“And independence, and confidence, and resilience. What value is an untested man?”
And she thought of Aaron. He’d been handed everything his entire life and had this air of entitlement. He expected the world to bend to him, and to forgive him when he made mistakes without ever taking accountability. Had the pretty girls in middle school, had her loyalty in high school, had all the cool friends, and had the nice car from his parents on his sixteenth birthday. He’d been accepted into the college he wanted, and his parents had paid for it all. He hadn’t gotten his first job until he graduated, and even that was handed to him by his father straight after graduation. Any bad behavior, he’d charmed his way out of the consequences, including with her until she’d finally left him.
What value was an untested man?
What value was a man who had been handed the world and didn’t understand cherishing something special?
Tawk didn’t say a bunch of filler words. He was a man who spoke when he felt it was important, and the more she came to understand that, the more interesting these exchanges with him became.
“I guess not much value at all.”
“Did you have hardship?” he asked quietly.
“Everyone does.”
“But did you?”
She thought about shrugging off his question or making a joke out of it so she could move the conversation in a different direction, but he’d shared with her. He’d shared about his mother, and his father. It had seemed important to him, and if she had to guess, he probably didn’t talk about personal things easily. He didn’t seem like the oversharing type, and so she wanted to reward him. It was a strange reward to speak of personal things that weren’t all happy and simple, but she had a feeling for Tawk, it would be a reward.
“Let’s see, I saw my mother maybe one weekend a month growing up. My parents were together, but it felt like a split home. A girl needs her mom at certain parts of her life, and I resented her for loving her job so much. She would come home and talk about all the adventures she had, but she forgot to ever mention that she missed me. I rebelled in my teenage years, as some do, met Aaron, had abandonment issues that I didn’t know how to cope with, and just went all-in with him when I was way too young and didn’t know what I was doing. I followed him to college but couldn’t afford the tuition there, so I started bartending while he got a degree. All the friends we made were his, the controlling stuff started happening the second we moved in together, I never got to know myself as a young adult, because I was always the bartender, or Aaron’s girlfriend. I saved every penny I could so that I could afford to go back to college, but by the time I was able to, he was nearly done, and he proposed, and then my life became about being a good wife. And the controlling stuff got worse, and when I mentioned wanting to go back to college, he saw it as some sort of threat. He needed me to stay where I was. A bartender, needing help from his income, with him in control of our friend group. And then I found the dating apps he was active on, and my heart was broken, and I realized in a moment of absolute clarity as we were going through that divorce that I hadn’t only lost myself, but I’d never gotten toknow myself in the first place. So now here I am, moved hours away from my hometown, new friendships with the Cold Foot Crew that Aaron can’t touch or taint, and finishing college, and now terrified that what if I did all the things to get to know myself, and I’m not worth a damn after all.”
“Ooof,” he said softly, then squatted down in front of her. He didn’t say anything else, just cocked his head and studied her face.
Tammy grew self-conscious, because of the tears that were welling up in her eyes, so she dropped her gaze to her hands, clutched together on her lap.
“He did a number on you.”
She inhaled deep, feeling like she couldn’t drag enough oxygen into her lungs. “And now he’s wanting to be back together again.”
“It’s familiar,” Tawk said, and damn that man as he sounded so understanding. That got to her heart. There was definitely value in an understanding man.
“I can’t go back to the person I was with him. I might not be worth a damn after all, but I definitely wasn’t anything with him.”
Tawk cocked his head to the other side. “Jess is spellcasting now.”
Tammy didn’t understand the change in subject, but perhaps he was just tired of talking about emotional things. “Sorry,” she whispered, wiping her eyes quickly with the back of her hand so the dumb tears wouldn’t spill to her cheeks. “I don’t know why I said all that.”
“Jess would’ve never started spellcasting if Kade hadn’t come and pulled her from a dead-end life. If he didn’t make it safe for her to grow. A mate isn’t supposed to stop you from growing. You shouldn’t go back. You should only go forward now.”
She blinked hard against the tears that burned her eyes. “Okay,” she said thickly.
He stood and patted the top of her head awkwardly. “You are a worker, and independent, and can shoot, and fix a truck, and talk to anyone. You are a woman who will figure things out. You’re graduating. You shouldn’t look back anymore.” He stopped patting her head and massaged it gently. “There is value in a woman who keeps moving forward.”
Tawk let his hand glide slowly down her hair, tugged on the end of the tress that framed her face, gold eyes boring into her soul.
He stood like that for a few loaded moments, and his eyes dipped to her lips.
Was he…was he thinking about kissing her? Did she want that? In this moment, yes she did.
And then suddenly, Tawk took a step back, turned, and made his way to her truck and began tinkering under the hood again.
She sat there watching him with a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
In one sometimes confusing, sometimes illuminating conversation with Tawk…he’d given her clarity that she’d struggled to reach for months.
He was right.
There was a hell of a lot of value in a woman who could keep moving forward.
