“You didn’t want the baby?”
“Oh, I wanted the baby. More than anything. It was this instant family, you know? But my woman didn’t really know me, didn’t know my secrets, and apparently she was keeping some of her own. I was over the moon, twenty, ready to be a dad because I was going to do this better than how my dad did with me and my brothers. Except when we went to get the ultrasound, they told us the baby was a girl.”
Baffled, Lena shook her head. “And you didn’t want a girl?”
Jenner clutched his fist around the snapped twig and slid his sad blue gaze to her. “I can’t have girls. She wasn’t mine.”
That didn’t make any sense. “How do you know you can’t have girls?”
“Because in my lineage, there have been zero female offspring for thousands of years. And when I told my woman that, she admitted she had someone else. Someone who was no good, not like I was to her, and she wanted me raising the baby instead of the other guy.”
“And you couldn’t?” Her whisper came out airy and devastated.
Jenner shook his head. “Not after all the lies. I couldn’t trust her. I haven’t told anyone that ever. Not even my brothers, so now it’s your turn. Who is Adam?”
“Adam was my best friend.”
“I thought you said he was your husband.”
“Isn’t that the way love should be, though? Friends first? We lived next door to each other growing up. Walked to school together, did our homework together. He used to sneak into my house and sleep in my bed when his parents argued. Even when he got popular in high school, he never made me feel like I wasn’t his world, you know? And it was never love, nothing like that. We were just…best friends. But when we were seniors in high school, he had this bruise on his leg that wouldn’t heal. He went to the doctor and was diagnosed with leukemia. I went to every appointment, nearly flunked out and only graduated because some of my teachers had pity on me. I spent every day with him. Cut class when he wasn’t strong enough to go to school anymore. And one day, when we were lying on his bed, he asked me to marry him. He was his parents’ only son, and his mom had been crying over never watching him get married, so he asked me, and I said yes.” Lena’s bottom lip trembled too hard to go on, and a warm tear slid down her cheek. She swallowed, over and over, trying to regain her composure. “We were married three months before he passed. He was so sick...” She wiped the moisture from her cheek. “He wasn’t up for consummating the marriage.”
“Jesus,” Jenner murmured as he draped his arm across her shoulders and pulled her tight against his side. “I’m so sorry.” His hand cradled her cheek, so she pressed her palm against his knuckles to keep his touch there because she needed this. He hadn’t told anyone about the woman who had broken his heart, and she understood that because Lena had never talked to anyone about Adam either. It had been too painful to relive.
“I didn’t mean to be a twenty-six-year-old virgin, Jenner. God, I hate the way you looked at me when you found out. I just wasn’t ready to be intimate with a man for a long time after Adam because it felt like a betrayal to his memory. And when I was finally ready, I was full-on running—travelling constantly and never staying in one place long enough to meet a nice guy I trusted enough to sleep with.”
“And you trust me? Woman, I almost fucked you doggy style in the woods, directly following our first kiss. I’m not trustworthy with shit like this. I’m too rough, and I lose my mind—”
“And I understood that going into it, you ridiculous man. I wasn’t looking for candles, fireworks, and opera music. Maybe I did at one time, but the longer I go without it happening, the more intimidated I feel. No, I didn’t want a rough fucking from behind for my first time,” she said through a thick laugh. “But somewhere in the middle would’ve been nice.” Lena wiped her damp cheeks with the back of her hand and said, “And furthermore, I’m scandalous.”
Jenner chuckled deep in his throat. “Oh, yeah?”
“I own a sex book with pictures, have let two boys finger me, and I watched a porn once. I’m practically a professional sexer without, you know, actually doing the deed.”
Jenner was laughing now, head thrown back, bright white smile easy as the sound of his amusement ricocheted through the quiet woods.
“You’re laughing, but it’s true.”
Jenner stood, then offered his hand to help her up. “I’m sure you will rock a man’s world when the time comes.”
Lena allowed him to pull her up, and she dusted the seat of her pants, smiling sadly. “That man isn’t going to be you, is it?”
Jenner licked his lips, the smile fading from his face, and shook his head. “I’m not the right fit for you.”