He understood her reluctance—especially considering the way she’d met the kids’ mother—but he hoped she got over it soon because when the kids’ schedules got more rigid, so did his. Her not wanting to spend the night with him if his kids were there was going to put a serious crimp on things.
“Have fun yesterday?” he asked, sitting down at the table with his own bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee almost as big as the bowl.
“Yeah,” they both said at the same time.
“I like Wren,” Julia added. “She was funny.”
Derek had noticed that Wren seemed a lot more relaxed when she was talking with the kids than with the rest of them, and she’d seemed to particularly enjoy talking to Julia. His daughter could be shy at times and, though she’d met them over the years, she was still getting to know his current crew on a family level. A few families from the shift he’d worked before Jeff Porter retired had shown up, but Julia had still spent a lot of time sitting in the shade with Wren, reportedly talking about books.
Wren was still a little bit of a puzzle. He’d heard she could come off as reserved—almost walled off somehow—and he’d found that to be true for the most part. But over time she’d relaxed a little and he saw glimpses of the woman Grant had fallen for. When she was with Grant, she was more animated and everybody could sense the connection between them.
Then he wondered if the people around them could sense the same kind of connection between him and Olivia, which sent him back down the mental path to how hard it had been to say goodnight to her.
“When do you think we’ll see her again?” Julia asked and, for a moment, Derek was pleased his daughter sounded as excited to see Olivia again as he was. “She likes books a lot.”
Of course. They hadn’t been talking about Olivia. She meant Wren. “I’m not sure. You know we start doing a lot of stuff for the holidays with the fire department, so you’ll probably see her then.”
Did Olivia go home for the holidays? By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, they’d be well into meeting-the-parents territory, but he wasn’t so sure he wanted to meet hers anytime soon. And his family was hard-core into the holiday, so that might be too high-pressure a setting for Olivia to meet his mom and dad.
Soon, he thought. He’d told them he was seeing somebody, but not much more than that because his mom really wanted him to find somebody, so he was reluctant to get her hopes up. But now he wanted Olivia to meet them. To see the house he’d grown up in and, maybe on a second trip, meet his siblings.
“Dad, you’re not eating your cereal,” Isaac pointed out. “If you let it get mushy because you’re dawdling, you still have to eat it.”
Another of Mom’s rules, he thought, smiling at his son. “I’ll eat every bite.”
And he took a bite to prove the point, and barely managed not to cringe. It had definitely absorbed enough milk so he’d probably dump it if he didn’t have little witnesses he was supposed to be a role model for.
Maybe if he kept talking, they wouldn’t notice and he could toss it after they wandered away from the table. “Did you guys like Olivia?”
“I did,” Isaac said.
Julia only shrugged but her mouth tightened just like her mother’s did when she wasn’t happy about a topic of conversation. Or when she wanted to say something she knew Derek wouldn’t want to hear.
“She liked you both.” Then he stopped talking, not sure where to go from there.
Julia unpursed her lips long enough to talk. “Is she your girlfriend?”
Derek had hoped to ease into it a little slower, but he didn’t want to lie. “Yes, she is. Is that okay?”
Isaac’s expression said it was anything but okay. His eyes widened and his bottom lip got that soft look that wasn’t quite a pout, but sometimes became a tremble. “Are you going to have a new baby, too?”
“No.” The word seemed to fall out of his mouth in a rush to reassure his son. “I’m not having a new baby.”
But should he add right now? He knew Olivia wanted kids someday. They were a part of her written life plan. But what he hadn’t given a lot of thought to, until this moment, was if he wanted more children. It wouldn’t be fair to her to continue a relationship if he didn’t want the same things in life that she did.
He had Julia and Isaac and he’d always felt the two of them were just right. But he didn’t feel a knee-jerk no to the thought of being a dad again, and imagining Olivia holding a little bundle of joy made him smile, so he obviously wasn’t closed off to the possibility.
Right now, he didn’t need to go into any of that with an already confused little boy. The bottom line was that he wasn’t having a new baby and if that ever changed, he’d cross that bridge with them when they came to it.
“You guys know you’re still my number ones, right?”
Julia smiled. “I’m your number one. Isaac’s number two, like poo.”
“I’m not poo!”
Derek tuned out the ensuing sibling battle of words, since he could tell they were keeping it light. And the distraction was a good way to change the subject before the conversation about Olivia turned too heavy. The best way to make his relationship with her part of their normal was to treat it as though it already was. Or so Amber had said. Don’t make a big deal out of it and it won’t be a big deal. The advice sounded simple enough, even if it was a little hard to wrap his head around it.
Because it was a very big deal. Olivia was a very big deal. And the fact he was falling in love with her was a very, very big deal.
* * *
Public speaking wasn’t one of Olivia’s favorite parts of her job. She didn’t mind standing in an office, speaking to a group of employees about the changes she was going to help them implement. But having a stage and a microphone always triggered the butterflies in her stomach.
It was good promotion, and she’d never left a conference without at least one new name in her list of professional contacts turning into a new business opportunity. And, thanks to her current book, buzz about her upcoming book—which was suffering thanks to her personal life, dammit—the podcast and her general positioning as an expert on the topic, they paid her a nice fee.
The stomach butterflies usually calmed down once she really got rolling, and today’s workshop was her favorite kind. These weren’t CEOs with skyline views from their desks or tech developers. The conference was for small businesses and entrepreneurs, which meant she could focus on the basics of productivity and working efficiently without spending a fortune on high-tech software suites. She loved those, too, of course, but this was where she felt she made the most difference.
After her workshop and Q&A, they broke for lunch and Olivia found herself sitting with several people who’d started their own businesses and were in various stages of expanding beyond their home offices. She ate her salad while listening to the parents around the table swap stories of changing diapers while talking to a client via headset and a naked toddler streaking across the background of a video conference.
She couldn’t imagine the chaos and she was in awe of the fact these people had managed to build their businesses to this point while living and working in that chaos.
“How do you do it?” she finally asked the woman closest to her. “Juggle your business with having three kids, I mean.”
The woman looked surprised for a moment—maybe because Olivia was supposed to be the expert at the table—and then laughed. “I gave up sleep.”
Olivia knew the woman was exaggerating, though probably not by a lot. It had been a common thread throughout many of the conversations she had, and it made her nervous because sleep was vital to productivity. And it seemed like, to feel as if they were giving everything they could to their business and their families, a lot of parents compromised by sacrificing self-care. Sleep. Leisure time. Social lives. Their senses of self.
It wasn’t
sustainable, so it wasn’t a compromise Olivia saw herself being willing or able to make. That was one of the reasons children weren’t a part of her plan until she’d built her business to the point she could take a step back. Not too much, because she was the business. But there was always new tech and new systems, as well as updates, so once she had enough big corporate clients, she could go into maintenance mode instead of hustling for new clients. She’d have more time to focus on writing. And children.
After lunch, Olivia mingled for a while. She had a list of things to accomplish at the conference besides her workshop—people she wanted to meet and some industry news she wanted to learn—and once she’d checked them all off, she retired to her room.
Then she changed into yoga pants, opened her laptop, and tried to spend more time writing than she did glancing at the clock, counting down the hours until Derek might call. He’d asked her schedule and when she’d told him she planned to hole up in her room and get some writing done, he’d said he wouldn’t disturb her because he knew he’d already thrown her off her schedule.
He had, but she’d still told him it was okay. He’d insisted she needed to make use of the time because he intended to distract her more when she got home. She was looking forward to that, but in the meantime, she missed hearing his voice.
She decided to compromise and call him when room service brought her dinner. While she usually avoided it at all costs, she knew Derek wouldn’t mind if she ate her dinner while talking to him. And neither of them would have to feel guilty about her lost work time because she didn’t eat in front of her manuscript.
She hit his number and it rang three times before it was answered. “Hello?”
Olivia’s mind blanked for a second at the little girl’s voice, but she recovered quickly. “Hi, Julia. It’s Olivia.”
“It’s Olivia,” the girl echoed, very loudly as if yelling across the entire apartment. “My dad has his head in the cabinet and he told me to get his phone.”
“I told you to bring me my phone, not answer it,” she heard Derek tell his daughter.
“Why does your dad have his head in a cabinet?” she asked, seeing an opportunity to talk to Julia even if it was only for a brief time. Every little bit would probably help.
“We have a leak in the sink and Dad says that the plumber the landlord uses is a—”
“Julia Marie,” Olivia heard Derek yell, which made her laugh.
Julia giggled, too, and for a few seconds, Olivia got to share in her amusement. It was nice, she thought. Maybe it was a small thing, but this was Derek’s life—his real, everyday life—and being a part of it, even over the phone, made her feel closer to him.
“Your dad can call me back later if he wants,” she said. “After he gets his head out of the cabinet.”
“He said some bad words, so it’ll probably be a long time before he gets it fixed.”
“Julia!” Derek’s voice sounded closer. “Say goodbye to Olivia and give me the phone.”
“Are you really in Kansas?” Julia asked instead.
“Close. I’m in Kansas City, which is actually in Missouri.” So they talked about her, then. Enough so his kids knew she was traveling.
“That doesn’t make sense. But Daddy said they have good barbecue.”
“He wanted me to sneak some home in my suitcase.”
“Ew. That would totally mess up all your clothes.” They giggled together again. “Daddy wants the phone, so bye.”
“Bye, Julia.” She heard the low murmur of Derek’s voice and then what sounded like a door closing. “Hey, you.”
“Hi. I guess I caught you at a bad time?”
“I can use a break. And I just told them they could have a half hour of video games or tablets and then locked myself in my room, so I’m all yours. Although, if I remember correctly, you are supposed to be working on your book.”
“I’m eating my dinner while we talk, which is rude, but I get to talk to you without losing work time. I’m a problem solver, remember?”
“I don’t care what you’re doing while you talk to me as long as I get to hear your voice.” There was a pause, and then a low chuckle that seemed to vibrate right through the phone and into her body. “I mean, there are other things you could be doing while talking to me.”
“I’ve got a bacon-wrapped filet mignon and perfectly sautéed vegetables in front of me. Don’t make me choose between them and phone sex.”
“That would be cruel and possibly not end well for my ego.” He paused for a few seconds. “I miss you.”
That made her laugh. “You’ve gone longer than this without seeing me.”
“Yeah, but you’re so far away. You feel far away.” She heard his sigh over the line. “Usually when I talk to you, I can picture you. I can see you sitting on your couch, looking out at the view. Or sitting cross-legged on your bed or—my personal favorite—lying on the bed with a smile lighting up your face.”
She smiled as he talked even though she missed him as much as he said he missed her.
“But right now,” he continued, “I can’t picture what you’re doing and it makes you feel far away.”
“I’m sitting in the room’s desk chair in front of the room service cart,” she told him. “The bed has one of those generic white comforters that feels like it weighs fifty pounds, and all I see out the window is dark sky. But if I get up and walk across the room, I have a lovely view of the mechanical equipment on the flat roof below me.”
“Not quite what you’re used to.”
“I might be a little spoiled.”
She thought he’d laugh, but there were a few seconds before he spoke again. “Nothing wrong with that. Have you met a lot of people?”
Did he really think she was spoiled? She didn’t think so. She didn’t have an expectation of being given nice things. She worked hard and invested in things that kept their value.
“I did meet a lot of people,” she finally said, letting the topic swing toward work. “It’s a small conference, so a lot of face time. And I made some likely contacts, so it was worth the trip.”
“I’m glad it was productive, even though I miss you. I could pick you up at the airport tomorrow.”
“Your kids do not want to get up early on a Sunday morning and get dragged to Logan. They just started school, so enjoy the time with them.”
He made a sound that perfectly summed up the frustration she felt. “Let me take you to dinner tomorrow night, then. After I drop them off with Amber, I can head over. You can pick the place. Somewhere nice, and then we’ll go back to your place and catch up on everything we missed.”
Olivia shivered because she knew he didn’t mean a recap of her trip. “I can’t wait.”
“Finish your dinner and get back to work, then, and I’ll see you tomorrow. I...” He paused and she heard him clear his throat. “I hope you have a good flight.”
“Goodnight,” she whispered, and then he was gone and she was left staring at the phone in her hand.
And wondering what he’d really been about to say.
* * *
Derek battled a bad case of the nerves on the elevator ride to Olivia’s floor, but this time it had nothing to do with the fancy building or breathtaking view.
He’d almost told her he loved her. The words had actually started coming out of his mouth, but his brain had finally caught up with his mouth and put a stop to it. He wasn’t sure if he’d covered well or not, since the panic made it hard to think.
Not that he didn’t want to say the words. He loved Olivia. There was no sense in trying to deny it anymore. But he didn’t want to tell her over the phone, when she was fourteen hundred miles away, give or take a few.
He wanted to be holding her when he said it. He wanted to watch her face and see her reaction to the words in her eyes. And now that he’d been thinking about it si
nce his near slip on the phone last night, it was all he could think about and he was afraid he was just going to blurt it out at an awkward moment.
As he knocked, he reminded himself it didn’t have to be tonight. Maybe the right moment would come and maybe it wouldn’t. If not, he’d wait because he wanted it to be special.
When she opened the door and her eyes widened, his three-little-words nerves gave way to a self-consciousness. Other than his Class A uniform, he only owned one real suit and he was pretty sure the only time he’d worn it in the last ten years had been to funerals. It was a little dated and wearing it made him uncomfortable, though he couldn’t say if it was that he hated suits or the fact it was usually associated with somebody dying.
He’d settled for khakis, a dress shirt and a sport coat he’d bought for family court during the divorce. It wasn’t up to par with the suits walking around this part of the city, but she could see he’d made an effort for her. And if she wanted to go to one of those snobby restaurants, it counted. He also had a tie in his pocket he’d like to avoid putting on. But he had it.
“You dressed up,” she said, her welcoming smile broadening into a grin.
“I tried.” And it had been worth the effort because she was wearing a gorgeous sundress with one of those short, open sweaters over it that framed her breasts perfectly. And she had on summery high heels that showed off her teal toenail polish. “You look beautiful. And I missed you.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I missed you, too. Now that you’re here, I’m almost sorry I made reservations.”
“Trust me when I tell you I can be quick.”
“If I hadn’t put time into looking like this, I’d be tempted.”
“So we’ll go eat and after, I’ll be able to take my time peeling you out of that dress. Should we take your car or mine?” he joked, because his car didn’t really fit in here.
“It’s a short walk. The weather’s nice.” She kissed him again before going to retrieve a small handbag from the counter. “We can hold hands.”
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