by Lauren Runow
Bryce’s hands reach out, and he grabs the plates from my hand and winks.
He turns around and starts to set the table.
I spin around and drain the pasta.
Without being told where anything is, he navigates my kitchen and gets the glasses, silverware, napkins, and grated cheese. I finish the cooking, and Charlie sits at the table and starts on his milk that Bryce poured for him.
Dinner is comfortably quiet. Talk of the Scouts, school, and how delicious dinner is flows like it’s something we’ve done every day for years.
When Charlie’s eyes close while holding his head up with his hand, I lightly kick Bryce under the table to get his attention, nodding my head toward Charlie. We both glance back at each other, and the smile on my face is so big I can’t hide it. Our day has exhausted the little guy, and he’s hard to wear out.
I carry him toward the bedroom to begin our nighttime routine.
“Good night, Bryce,” he says, curling into my chest.
“Night, buddy. Sleep tight,” Bryce replies as I walk down the hall.
Getting him to brush his teeth and go potty while he’s tired proves to be a hassle, but we get the job done, and he’s asleep before I’m finished reading him his story.
Closing the bedroom door behind me, I walk into the hallway and see Bryce standing in my kitchen, washing the dishes. The table has been cleared off, and he’s placing the newly cleaned dishes on the drying rack.
I stand next to him and start hand-drying them with a clean towel.
“Thank you for today. It meant a lot to Charlie,” I say.
“Just Charlie?” he asks, his eyes fixed on his task.
I smile. “It meant a lot to me, too.” I put a dish away in the cabinet and grab the next on the rack.
“He’s a great kid. You’re an amazing mother.”
“I don’t do anything other women don’t do every single day.”
His body angles toward me, and he looks down at me with those dark eyes. “You’re the most amazing mother I’ve ever seen in my life. And I had a really great one. Don’t sell yourself short.”
I put the dish away and try to ignore his compliment. “Listen, Bryce, I’m so thankful for today. It was great—”
“But? I sense a but coming.” He turns the water off, dries his hands, and faces me, his hip leaning against the counter.
“But … it can’t happen again. Not because of you per se. You’re great. Too great even. To Charlie, you’re this larger-than-life figure who made his dream come true overnight. I just … I can’t have him falling in love with you, and then you leave and break his heart.”
I place the last dish in the cabinet and close the door, needing to turn my back for a moment to let that comment sink in.
When I turn back to him, Bryce crosses his arms in front of his chest and lowers his gaze to mine. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Is your heart incapable of breaking?”
His question catches me off guard. “I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about Charlie.”
“And I’m worried about both of you.”
Of all the swoon-worthy things for this man to say, he had to go and say that.
“It’s late, and you probably want to get back home.” I walk toward the table to push the chairs in.
“Hey,” he says, reaching out for my hand. “Look me in the eye when you ask me to go, and I’ll leave.”
I slowly raise my eyes to meet his, knowing that, while my mouth is telling him to leave, my heart wants him to stay. His dark eyes have turned a warm, dark brown in the light of my apartment. Between that and the way his thumb is tracing small circles on my hand, I am slowly losing my resolve.
“Do you want to sit on the couch?” I ask awkwardly, pointing to the living room.
He smiles. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not. It’s just”—I look around my small place—“there’s not a ton of space here.”
“It’s your home. You should always be proud of your home. If you’d like, I could buy the apartment next door and make it twice the size. I won’t though because you’ll probably tell me that’s inappropriate, and I’m trying to rein in my stalking.”
I laugh, shaking my head at the smirk on his face, knowing he is kidding. “Just sit down.”
He sits on one side, and I’m thankful to have the space between us as I sit on the other end.
I motion toward his laptop that’s still sitting on the coffee table. “Do you have more work to do?”
“My job never ends.”
“It doesn’t seem so bad. You were able to get out today.”
He laughs lightly from his throat. “I’ll pay for this in the morning with an inbox full of emails. Believe it or not, before I met you, I hadn’t taken any personal time off in years.”
I curl my legs up onto the couch. “That seems like an exaggeration.”
“No,” he states. “I have been married to my role in this company since I graduated college.”
“You don’t sound like that was something you chose.”
He moves his hand to the back of the couch, turning his body toward mine. “I always knew I was going to work for my family’s company. Growing up, I watched our mother turn a local magazine to a newspaper business and online media platform. I remember being in the backseat of our station wagon and driving door to door as she solicited subscribers to her magazine.”
“What kind of magazine was it?”
“Community-based. What’s happening in the area and upcoming events. She always made sure to spotlight someone from the county—a hero, a local winner, someone who had lost a loved one. Her love for human-interest stories was what made her magazine so great. It’s what had her distribution grow three hundred percent every year for her first five years.” His eyes light up with the memory of his mother.
I lean in. “Tell me more about her. Your mom.”
The way he’s looking at me is like I asked the greatest question in the world. “She was … amazing. With a nickname like Porky, I wasn’t the most popular kid, growing up, so I dedicated all my time to working with my mom. After school, I’d go with her to local businesses for advertising. I got really good at it, as you’d imagine. She could also tell when I was getting bored. That’s when she’d pull the car over, and I’d look up to see we were at go-karts or paintball wars or laser tag. She loved to play games. That’s what we did. We played.”
I smash my lips together.
“You look surprised,” he says.
“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who plays.” I blush.
“I bet I also don’t look like the kind of guy who would sit outside a girl’s workplace on the off chance she’d come out and have a cup of coffee with me.”
My laugh is so loud; I have to cover my mouth. “You admit it.”
“I told you once, I don’t lie. Ask me anything you want.”
There’s a small thread peeking up from one of the couch cushions. I tug on it a little. “The night we met, you said you had your heart broken. Who was she?”
He lets out a deep sigh. “Maria. We met in college. We were young, in love, and ready to travel the world.” He pauses, looking down to the ground, recalling the memory. “My graduation gift from my parents was to go on a six-month epic journey. We had our map planned out—Vietnam, India, Australia. I was packing my bag when I got the call that my mother had been killed in a car crash. I flew home for the burial and never left.”
“And Maria?”
“She left me. Went on the trip alone, and I never saw her again.”
My jaw drops at the notion. The man just lost his mother. The least she could do was wait a few months. If she loved him, she would have stayed.
“Your parents paid for her trip and she ditched you at the airport?”
“I’m not upset about the money—”
“I am! Maybe if she saved for a year to pay for her ticket I’d understa
nd. She left you with a broken heart when your world was falling apart and she did it on your dime. What a bitch.”
He smiles lightly. “Thank you for being angry for me.”
“I’m furious. Why would you leave someone you love like that?” I don’t know why I ask the question. It’s rhetorical. The answer is selfishness.
Bryce is watching me, his head shaking lightly. “She didn’t want to be a part of this life. She knew what my parents’ life was like. The demands, the arguments … she saw how it tore them apart.”
“But you said you knew you’d always work for the company.”
“As a photojournalist. My mother knew my passion for travel, which was why she was sending me away. Together, we were going to create a travel magazine and blog focused on the local people in towns and cities around the world, not just the tourist attractions and upscale restaurants. It was going to be a walking man’s guide to living.”
“You should still do that! Wow, I love that idea. You can—”
“It’s not in the cards, Tessa. When my mother died, so did my dream. My father had given up on the company by then. It was subtle at first, but over the years, he withdrew. To be honest, he never was the brains of the operation. As soon as she died, he brought up the idea of selling the company. My brothers and I refused. It was a looming threat that never seemed to carry much weight until my father remarried, and as they say, two forces are better than one.”
I reach for his hand. “Why are you acting like you have this all on your back? You have a brother who can share the burden.”
“Austin? He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. He just acts like a complete idiot half the time. I think it’s his way of getting out of being held responsible.”
“Does he not do his job?”
He sighs, rubbing his eyes. “He does, just not …” He pauses to take in a deep breath, and I can tell he’s torn with his words. “It’s like his mind is always somewhere else.”
“Maybe he just needs freedom to do the job the way he wants to do it. You said he does his job, right?”
“Yeah. Like I said, it’s complicated. But then there’s Tanner—”
“Who’s Tanner?”
“My baby brother. He’s finishing his final semester at Columbia and coming home to work for the company. That can’t come fast enough. He’s brilliant. And a really great kid.” His thumb rises to his lips, and he looks off in thought. “Problem is, Tanner was really young when our mom died. He doesn’t remember the business the way Austin and I do. I might bitch about Austin, but there’s one thing I know—he will do whatever it takes to keep the company our mother created. Tanner doesn’t have the same connection.”
I squeeze the hand I’m holding on to. “I bet he remembers more than you give him credit for.”
Bryce’s gaze turns back to mine. He leans in. “What about you? How did the daughter of a feminist become a professional makeup artist?”
I roll my eyes. “Rebellion. I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup as a child because it was society’s way of telling women they weren’t good enough the way they were.
“‘Women shouldn’t be touted around with painted masks to hide their true identity,’” I quote my mom in her proper voice.
I continue, “My grandma used to buy me the boldest colored eye shadows and the brightest lipsticks just to mess with my mom. I’d play dress-up in my room, and by the time I was a teenager, I was pretty damn good. I’d do all my friends’ makeup and even my mom’s when she started doing television interviews. When I told her I didn’t want to go to college, that I wanted to be a makeup artist, she said, as a woman, it was my choice to choose any career path and she’d support me, no matter what. But, if I was going to be something, she was going to make sure I was the best. I enrolled in workshops in Los Angeles and was heading to Milan to apprentice for a year to build up my résumé for New York when I met Ashton and got pregnant. Needless to say, Milan never happened.”
This time, he squeezes my hand. “While I would have loved to hear you went to Europe and became the world’s most successful makeup artist, I have to say, I think you got the better deal.”
I smile. “Looks like we both had a change in course due to unexpected life events.”
“We have more in common than we thought.” He grins.
I look at our joined hands. They’re now interlocked fully. “Bryce, I’m sorry I’ve been pushing you away. I just … I haven’t been in a relationship since Ashton.”
Bryce’s other hand rises to my face, cupping my cheek. “You weren’t raised in an environment where men were trusted. I’d imagine having the father of your child walk away from you cemented that thought in your head. Tessa, I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t been in a relationship in years. I work too much. I’m demanding and angry. There’s a bottle of Johnnie Walker in my desk that I keep for when I’m about to lose my mind. If I were a wiser man, I’d walk out of here and leave you in peace. But I just can’t stay away from you.”
I swallow and admit, “I’ve grown kind of fond of you not staying away from me.”
He smiles, and damn, my heart skips. “That’s a good thing.”
“Truth or dare?” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “I’ll dare myself.”
He moves closer, pulling me in, and I let him. All reason flies out of my mind. My heart pounds out of control as an urge I haven’t felt in years takes over. My breath hitches when I feel his breath sweep across my lips, so close.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
I heed the warning and close my eyes. I nod slightly and relish in the feeling of his lips as they softly touch mine. My body goes limp as he pulls me into him, supporting my weight before he opens his mouth, sweeping his tongue against my lips, asking for permission to enter.
I sigh, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, enjoying the feeling of human contact—something I didn’t realize I desperately needed in my life until this very second.
An intense hunger runs up my spine, and for a moment, I’m completely lost to a sensation so foreign yet so real to me. He turns his head, and the low groan that escapes his lips lights my insides on fire. Our lips are moving and dancing like we’ve been kissing each other for years.
I hold him tighter, but to my dismay, he leans back, taking a deep breath after breaking our kiss.
Our foreheads touch as we catch our breaths.
“That was a great first kiss,” he says before leaning in and kissing me again.
I instantly close my eyes and fall into him. My hands are roaming over his T-shirt, feeling the muscles of his chest. His hands are on my face and torso, pulling me in.
My head falls back when he moves down my neck, kissing, licking, and worshipping me. He repositions his body, and I wrap my legs around his waist without a second thought.
Our kiss turns more feverish. He runs his arms down my spine, around my waist. Instinctually, I mount him, my legs straddling his impressive thighs, gripping his shirt in my hands.
My core rubs against his groin, and my eyes momentarily pop open at the feel of him beneath me. It makes my hips grind instinctually as I hum with pleasure into his mouth.
The kiss grows deeper, stronger. His hands are in my hair, and mine are clawing at his shirt, desperate to bring him closer, yet we’re as close as two people can be while fully clothed.
I’m ready to rip his shirt off when I hear a bloodcurdling scream, “Mommy!”
Bryce pauses, and I jump off of him and run toward Charlie’s room, praying to God he didn’t see anything.
“What, baby?” I say as I open his bedroom door.
He’s sitting up in his bed with the blanket up to his chest. “I had a dream there was a monster in my closet,” he says, trying to hold back tears.
I close my eyes, taking a deep breath. My heart is racing from hormones, adrenaline, and pure motherly concern for Charlie’s scream.
I sit next to him on his bed, and he throws his arms aro
und my neck.
“It’s okay. I’m right here. Do you want me to check your closet?”
He nods his head as a scared sob sneaks out. I stand up, keeping him wrapped around me, and walk to his closet.
“Look, there’s nothing here.”
He barely lifts his head, glancing around before burying himself in my neck again. I hold him a little tighter.
“I promise, I’ll never let anything happen to you. I’m right out in the living room, okay?” I say.
His arms squeeze my neck.
“I’m going to put you back down, okay?”
“Will you lie with me?”
I sigh. Bryce is in my living room, and while I desperately—oh-so desperately—want to be on that couch with him, there is nowhere else I’d ever be than right here.
“Of course, baby.” I get him tucked in and lie on top of the covers next to him, running my fingers through his red curls.
Going from Bryce’s arms to my son’s side sends a shock wave of guilt through me. There’s a huge part of me that wants to be out there with Bryce, and that bothers me.
It takes twenty minutes for Charlie to finally go back to sleep. I kiss his forehead and sneak back out of his room.
My nerves turn in my stomach as I wonder if Bryce is bothered by my hasty exit and long return. If he’s bothered by it, then it’s concrete evidence that he is not the man for me. To my dismay, he’s nowhere to be seen.
He left.
So many emotions run through me. Guilt. Sadness. Envy. Lust. I’m about to cry or scream—I’m not sure which—when I see a text on my phone.
Charlie needs you, so I saw myself out.
I left a little something for you. I hope you like it.
I skim my bottom lip with my finger as I read his sweet message. Looking at the kitchen table and counters, I don’t see anything in the form of a gift, so I look in the living room. Besides my mom, no one has bought me a gift in years, so the nerves and excitement make me almost uncomfortable.
Searching under the pillows on the couch, I look for something new in the room but don’t see anything. When I lift my head, I see the window to the fire escape is open. I pad toward it and crawl out.