Page 108 of The Diamond in the Rough

Because I didn’t think it was even remotely possible that he’d ever consider such a thing.

Which, clearly, he wouldn’t.

But I had no idea what to say that wouldn’t be either offensive or dismissive. Or an outright lie. So I didn’t say anything.

“It’s a bad idea,” he said, almost as though he were trying to convince himself rather than me. “No, aterribleidea.”

I waited. Because now that he’d mentioned the possibility—or impossibility—of dating, my treacherous brain wanted to think about it. Imagine it. Want it.

Which was completely counterproductive, since the whole point of this conversation was precisely the opposite of that.

“We can’t,” he said, then, and there was something in his voice that I couldn’t identify. Anger, maybe? Worry? I wasn’t sure.

And then he stared at me long enough that I felt like I had to say something.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“And please, stay out of my dreams.”

I nodded, then fled.

I stoodin my tiny kitchen, staring into the stark light of my refrigerator, trying to convince myself that I needed to eat something because I hadn’t really had lunch, despite the fact that I’d done a lot of psychic work. But now my stomach was a messy roil of anxiety, nausea, guilt, and, weirdly, pleasure at the fact that apparently Raj had thought about dating me at all.

He’d dismissed the idea, but not for any of the reasons I would have thought.

Not because I was weird or stupid or horribly awkward or unattractive or because he didn’t like me.

Because he was twelve years older than me and because we worked together.

While the conclusion—that he wasn’t going to consider dating me—was the same, somehow those two facts made me feel… flattered? pleased? stupidly hopeful?

It was completely ridiculous for me to feel any of those things, of course. He’d told me that we—we, as inus, as in a relationship—were a bad idea. Aterribleidea, in fact. That we couldn’t date. That we shouldn’t.

And yet.

I often had a hard time with the fact that people often said one thing while meaning something else entirely different. That polite conventions and turns of phrase often indicated that certain things were or were not true, no matter what words were being said.

But even I understood that you didn’t make an argument for why you shouldn’t date someone unless you actually wanted to date them. Because if you didn’t want to date them, you wouldn’t be thinking about reasons why you should or shouldn’t at all.

I didn’t think about why I shouldn’t date Beck or Ward or Hart, for instance, because I had no interest in dating any of them.

I hadn’t thought about why I shouldn’t date Raj because I’d assumed that he would have no interest inme.

But not because he was older or because we worked together.

I’d assumed he just plain wouldn’t have any interest in even thinking about me and dating at the same time at all. Ever.

But, clearly, he had.

He’d only come up with two reasons why we shouldn’t.

And one of those reasons was temporary. It would disappear when we finished this case.

The other one wasn’t. He was always going to be older than me, and always by the same number of years.

But was that really as insurmountable as he seemed to think?

I knew Hart was several years older than Taavi. Maybe not twelve, but more than two or three. And did it really matter that much as you got older? I knew there were plenty of celebrity couples—not that either one of us was a celebrity, or that celebrities were necessarily the best example of healthy relationship dynamics—who had much bigger age gaps.