Chapter 18 #5
When Sloane breaks the silence, I hear the caution in her voice. “I don’t want it to feel like we’re a team against you. I’d like to include Liam in our lives as much as possible and you in our lives the same way. Do you think… that would be alright?”
My arm tightens around her, tugging her closer.
She feels so right tucked in against my side.
I give her the only truth I have. “You’re great, Sloane.
Truly. Part of me doesn’t even know how there was a time or a world where you didn’t exist in it for me.
I know it’s far too soon to say something like that.
Maybe I should do like I normally do and keep my mouth shut. ”
She pulls away from me, but not because she’s freaking out, or offended.
She blinks those huge green eyes at me. They’ve gone dark with the night, little fires glowing in their depths.
She crosses her legs and wraps her arms around herself.
I sit up too, so that she doesn’t have to stare down at me.
I can see that it’s not that she doesn’t want to be close. She deserves eye contact.
“I know what you’re saying. I was so used to routine.
I wasn’t really living. Part of me was,” she rushes to explain.
“The part that was a mom and a barista and a business owner. There are other parts too. I’ve never got to be a partner to someone.
I didn’t see it happening, and that was okay with me, but now that I’ve discovered that part of myself, I don’t want it to go away.
I’m decidedly aware of you. I want this with you, whatever we’re doing and whatever we become. I want you. Full stop.”
“You fought hard for me. I didn’t expect that.”
“You thought that I was just in it for ten seconds of pleasure?”
“No!”
Her lips turn up at the corner, an almost smile that I want to see tip into the real thing.
“If this was an older time, I’d say I have pluck.
I like that word. It’s snappy and peppy.
You know exactly what it means just by the sound of it.
” She brushes her hands over her arms, though she doesn’t seem cold.
“God, I’m being weird. This is what happens when you take a chronically single single mom out for her first official date. ”
“You’ve never been on a date before?”
“Not in so many words, no. I… no. Sort of, but not really.”
My chest constricts with that information. “I should have at least planned dinner. When’s the last time you ate something you didn’t have to cook.”
“Never? Err, there was probably one time, I just can’t remember what it was.” Her stomach growls, as if on cue. She glances down in shock, which only makes the whole thing funnier. “I guess that I’m kind of hungry. I didn’t eat much today. Or yesterday. I was pretty nervous.”
“Me neither.” I wish that I could have done this without crashing into her life and making things hard for her. Awkward. Without causing her to feel even a second of stress.
She can see my turmoil and sets her hand on my thigh. “That’s life. I have no regrets. Well… not major ones.” She blinks. “I love it out here, but is your ass getting numb?”
My laugh echoes out into the night. “I guess that it is, now that I think about it.”
“It doesn’t matter how uncomfortable I am. Not if you’re right beside me, but—we could… go to that diner that you were talking about before. The one on the edge of Hart. Get a burger.”
“Your comfort matters to me,” I assure her. “It definitely matters.” I shift around, kneeling to gather up the blanket and get out of the truck bed so that I can offer my hand to help her down.
I catch her wincing in my direction. “Holy shit, I can hear your joints popping.”
It doesn’t stop me from getting down. I set the blanket on the tailgate so I can offer her both hands.
She takes one, her smaller palm locked with mine, and sets the other on my shoulder so she can brace herself to jump.
I’m still right there, lifting her as she takes that step off the tailgate, steadying her after she jumps and once her feet hit the ground.
“They get like this. Wait until you hit forty.”
She keeps her hand in mine, her eyes dancing with laughter. “You work out way too much to be creaky. It was the truck. Your poor spine and your knee.”
“You were right there too.”
She laughs. “I was. You’re right. It’s pretty hard.” She shoots up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek before I can express any regret that I took on this poorly padded, spine crushing date. “I loved it. Thank you for bringing me out here. And… thanks for the future dinner.”
Whatever aches and pains I might have had spark to life and flood with heat at the warmth in her eyes. “I’m well lived in, Sloane. That’s only going to get truer as the years go on.”
She grabs the blanket off the tailgate and drapes it around my shoulders. She’s the one who holds the edges and tugs it tight, stepping into the warm circle of my arms so that she’s enfolded in yarn and me. “I like well lived in,” she whispers before she kisses me.