then lose you.” I pause, swallow hard. “Most of all, I’m scared that every minute I spend with you, I’ll be competing with a ghost, James. And I just can’t do that. I can’t. No one can.”

  “I know,” he whispers—and his whisper is fragile. It’s heartbreaking to hear such a thing from so strong and powerful a man. And the vulnerability I see in him…it’s…intoxicating and terrifying and so brave. “It’s not fair to you. I know that.”

  “So where do I go from here, James?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t fucking know. That thing you said—competing with a ghost. That’s right on target. I feel her, Nova. In this house, in my head, in my heart.

  “Then I look at you, and I give in to wanting you, to being attracted to you, and it’s…god, it’s wild. For a few seconds, for a few minutes, I feel like—I don’t know—like a kid with his first crush, the first time you feel that rush of need for someone, you know? That’s how it was with me and Renée—the summer before ninth grade we went to a public pool together and even though I’d seen her in a bikini any number of times before, I was suddenly hit by a different kind of attraction to her, need for her. It was like being hit by a Mack truck.

  “And it’s like that with you, every time I’m around you. But then my brain or my heart or whatever brings up Renée—and my immediate thought is to quash those feelings. But then I feel guilty for trying not to think about her, and that starts a spiral. I don’t want to forget her, but I’m fighting her ghost too, and I don’t know how to hold on to her memory without it holding me back from living my life.” His eyes bore into mine, brown and intense. “And I do want to explore things too. But I can’t, and won’t, make you compete with a ghost. And I don’t know what to do.”

  “I wish I could answer that for you, James.”

  He shakes his head, hands scraping through his hair. “I can’t answer it for myself.”

  “That leaves us at an impasse, I guess.” I sigh. “I want what I can’t have, and you can’t have what you want.”

  James growls again. “I’m sorry, Nova. This is why I tried to avoid letting things even get started with you. I didn’t and don’t want to hurt you. I never meant to, and I’m sorry that I did.” His eyes search mine. “I don’t regret what we did, Nova. Not a second of it—the only thing I regret is that moment when I said her name instead of yours. I said it then and I’ll say it again—I knew the whole time who I was with and what was happening. I was not trying to…I don’t know, put you in her place or whatever. I got lost in the moment and my mouth spouted off something from my subconscious, or something. I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never said any name in moments like that except hers, and I guess it was…” He shakes his head. “I’m fucking this up. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Not instinct, but more…long-ingrained habit,” I say.

  He nods slowly. “Yeah. Exactly.”

  “You don’t have to explain anymore, and you don’t have to apologize.” I smile at him sadly. “I just don’t know where to go from here.”

  “Me either.”

  I sigh bitterly. “The first time I’ve been able to have both an emotional and physical connection with a man, and it’s impossible.” I laugh, even more bitterly. “It figures.”

  “Nova, I—”

  I shake my head. “I should go.”

  “Nova.”

  “We’re just going in circles, James. I’m not going to push you. But I’m not willing to get into something purely physical, even though I know both of us could probably use the relief.”

  “I think about you enough that I need the relief,” he murmurs.

  “Same here,” I admit. “But with you, I need the emotions, too. I can’t do casual anymore, James. I gave that up a long time ago.”

  “I’ve never done it and I’m sure as hell not going to start now,” he says. “But I also don’t know that I can just…pretend this doesn’t exist between you and me. And the thought of not being around you, not being your friend, not seeing you?” He shakes his head. “I can’t do that either.”

  I choke. “Neither can I.” I turn away before he sees the tears fall, and I blink them away. “So what do we do, James?” I whisper the question.

  He’s silent. “I don’t fucking know.”

  “Me either.” I move for the side door. “I—I have to go.”

  I’m out the door and heading for my truck. I get the door open, and climb in. Then he’s there, hauling me back out, manhandling me as if I weigh nothing. Pinning me up against the frame of my truck. Kissing the ever-loving shit out of me.

  Kissing me breathless in that way he has—making me feel dizzy, making me feel wild and primal and needed in a way I’ve never felt before.

  And then he backs up, and I can see him shaking with the intensity of it—as I am. “Don’t give up on me just yet, Nova. I’ll figure this out.”

  “How?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He backs up a step, as if he’s a powder keg and I’m an open flame. “Just…give me some time.”

  “I think I can do that,” I whisper.