Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LAUREN
It’s well past six when I pull into my driveway, and if I didn’t have four-wheel drive there’s no way I’d make it up the hill in the six-plus inches of snow that have fallen in the last few hours.
At this point, it’s coming down so hard and so fast that I can barely see five feet in front of me, and I feel lucky to have made it home at all.
The roads were empty, a sure sign that I shouldn’t have been out driving on them either.
When my single-wide driveway levels off at the top of the hill, it widens to accommodate two cars. Jameson’s Maserati is sitting off to the side, next to the sunroom, leaving room for me to pull into my garage.
He’s shoveled the path from the garage to the back door, and I pause once I’m in the sunroom, as I do almost every night I come home, appreciating how good I have it now—how supported I feel by my friends and family, how happy I am at my job, how much I love my new house, how my girls are happy and healthy and settling into our new life here with remarkable ease.
I drop my boots and coat in their spot and head into the kitchen.
It smells amazing in here, and through the opening into the living area I see Jameson sitting on the couch with Ivy on one side of him, Iris on the other, and his arms looped around both girls.
And they’re watching Tangled—the movie I never used to want to watch with them because I hated how much Flynn Rider reminded me of Jameson Flynn.
The man in question is currently in his suit pants with the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. The top two buttons of his shirt are open, and he looks so fucking delicious sitting here, in my space, with my girls, that I need to remind myself to breathe.
I ran off and married someone else when he turned me down, and he never wanted to settle down or have kids in the first place.
And yet, I just came home to him on my couch with my kids.
I have to remind myself that this is not going to be a repeated thing, even though, in this moment, I wish this was the norm.
But it makes no sense—we make no sense. Settled down with kids—this isn’t the life he wants.
I’ve known that about him for years. And I need to remember it, because even though he’s made it clear he wants me, I come with a whole lot of additional baggage that I don’t think he’s ready for.
Coming over and watching my kids for a couple hours while I’m stuck at work does not mean he wants to settle down like this.
But seeing him here still makes me smile.
And that’s when Jameson looks up, sees me grinning like a lunatic in the doorway, and sends a wink my way that has heat flashing through my body so hot, and so fast, that I turn away in embarrassment, heading back into the kitchen.
I need to get a handle on this whole flushing situation if I’m going to continue spending time with him, because I can’t keep picturing us having sex every time he looks at me.
I lift the lid on the pot simmering on my stove to find pasta sauce bubbling away. There’s another pot next to it, full of hot water, so I turn it on to bring it back up to a boil.
Behind me, the movie pauses and Jameson says, “Mom’s home.”
I like the way that sounds coming out of his mouth way more than I should.
Excited squeals precede the girls’ stampede, and then their bodies are plowing into mine, each of them hugging a leg like they always do.
Then they sit on my feet, demanding that I walk around with each of them attached to me, which lately has felt like my daily workout.
I can’t believe how fast they’re growing—and that thought is followed by the same one as always: that Josh is missing this.
Then again, he missed most things even when he was alive.
Jameson stands on the other side of the massive island, his hands each on the back of a different barstool, watching me.
“You cooked” is all I can manage to choke out under the weight of his stare. I take a few awkward steps with my kids attached to my legs.
“I thought you might be hungry.”
“I’m starving.”
“Okay, how about I finish cooking this and then we can eat?”
I almost say You don’t need to get home? But I hold my tongue because I realize I don’t want him to go home. I want him to stay and have dinner with us.
Him, here in my house, watching a movie with my girls, cooking us dinner . . . it feels right. It feels like what I’ve always imagined the other half of a relationship should feel like. Working together, small sacrifices and little acts of service for each other.
I’m not even in a relationship with Jameson, and it makes me realize how terribly one-sided my marriage was.
Except, that wasn’t one-sided in the beginning either.
Josh put on a really good show until he had me locked down.
And I’m terrified of making the same mistake again—trusting that what someone shows me is real, only to find out later that it was all an act.
“Where’d your mind just go?” Jameson asks as he walks around the island toward me. That’s when I realize I didn’t answer his question.
“Sorry. I was just thinking . . .” I don’t know what to say, and I’m not great at coming up with things on the spot. But there’s no way that I can tell him that I was envisioning a future for us. Jameson Flynn doesn’t do relationships, and I don’t think I’d ever recover from a fling with this man.
I’m a single mom rebuilding my life. Things are finally going really well, and having sex with him would fuck up everything—my friendship with him, my friendship with his sisters, the sense of independence I’m rebuilding for myself.
It’s not worth what I stand to lose.
He approaches me cautiously, like he’s afraid I’ll scare and run off—as if I could with a kid attached to each leg.
He stops in front of me, reaching out to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear.
I revel in the adoring way he looks at me as the pads of his fingertips graze along the top of my cheekbone, run through the hair at my temple, and drag along the shell of my ear.
A sound escapes my throat, and I’m horrified to realize it sounds a lot like a moan. And by the way his dark eyes light up, I know he didn’t miss it either. He smirks, then says, “Let me get this pasta going.”
He turns and walks the few steps to the stove, where I can hear the water starting to boil.
These mixed signals—acting like he wants me, then turning and walking away—are making my brain hurt, so I take my girls upstairs with me to change out of my work clothes.
Even though nothing’s going to happen, I put on a sexy light pink lace bra and thong.
Just in case. Then I put on joggers and a matching top, brush out my long hair, slide my feet into my slippers, and pick up my girls to bring them back downstairs where they run back into the living room to play.
As I walk around the island toward the stove, Jameson eyes me over his shoulder, and then the timer goes off. While he moves to drain the pasta, I head to the fridge because I’m fairly certain I have some Parmesan cheese in there.
“You’re going to a wedding next weekend?” he asks casually as I shut the refrigerator door. I glance over and he’s holding an invitation that was sitting on my counter near the sink.
“Yeah. My cousin is getting married. Paige and I are going up together.”
“What about Morgan?” he asks, as he lifts the colander out of the sink.
“It’s my dad’s nephew getting married, and Morgan is related on my mom’s side of the family.
She’s staying here with my girls, since it’s an adult-only reception.
” He sets the invitation down, and I watch him move around my kitchen like he belongs here, dumping the colander full of pasta into the sauce, then reaching for the Parmesan cheese I set near the stove for him.
“Paige is going to be my wingman at the wedding.”
He raises an eyebrow at the same time he gives me a side-eye. “Your wingman?”
“Yeah, she’s going to keep my ex-boyfriend from high school away from me.”
Justin, who I dated for over two years in high school, is recently divorced from my ex-best friend.
He’s been texting me lately and dropping some not-so-subtle hints about how much he’s looking forward to seeing me at the wedding.
I could not possibly be less interested in exploring that opportunity, and am actually dreading seeing him.
His tone is dry. “That’s not the point of a wingman, Lauren.”
“Well, whatever you’d call it, that’s Paige’s role this weekend.” I grab some plates out of the cabinet and carry them over to the stove.
When I set them down, he steps up behind me, planting his hands on the counter on each side of me so that I’m boxed in his arms. A thrill runs up my spine when he drops his voice low and says, “If you really want him to leave you alone, you should bring a date.”
I allow myself a moment to enjoy his warmth. I allow myself to picture what it would be like to bring him with me too, but then I also imagine how people would look at me if I brought a date to a wedding only four months after Josh’s death.
“I have a date. Her name is Paige.”
He pushes off the counter, letting his fingertips skim up my forearms as he steps back. “Well, if you change your mind and want someone better suited for the job, all you have to do is ask.”
Dinner has been cleaned up, the girls have been bathed and put to bed, and Jameson and I now stand at the front windows in my living room, looking out at the storm.
The drifts of snow at the edges of my yard are easily a foot or two high at this point.
I haven’t heard a snowplow go by since I got home, and though we can hardly see to the other side of the street through the torrent of white flakes and the glare of the streetlights in the storm, the road appears to be a pristine pillow of white snow—probably about eight or nine inches of it I’d guess—which will make them completely impassable.