CHAPTER 20 Penny Calloway
Stability
We kiss, and it’s bittersweet.
It’s urgent and tender at the same time. His hands travel along my skin, his tongue moves along mine, and I can’t stop thinking about how things are going to change. No matter how we look at it, everything is about to change.
This isn’t goodbye, but it feels like one.
It feels like a goodbye to the simplicity with which we’ve lived so far.
Sure, we have our complications. What couple doesn’t? And ours aren’t small ones. Divorce. Secrets. Betrayal.
But a baby brings an entirely new complication into the mix. A good one, certainly, but still an unexpected surprise.
He pulls back and leans his forehead to mine, and his voice is low and raspy when he says, “Come with me. Please.”
“You know I can’t,” I murmur, but when he’s like this, emotionally stripped raw for me, tender, aching, I want to try to find a way to say yes.
“Quit your job. Move to San Diego,” he says.
It’s tempting, honestly. But I can’t just quit my job.
I like working even if I don’t love my job.
And aside from that, I have the boys to consider, and I’m well aware that their father would never allow me to move to another state with them.
“I wish I could, Liam. But you’ll only be gone half the year, and then you’ll be back.
So we take it slow, and we’ll figure things out. ”
“I know we will, but I need help. I can’t raise a baby alone, and that child will be born, and a week or two later, I’ll start training camp.
I want to be able to provide a stable base when everything else in my life is so goddamn unstable, and you represent that to me.
Somehow, some way. Out of nowhere, you are my stability,” he says.
I want to be that for him. God, do I want that.
But what I said is absolutely true. Brent has been an asshole through all the divorce proceedings, filing motions and disregarding my requests. There’s no way in hell he’d ever agree to let me relocate.
And it’s not just that.
I don’t like feeling that he needs me with him because I represent help when he feels like he’s floundering. I don’t want to feel like he only needs me because I’m a mom. I had enough of that in my last relationship that I’m still technically trying to end—legally, anyway.
But also…what I said is true. I am falling for him. I want to be with him.
I just don’t think it’s geographically possible at this point.
Instead of saying any of that, I press my lips to his again.
He takes that as the signal, and he sweeps me up into his arms, his mouth never breaking from mine as he carries me over to the staircase.
He sets me down on the landing, and he gets on his knees a few steps down.
I’m still in my bridesmaid dress from tonight.
My hair still has a million pins holding it in place.
I’m still wearing the heels Everleigh picked for her bridesmaids to wear at her wedding.
He shoves my dress up my thighs roughly, and he hooks his fingers in through the side of my panties and out the other side, yanking them so they’re out of the way.
He pushes my thighs apart and kisses his way up one side, and a few seconds later, his mouth is on me, in me, everywhere as he sucks and licks and drives me toward my climax.
I squeeze my legs around his ears as my fingers dive into his hair, pulling him harder against me, gyrating against his face, the rough hairs along his jawline rubbing my thighs raw.
There’s something so sexy about the way he’s eating me.
It’s like he can’t get enough of me, and I can’t get enough of him, either.
He drives me straight into my climax. I hold on, riding it out as his tongue continues to shower me with pleasure, until I’m wrung out and exhausted and so beautifully sated.
And my first thought as I come down from the high is that this has to be enough. This has to be it, at least for a little while. He’s heading to San Diego. I’m staying here.
It feels devastating.
I fight off the tears, though. I won’t ruin what little time we have left with these intrusive thoughts. That’s life, right? It’s something I try to live by example for my kids. We can’t dwell on what we don’t have; instead, it’s important to appreciate what we do have.
And so I’ll appreciate this time with Liam, and when he’s in San Diego and I’m here fighting Brent alone again, I’ll remember and appreciate the magic of what we share when we’re together.
I’ll hope against hope we can find our way back to each other, all the while knowing it’s not likely very realistic for a twenty-six-year-old NFL star to come back to a thirty-three-year-old single mom of two young boys with any other intentions than a few nights of pleasure here and there…
no matter how much I wish it could be different.
I return the favor by sucking his cock, swirling the tip on my tongue, memorizing not just the way he tastes but the sounds he makes and the way his strong hands hold my head in place and the way he shoves his hips into my mouth harder and faster when he’s getting close.
The way he freezes for just a beat before he spills into my mouth and the way his eyes glow with adoration when I swallow down every last drop he expels.
The way he pulls me into his arms and carries me to his bed.
How he carefully removes the pins from my hair, carries me to the shower, and washes me when I’m so damn tired I can barely move a muscle.
The way he tucks me into bed and slides in beside me, and the way neither one of us can help but turn into each other and make love one more time before we quietly fall asleep together.
I dream of a life where we could actually make this work, where we could be together and happy in front of my best friend, where my ex-husband wasn’t a meddling asshole intent on making my life miserable for reasons I still can’t quite wrap my head around.
Where I could feel like he’s choosing me for love and not for how I could help him.
And when morning dawns, I should feel refreshed after sleeping in Liam’s arms the whole night through.
I don’t. Instead, a sadness pulls down over me, a sadness I’ll carry with me all day as we meet the Bradley family for a post-wedding brunch and then attend Archer’s baseball game here as the Vegas Heat is visiting the hometown team.
I slip out of bed and head downstairs to make some coffee, and I sip it quietly on the balcony as I stare out at Liam’s view, standing and leaning over the railing in pretty much the exact same way I always tell my kids not to.
He said I could stay here with the kids, but I suppose it’s probably time to figure out some sort of permanent living situation. I can’t just stay here forever.
To be clear, I want to. But I can’t.
He deserves to be happy with someone who isn’t just his own age but who is in the same city as him. Even as I think it, I realize how ridiculous the notion is. He’s going to have a newborn. Maybe he’ll find a cute, young nanny in San Diego and spend time with her.
The thought makes me feel a bit ill, truthfully. My stomach twists violently.
I don’t want him to get with his cute, young nanny.
“Good morning,” he says, and I jump, startled. “Sorry,” he says as he sidles up beside me.
“I didn’t hear you come out.”
“It’s windy this morning,” he says, and he’s right. The wind whipping on the balcony is loud. “Are you okay?”
I let out a heavy sigh.
He walks over and pulls me into his side. “Yeah. I feel about the same.”
I twist my lips as I rest my head on his shoulder. “I can’t stop thinking about how everything is going to change, and I don’t really want it to.”
“I don’t, either. And to be honest, Pen, I’m not sure how to do all this without you. Alone.”
“You won’t be alone,” I say softly. “You’ve got Madden close. You’ll have family to lean on.”
“Yeah,” he mutters. “But they’re not you.”
I turn into him, hugging him tightly. He holds me, and we stay out there just embracing until we need to head in to get ready for brunch.
Just before we leave, he grabs my hand. “Will you just…stand here with me while I make a call?” His quiet vulnerability kills a little piece of me.
“Of course,” I say, and I offer a small smile as I squeeze his hand.
He dials and puts the phone on speaker so I can hear, too.
“Hi, Liam,” a female voice answers.
“Hey, Izzy. What do you need for the DNA test?”
“We make an appointment at a lab to swab your cheek in person. They’ll run a test with my blood and let me know in a week or so. That’s how it went with the other guy, anyway,” she says. She sounds tired and defeated.
“Okay. I need to be in San Diego tomorrow. Are there any labs open today?”
“No, but I saw a brochure for a mobile paternity test at my doctor’s office. They come to you and do it on site,” she says. “It costs more, I think. I’m not sure.”
“Okay, well, money’s not really an issue, so book it,” he says.
Money’s not really an issue.
It’s a reminder how we come from vastly different worlds.
I’m trying to figure out where I can live on my meager paychecks with two kids, and he’s tossing around money’s no object like it’s candy.
“What time?” she asks.
He glances at his watch. “It would either have to be right now or about two hours from now.”
“Fine,” she says. “I’ll see what I can get.”
“Thank you, Iz. I’m sorry this is happening,” he says softly, and he’s baring his vulnerability for her, too. But she doesn’t appreciate it the way I do, and I think maybe that’s why they never would’ve worked the way we do.
“Yeah, well, me too.” She hangs up, and a few minutes later, a text comes through. He shows me the screen.
Izzy: Come to Blvd Tavern at 1:30. They’ll do it in the parking lot.
Classy. A DNA test right there in the bar parking lot.
It is what it is, though, and he agrees.
“You don’t have to come with me. Stay with Ev. She’ll expect you there, anyway,” he says.
“I want to be there for you,” I say quietly.
He pulls me into his chest and hugs me fiercely. “I want you there, too. But if we’re hiding from Ev, we need to take separate cars anyway, and I’ll be okay on my own.”
I nod, and I look up at him. He’s already nervous, and I know this brunch is going to be torturous for him.
And if it is for him, it will be for me, too.
Because that’s just how things go when you love somebody.