Finding Kyle(26)

I don’t want it to be, but this is definitely a date.

I came to this brutal realization about ten minutes after we finished our lobsters. Somehow, while I was busy cracking the shiny red shell of a huge claw, it hit me that Jane had managed to completely captivate me with some good fucking conversation.

Despite my best efforts to keep us talking about impersonal shit, Jane managed to make me more and more curious about her. Learning her favorite movie led into a conversation about the fact that there wasn’t a decent movie theater in this area. Like a dumbass, rather than ask about where she would go to see her movies and keep the conversation impersonal, I made the mistake about asking what she liked to do in her free time. That started an avalanche of information flowing toward me at a breakneck speed.

And I was fucking hooked.

I already knew that Jane was quirky, funny, and I’ll even admit, practically irresistible. It goes without saying that she’s gorgeous and sexy. But I also found out, through stories she told me about her life, that she has an amazing sense of self. If you don’t look too deep, it would be easy to believe that Jane is merely comfortable in her quiet life here in Misty Harbor. There would be many people who would look at a young woman with all of her natural beauty and clear gifts and wonder why she would be content to live in a very small town with no real possibilities to be anything other than a favorite daughter, a wonderful best friend and a well-loved art teacher.

But by the time we had finished dessert—which was cheesecake for Jane and another beer for me—I knew without a doubt that Jane was more than just content in her life here in Misty Harbor. Rather, she adored everything about it and it made her insanely happy. I learned she’s incredibly close to her parents, has a completely fulfilling relationship with Miranda that resembles more of a sibling nature than just best friends, and she has a career that brings her such joy, she would never think to do anything else with her life.

Some would call her simpleminded and lacking goals, but I see someone who is incredibly centered and has achieved everything she could ever want in life.

This fascinates me.

This more than fascinates me, because despite the fact that I almost single-handedly brought down a major criminal organization, which is an accomplishment most people could never even hope to imagine, I’m sitting here in Misty Harbor wondering how I’ve wasted so much of my life. I’m in a town, hiding out, and removed from everything important in my life. As I reflect back on the last five years I gave up so I could bring a pack of criminals to justice, I feel strangely unaccomplished.

I look at Jane Cresson and realize I’ve been missing out on the reality of life. I’ve been completely without those little things that make life worth living. Good friends and family, a sense of belonging, and a joy-filled life. My life so far has been nothing but subsistence, and not a very fulfilling one at that.

While I admit this is a date, I still don’t have a fucking clue what I’m going to do with this revelation. If I was a kind and gentle man, I’d drop Jane off at her house with a handshake and wish her well in life. I’d then barricade myself in my cottage and make sure I never crossed paths with her again.

But I’m not kind or gentle. More often than not, I’ve been called a supreme asshole by many people, and they wouldn’t be wrong in their beliefs about me. It would be completely repugnant to encourage Jane. It would be almost morally deviant of me to do anything other than chase her off.

And yet, I’m debating right this very minute as I walk her back home whether I’m going to kiss her or try to fuck her when we get to her house, because at my core, I’m a selfish bastard. I’ve got so many years of living life as amorally and sinfully as possible, I almost believe it’s within my right to dirty Jane up. It’s certainly all I really know anymore.

“So, what did you think of your first experience with lobster?” Jane asks as she nudges her shoulder into my arm playfully. The push doesn’t move me off course, and I keep my hands firmly tucked in my pockets as we walk along the same path back to her house. Up ahead in the distance, I see her parents’ house, the porch light glowing but the rocking chairs thankfully empty. I breathe a little easier not having to face her mom and dad again, or, God forbid, receiving an invitation to come in for coffee or something. While I’ve conceded this is a date, I am not going to be meeting her parents.

Ever.

“It was fantastic,” I admit about the lobster. “Outside of being a pain in the ass to eat.”

“You can order them to be cracked and the meat pulled out for you,” Jane tells me. “But you’d look like a total pansy ass at that point, and I don’t think that would be a good look on you.”

My lips twitch as she’d be totally right about that, but I don’t respond. Despite Jane’s knack for keeping conversation flowing, I also find that moments of silence with her are just as comfortable.

So comfortable, in fact, I almost trip over my own feet when she startles me with her next crazy proclamation. “I think this was a nice date, and I’m wondering if you’re going to kiss me when we get to my house.”

“It’s not a date,” I say automatically and way too vehemently, and Jane just snickers at me.

“Of course it’s a date,” she says. “You picked me up, took me to a nice restaurant, we had amazing conversation, lingered long over dessert, and we’re taking a totally romantic walk back to my house.”