Chapter Thirty
Brew
“A penny for your thoughts?” she whispers as her finger traces over my tattoo.
We’re lying here. The sun threatening to rise outside the window. Both completely sated after a whirlwind of a night.
“You said something the other night about the ship already sailing. What did you mean by that?” I ask.
Her brow furrows. “When did I say that?”
“The night we met. After … you know—when you were falling asleep. We were talking about life. And you joked about looking for a baby daddy, then said the ship had probably already sailed.”
“I did?”
I reach out and take a few pieces of her hair and twirl the silky strands around my finger. “Yeah.”
She watches, and then her eyes meet mine. She shrugs. “I was delirious. Someone had just put me into an orgasm-induced coma. Who knows what I was babbling on about?”
“Orgasm-induced coma?”
She raises two fingers. “Two in the span of twenty minutes. And that was after dancing and a late night at the bar.”
“Do you want kids?” I ask, bringing us back to the conversation she’s trying to deflect.
She sighs. “I did.”
“Did, not do?”
She rolls to the side and tilts her head to rest back against the pillow. Staring up at the ceiling instead of looking at me, she answers, “I’m thirty-seven years old. Time is running out.”
“You’re not some old cow, ready to be put out to pasture. You’re a vibrant, sexy, beautiful young woman. Your best years are ahead of you, not behind. Besides, didn’t you say your friends were having babies? Aren’t you guys close to the same age?”
“Yes, Isley and her husband have two, but their babies are toddlers now. Taeli has been trying to get pregnant since she and Graham got married, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Ansley is undergoing fertility treatments because baby number two isn’t coming as easily as baby number one did.
She’s a year younger than I am and already married.
I’m still single. By the time I meet the right person, date for a reasonable amount of time, get engaged, married, and then start trying for babies, my eggs will be fossilized. ”
“Fossilized?” I chuckle.
She nudges my side. “Don’t laugh at me.”
I bend down and kiss her shoulder. “Sorry. I get it. I’ll be forty this year, and I’m still living the bachelor life.”
“It’s different for guys. You have all the time in the world. You can find some young little filly and have a football team in your sixties if you want to. It’s not fair.”
“A young filly and a football team, huh? Sounds like a gold-digger situation to me. She’ll dump me and bleed me dry for the rest of my life.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be after all that money in your tip jar instead of your sweet Southern manners, rather impressive bedroom skills, and beautiful bone structure,” she teases.
I quirk a brow. “Impressive bedroom skills?”
“Eh, they’re above average,” she taunts.
I lean in and nip at her earlobe. “I guess I’m going to have to aim for three tonight.”
A shiver runs through her.
“As for the rest, women are focusing more on their careers and starting families later than our parents and grandparents did. So, I think you’ll be just fine when the time comes. Besides, there’s more than one way to build a family. Lots of options are available nowadays.”
“I guess.”
Climbing on top of her, I kiss her nose, her eyes, her temples, and she sighs. It’s a content sigh, one that hits me in the heart, then settles in my bones.
I want to be the one who causes her to fall asleep, content, every single night.
And that thought scares the shit out of me.
“If you could go anywhere in the world and money was no object, where would it be?” I ask.
We are sitting at a booth in Waffle Castle, waiting for our order.
After I fulfilled my promise of number three last night, we both fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake up until well past noon, craving breakfast. Since it was too late to get it anywhere else, I brought her here.
It’s the only all-night diner in Sandcastle Cove, and it serves a greasy breakfast all day long.
“If I could go anywhere at this moment,” she begins, pausing to think before continuing, “I’d choose Yosemite.”
“Really? Not London or Paris? You’d want to go to California?” I ask in disbelief.
“Well, sure, I’d like to visit the UK and Europe someday, but I saw this story one night on National Geographic about the firefall in Yosemite National Park.
It’s a natural phenomenon that occurs every February.
When the setting sun’s rays align perfectly with the Horsetail waterfall on the east side of El Capitan, it illuminates and creates a fiery effect.
It’s beautiful, and I just want to stand at the bottom of the mountain and watch the fire cascading down. ”
It’s not the answer I was expecting. Not at all.
“You don’t put much stock into the whole money is no object thing, do you?” I tease.
She shrugs. “Money’s not a big deal. I mean, it’s nice to have your bills paid, but I have friends who are well off and friends who aren’t. Money doesn’t make them any happier or make them better friends. Besides, historically, the incredibly wealthy are the unhappiest people on the planet.”
“You think so?” I ask as our waitress places our plates in front of us.
“Yep. Just look at Hollywood. So many people are caught up in scandals, divorces, drug problems, or announcing that they’re checking into treatment centers for one reason or another,” she says as she picks up the ketchup bottle and squeezes a large dollop next to her hash browns.
“Why do you think that is? Is it because they have money?”
She shakes her head. “No, not exactly. It’s that they have everything they’ve ever wanted.
They’ve achieved their dreams. Dreams keep us motivated; they give us a reason to get up in the morning.
But if you have everything and there’s nothing left to strive for and you’re still not happy, what then?
What happens if you wake up and the happiness you once felt has worn off? ”
“So, you don’t think happiness is attainable? That sounds depressing.”
“That’s not what I said. Happiness is something that can’t be bought. If you think it can, you’ll be disappointed. Happiness is a choice; it’s something that you are. That’s why people often feel depressed whether they have money or not. They put a price tag on happiness.”
“And you don’t?”
She grins up at me. “Nope. I can be happy either way,” she replies, shoveling a huge bite of biscuits and gravy into her mouth and groaning with delight. “This is so good! You have to try it.” She loads her fork again and extends it toward me.
I take the offered bite, realizing that I’m starting to fall a little in love with this woman.