Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LAUREN
I’ve just gotten home from the game, thanked Paige profusely for watching my kids, checked on my girls sleeping soundly in their new toddler beds, switched my leggings and boots out for fuzzy knee-high socks, and headed back downstairs to grab a glass of water, when the text comes through.
Jameson
How do you feel about dessert?
Lauren
Like as a food group? I feel pretty good about it, why?
Jameson
I have an enormous piece of tiramisu and need someone to share it with.
I could think it’s a coincidence he has my favorite dessert, but nothing Jameson Flynn does is a coincidence.
Lauren
Now???
Jameson
Well, like thirty seconds from now. I just pulled up in front of your house.
I walk through the kitchen into the living room so I can peek out the window, and sure enough, his Maserati SUV is on the street in front of my house.
Lauren
That’s awfully bold, just showing up at my house. What would you have done if I was asleep and didn’t answer your text?
I watch as he gets out of the car, restaurant bag in hand, and heads up the steps to my front walkway. He glances at his phone, probably reading my text, and one corner of his lip turns up in a half smile that would probably have had twenty-five-year-old me swooning.
I meet him at the front door, and when I open it, he says, “Not answering was never an option.”
I roll my eyes at how presumptuous he continues to be and gesture him inside. When I close the door and turn to face him, his breath hitches. That’s when I realize that I’m standing there in nothing but his jersey and fuzzy cable-knit socks pulled up to my knees.
“Nice pajamas.” He winks.
“I just hadn’t finished getting undressed yet.”
“I have so many thoughts about that,” he says, giving me a lift of one of his eyebrows like he’s letting me know he isn’t going to share them.
He takes off his shoes and coat, and I lead him back to the kitchen.
I don’t have countertops yet, but Jules did lay a big piece of butcher block across the island so I’d have a temporary counter there.
He sets the bag on top and lifts out a huge box from the most famous pastry shop in the North End.
I’m about to ask him how he managed to get there after the game and then over here so quickly, when he glances around at my kitchen, which, like the rest of the first floor, has no furniture of any kind, and asks, “Where should we eat this?”
“How about the sunroom?”
He grabs the box of dessert and I bring some forks and napkins, and when we walk in, he looks around in surprise.
Last time he was in here, it was floor-to-ceiling boxes.
Now, the glow of the streetlights in the front of the house and the light above the garage door in the back both reflect off the snow, illuminating the room in beautiful, glowing light.
“This is a great room.”
“Especially full of toddler furniture and toys.” I laugh, a little uncomfortable that the only place I can offer him to sit is on one of the two adult-size beanbags that rest on the floor nearest the wall.
There’s no way he’d fit at the kid-size art table where my girls eat most of their meals while the rest of the house is under construction.
We make small talk about the room and how comfortable these beanbags are while we take turns passing the box of tiramisu back and forth so we can each have bites, and all the while my anxiety grows.
I know Jameson didn’t stop by in the middle of the night because he needed help eating my favorite dessert, or because he wanted to chat about my house.
I look down at the box in my hand, and while normally I could scarf down this entire piece—easily four servings—by myself, I find that my stomach is in knots after only a few bites.
“Jameson,” I say, resting the box on my knees and looking over at him. His eyes are focused on the bare expanse of my thigh between the hem of his jersey and where the box sits, but he glances up at me quickly. He doesn’t look embarrassed that I caught him looking. “What are you really doing here?”
He shrugs both shoulders and says, “I told you we’d talk later.”
“No reasonable person would suspect you meant later tonight.”
He doesn’t reply, just studies my face, then focuses on my lips. “You have . . .” he points to his own lips and instinctively I lick mine.
“Did I get it?”
“No.” His eyes are so dark as he reaches toward me that I can’t tell the iris from the pupil. “May I?”
I nod and he swipes his thumb near the corner of my upper lip and then brings his thumb to his own lips and sucks the mascarpone cream filling off. I swear my body combusts as if he’d licked it off me himself.
“Hey, that was mine!” I say, trying to deflect any attention from the way my body is responding to this.
“Mine now. But if you leave cream on your lips like that again, I’ll definitely fight you for it.”
Holy shit. My core clenches at his suggestion, and I literally have to cross my legs to relieve some of the pressure there.
When I do, his jersey rides up higher on my thigh.
He eyes my exposed thigh, and then, with his voice so low it’s practically a growl, he says, “And I don’t think that’s a fight you’d win. ”
“You might be surprised how hard I fight when I really want something.” Am I talking about the cream filling for the dessert? I don’t even know anymore.
“What you want, and what you can handle right now, might be two very different things.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You said it yourself tonight, Lauren. It’s been a long time since you’ve done this. You know what I want,” he says, but do I? “And we’re just going to go as slow as you need.”
It’s like my body and my mind are at war with themselves right now.
My body is urging me to stand up, swing my leg over, straddle Jameson’s lap, and show him how not slow I want to take this.
But then my mind is also pulling the alarm, reminding me that he’s been a great friend, and having sex with him would definitely ruin the friendship.
In the end, it wouldn’t be worth it, no matter how good the idea feels right now.
“Everything that’s going through your mind right now is exactly why we’re going to take this slow.” He takes the dessert box out of my hand and sets it on the floor by his feet.
“How do you know what’s going through my mind?”
“Because I’m watching it play out on your face. Doubt. Fear. Worry.” He pauses. “It makes sense that you feel all those things right now, but you won’t always. You’re going to get through this, Lauren, and you’re going to come out stronger on the other side.”
I wish I had the faith in myself that he apparently has. I wish I was the strong, fearless girl he once knew: the one who wasn’t afraid to take on any challenge, who took life by the horns and wrestled it to her will.
But for the first time in a long time, I feel like I could be her—myself—again.
In fact, maybe I am already on that path.
Moving across the country, remodeling a house to make it perfect for me and the girls, building a new friend group in Boston, getting a full-time job in the sports world .
. . these are not things that Josh’s wife, Lauren Emerson, would have done. These are classic Lauren Manning moves.
The fact that Jameson recognizes that I need to do this to rebuild myself and my life . . . it’s like he gets me at a core level. If only he weren’t the kind of guy who avoids relationships at all costs. Because the Jameson Flynn I’m getting to know is the kind of guy I’d want to keep around.
“All right,” he says, “I need to get going.” He stands, then bends toward me, sliding one arm under my knees, and the other around my back, and lifts me off my beanbag.
His warm hand slides against my bare thigh, and it makes me realize that it’s been many months—much longer than I’ve been a widow—since I’ve had a man touch me like this.
My hand is on his chest as he cradles me in his arms.
“I can feel your heartbeat,” I murmur as the rhythmic beating pounds against my palm. “It’s nice to know you have one.”
His chest shakes with silent laughter. “You thought I was heartless?”
“Only for the first few years I knew you.”
“You’re adorable,” he says with an eye roll, then drops my legs so I’m standing, facing him. “Walk me out?”
He leads the way back through the kitchen and down the hallway to the entryway, then turns to face me when we get to the door.
He reaches out, his hands landing on my hips, gripping them possessively through the fabric of his jersey, and when I look up at him, I don’t even attempt to hide the longing I’m feeling.
“Go to bed, Lauren.” His voice is thick and low, like a warning.
“You’re trying to get rid of me?”
“I’m trying not to do anything you’ll regret.”
“What makes you think I’d regret . . . anything?”
He gives me a half smile, brings his hands to either side of my face, then kisses my forehead lightly. “You’re not ready,” he says, then turns to put on his shoes and his coat.
“What if I am?” I ask, not at all certain that I’m even thinking clearly right now. But I miss his proximity, his scent, his warmth, his voice. I don’t want him to go. I don’t know what I want.
“You’re not.” We exchange a glance, and he reaches out and caresses my cheek. “Yet.”
And then he turns and walks out the door.
“Hey,” Morgan calls from the entryway as she lets herself and Paige in. “We’re here!”
“I’m in the kitchen,” I call back, but my girls are already yelling “Morgan!” and running toward the entryway to greet her. They’re in their fleece zip-up pajamas with wet hair from their bath, and I pause, listening to them laughing with my sister and my cousin.
I take the salad dressings I made out of the refrigerator so they can come to room temperature, and then there’s a knock on the door.
I walk into the entryway in time to see Paige opening the door for Jules, Audrey, and Graham.
And as they crowd into the entryway, I realize that this is what I hoped for when I moved here . . . family close by, real friendships.