In earnest, he was scared that he would admit even more to her if he was close enough.
“Ah,” Peter said softly. “You are afraid of being seen wanting.”
“Yes.”
It should irk him how well his friend had guessed, but he always knew. So it was no surprise.
“You want your wife.”
Stephen stared at him. “Is it necessary to be so bald?”
“It saves time,” Peter said. “And embarrassment is cheaper in small doses. You want her. You respect her. You dislike yourself when you are reckless. You are also not twelve. Pick three ofthose statements and make a plan that does not involve fleeing your own house.”
Stephen’s mouth flattened.
“I have a plan.”
“Distance is not a plan.”
“If I pull back, everything returns to its proper scale.”At least that’s how it was in his head.
“You meanyoureturn to a scale you can manage,” Peter said. “She will be left wondering what sin she committed for you to be so cold.”
“She has committed none,” Stephen snapped. “Which is precisely why I must not warm her into expecting what I cannot give.”
“You think a kind evening becomes a promise.”
“It may,” Stephen said tightly. “And I cannot give her false hope.”
“Why must it be false?” Peter asked, entirely reasonable, which Stephen found intolerable.
“Because,” Stephen said, “I can never love her.”
“Never,” he said. “A strong word.”
“Do not be clever,” Stephen muttered.
“I am trying to be plain,” Peter said. “You believe you cannot love her. On what evidence?”
“On thirty-odd years of not loving anyone I ought,” Stephen said. “On the fact that I know what happens when a man mistakes appetite for virtue, and I refuse to be that man.”
“Mm,” Peter said. “And yet tonight you were careful with her. You did not take a liberty; you took a place beside her.”
“Yes, I lost my head for a quarter hour.”
“You look like a man who found it,” Peter returned. “But very well. Suppose you are right. Suppose you canneverlove her. What will distance give you that decency would not?”
“Control,” Stephen said at once.
“And fewer chances at anything meaningful,” Peter said.
Stephen frowned.
“You are not protecting her. You are isolating yourself.”
“Better that than training her to expect warmth that will not last.”
“You keep saying it will not last, as if you have been given a prophecy. What if the only reason it would not last is because you intend to suffocate it?” Peter’s gaze sharpened.