Night After Night.... Kathy Lyons

of guy.

      “I don’t have summer flings,” he said. “I don’t have a girl in every port and I don’t seduce women just because it will feel so damn good.”

      She touched his face, her fingers gentle and her question honest. “Why not?”

      “Because when I go for a woman, I go for keeps. I proposed to my high school girlfriend and when I caught her with someone else I joined the navy. I’ve dated other women, but they weren’t right and I knew it.”

      She let out a little moue of regret. “So you already know I’m not the right one.”

      “I don’t know any damn thing!” he snapped, his frustration making his hands fist against the wall. “I only know that I can’t remember and that I have to and you’re a distraction.”

      “Sometimes a distraction is a good thing. Ever think you’re trying too hard?”

      “Every damn day. But I can’t not think about it either.” He forced himself to step away from her. It was hard, but he did it. “I’m messed up, Christy. Which means that this is not the time for me to do anything with a woman. It’s not fair to either of us.”

      She nodded. The gesture was slow and filled with an embarrassed kind of pain. He’d rejected her and that had to sting. But he knew she understood. He wasn’t rejecting her, he was rejecting the situation. Romance was not a complication he could afford right now.

      “Maybe after I remember … After I figure out—”

      She held up a hand. “Don’t make it worse, Jason. You’re not ready for anything more. I get it.” She sighed. “And you’re probably right. I don’t know that I’m good at flings either.”

      It bothered him that she was even thinking of a summer fling. It bothered him in a Neanderthal kind of possessive way, and he ruthlessly pushed that thought aside. Meanwhile, she opened her room door.

      “I think I’m going to take a shower now. Maybe a bath too.”

      He didn’t understand what that meant, but didn’t comment on it. “Good idea. I might do the same.” Though the idea that they would both be wet and naked some few feet away from each other was not going to help their situation.

      “I still had a great time today, Jason.”

      “Yeah, me too.”

      She looked like she wanted to say more, but in the end, she gave him a little wave and stepped into her room. He stood there watching the door close, feeling like a rejected suitor—and the irony of that wasn’t lost on him. Then he shoved his hands into his shorts and headed for his own shower: a cold one.

      It worked for a while. He managed to not think about her for at least two or three seconds. He grabbed some dinner and ate it morosely, all the time wondering what she was eating and what she would think of the soggy fries or the bad O-Club decor. And when he wandered back to his room that evening, he looked at the stars and remembered how she had been so excited at seeing the dolphins.

      And then he went to bed and dreamed about her.