And I know that because we’re not fire and ice anymore, and we haven’t been for a while. But I don’t know what that makes us other than something else, something unnamed, maybe even unknown.
He returns to the bathroom then joins me again, stretched out in the bed.
“So. That was indeed delightful,” he says dryly.
Yes. This. I can do this. I open my eyes and meet his gaze. There’s that teasing glint in his blue eyes, there’s the twinkle.
I understand what to do with this Zach so much more than the kind, gentle one.
“Fine,” I grumble. “It was better than delightful. It was . . .” I pause, searching for another adjective to needle him with. “Lovely.”
Laughing, he parks his hands behind his head. “Look, you can call it lovely. You can call it delightful. I’m just patting myself on the back for getting you there first. That was literally my only goal.”
I flash back to those seconds before he entered me, when pure vulnerability crossed his eyes. When he said, It’s been a while. In that phrase, I heard everything, understood everything. He hasn’t been with anyone else since his wife died.
I’m his first.
Part of me doesn’t know how to manage the weight of being his first after her, after a love like that, a life like that.
Another part of me is doing a hula dance. Me. He chose me. The everything fruit. The girl down the hall. The girl he spars with.
The vulnerable part of me is happy. Happier than I imagined I’d be. But trying to dig into why this delights me—yes, this knowledge is delightful—requires an excavation that isn’t welcome.
This was sex, right?
An itch. We scratched it.
I keep the mood light, since he didn’t come here for a heavy talk, nor do I want one. “I’d say you achieved your goal. Also, you take direction extraordinarily well.”
He blows on his fingernails. “Feel free to give me any more you like. For instance, lick harder, suck my clit, lick my pussy, fuck me with your fingers.”
My jaw drops at his unexpected dirty mouth. “Zach Nolan, you’re filthy.”
He shrugs unapologetically. “I’m just saying, I’m up for it. You saying any of the above. Me taking your direction.”
I tremble, my body betraying me. I want to give him all those directions. I want him to take them to town and light me up again.
His eyes sparkle. “Seems you might like that too. Any of the above?”
I purse my lips. I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time admitting that I want more. Maybe because I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know what’s changed. If this was a one-time thing, or if it could be something more.
I don’t know what I want it to be.
But it can’t be anything more, a voice reminds me.
My attention needs to be on my goals. My sister, her baby, my job, Jessica’s wedding. I can’t tango with Zach, because . . . what if it ends badly? I can’t bring that kind of negative energy on Jessica.
And of course it would end badly. We are too much up in each other’s business and lives. We have our friends and this wedding and—
“Hey, when I told you that you were sexy and gorgeous, why did you say, ‘No, you are’? It’s like you were saying you weren’t.”
I cringe, wishing he’d forgotten that. Those types of compliments are hard for me to hear. I don’t know how they can be true.
“I was just saying you were,” I answer, aiming for misdirection. I’m a magician. Now you see it, now you don’t.
He looks through the illusion, pushing on. “Don’t you realize how gorgeous you are?”
I turn to face him, propping my head in my hand. Might as well level with him. “Look, thank you. But you don’t need to say that to me to get me in bed again.”
A laugh seems to burst from his throat. “What? Do you think it was a line the first time? Give me more credit.”
I shake my head. “I’m not saying it was a line. I’m saying don’t feel obligated.”
“Like you thought I felt obligated after the dinner in New York? Why are you worried about obligations?”
Because I don’t know how we could handle them. Because I don’t want you to feel like I’m one of yours. Because I don’t know how to manage my feelings if I am. Because a part of me wants to be your obligation.
But that’s not the core issue.
I key in on the question, answering matter-of-factly because this is a black-and-white truth for me, a cornerstone of who I am, what I do. “I’m not gorgeous, and I know it. If anything, I’m cute. I’m not stunning. I’m not beautiful. I’m not even pretty.”
“But . . .” he sputters.
I raise a hand to stop him. “And I’m a hundred percent okay with that. Truly, I am. I don’t suffer from low self-esteem. My esteem is just fine. Trust me—I think I’m awesome, and I’m good with how I look.”
He furrows his brow. “How you look? How do you think you look?”
“I’m not the pretty girl. I’m the friend. I’m the wingwoman. That’s who I’ve been. I blend in with my straight nose and brown eyes and standard-issue hair. I’m cute. That’s all. I’m fine with cute.”
He inches closer, running a finger across my top lip. “With your pretty pink lips that drive me crazy when you slide gloss on them.” His hand travels down to my breasts. “With these perky breasts and rosy nipples that fit just right in my hand and feel . . . spectacular.”
I shiver from his touch.
He brushes his fingers over my hair. “With these strands I want to run my fingers through.”
“Zach,” I say, trying to shush him, but I’m blushing. I’m going soft—I’ve got a liquid center from his praise. “You don’t have to say that.”
He pushes up, straddles me, pins my arms by my sides. His eyes are a laser beam. “I don’t have to say anything. I don’t have to do anything. You know me well enough to know I would never say anything just to say it. So let me say this: you’re fucking sexy. Deal with it. You dress in that leather skirt that shows off toned thighs and makes me think filthy thoughts. You wear heels, and I imagine those legs wrapped around my neck. You put on that orange lotion or potion or whatever it is, and I’m a lost cause. I’m a dog panting, begging for a treat.”
“That’s quite a list.” My smile takes over my face and spreads through my whole being.
“You and your lists. See, you might think you’re the wingwoman, but the wingwoman does something to me.” He lowers his hips, pressing his cock against me, thick and hard. “You’re gorgeous. I can’t stop looking at you, and I want you again, Piper.”
“I want you too,” I whisper, and it feels like I’ve cracked open my chest, that I’m baring my naked soul by saying that.
Maybe I am.
His lips curve up, telling me that was the only response he wanted, and it eases the tension in my heart, the tight knot of worry.
He lowers his face near mine, as if he’s about to kiss me, then dodges my mouth. Instead, he runs his nose along my neck, inhaling. A long, deliberate sniff. “Don’t you realize that for the last few months, when I’ve looked at you, I’ve been undressing you?”
When a man you’ve sparred with whispers sweet dirty nothings, it’s thoroughly disarming.
I have no barbs to toss back at him. Nor do I want to.
Still, I’m not entirely sure how to take all these compliments, other than with a quiet “Thank you.”
But my body is sure. Tingles spread from my head to my toes, so I focus on the physical. I glance down, lowering my voice suggestively. “I’m still undressed.”
“You are, and I’m not a one-and-done kind of man.”
“So what else are you going to do?”
He silences me with a soft kiss. I nearly die from the tenderness, from the sweet, slow, and lazy way his tongue explores my mouth.
Then my neck, my breasts, my belly. He makes his way down my body, turning me to a boneless woman with every flick of his ton
gue, every press of his mouth, till he’s there, right there, where I want him.
He groans as he tastes me.
I do too, my hips shooting up, and I zero in on the sensations—the toe-tingling, knee-melting sensations—as he goes down on me like he’s kissing me. He’s not one of those painters, the guys who work a straight line up and down, up and down. No, Zach is caressing me with his mouth, devouring me with his lips, and claiming me.
Pleasure coils in my body, tightening and circling, till it climbs higher and higher, and I’m close, so damn close.
Then the switch flips, and I’m falling, flying, coming undone.
The sheer bliss blots out my worries about what’s next, where we go, what we do.
Until the morning, when he bolts out of bed, clutching his phone, cursing as he tugs on his pants, and says he has to go.
20
Zach
My kids are pretty well-adjusted. They’ve dealt with some shit no kids should have to face, but they’ve come out on the other side. Lucy, being older, bore the brunt of Anna’s illness and her death. But with honesty, love, and a father who was there for her every single day, every single night, she’s made it through, and she’s one hell of a happy, balanced child.
Henry’s an easier one. He was five when he lost his mom. Grief for him was different. It was sharp and immediate and gone quickly. He probably doesn’t remember many details about Anna. While snapshots of her might exist in his head, they’re likely blurry and, frankly, fading fast.
But he knows me.
He’s used to me.
I’m his person, his steady, his rock.
And every morning, the first thing he does when he gets out of bed is pee, brush his teeth, then give me a hug. “Good morning, Daddy,” he’ll say.
“Good morning, little man.”
It’s a routine, nothing special.
A completely average, everyday routine.
But it’s his, and it’s mine, and it’s ours. We’ve done it for the last two years and never missed it once.
He’s crying today.
I scoop him up into my arms the second I push open the door to the hotel room. Like a koala, he wraps his arms and legs around me, clinging fiercely.
A bright English voice floats over the sound of sniffles. “See? I told you Daddy would be back in a hurry. All better now, yeah?” Louise’s cheery tone is a cover-up.
“I’m here,” I whisper to Henry, patting his back, soothing his worried mind.
“He probably just couldn’t sleep and was wandering the hallways,” Louise offers, meeting my eyes and nodding. Go with it, they say. “I do that myself sometimes when I can’t sleep. I roam and roam and roam.”
She’s a saint, and she deserves the biggest tip in the world as she paints over the cracks I sledgehammered into the night.
“I was,” I lie, sludge in my chest, bile in my throat.
Henry sniffles. “When I couldn’t find you, I was worried. You’re always there.”
“I’m here. I’ll always be here,” I tell him. It’s a promise I can’t entirely make, but I don’t care. I have to believe it. I do believe it.
“I told you he’d be fine,” Lucy pipes in as she wanders into the foyer from their room then throws her arms around my back.
“But I was scared. I didn’t know where he was. I didn’t know what happened,” Henry says, then tucks his head in the crook of my neck and burrows, a scared little animal seeking refuge in his den. I’m his den, and he couldn’t find his safety.
My heart craters, and it’s entirely my fault. This is not a no-fault situation. There is one guilty party, and it’s me.
Because I fell asleep in Piper’s bed.
I left the volume down on my phone.
I missed three texts and a call from Louise.
And I missed several more from my son.
Henry: Where r u
Henry: i can’t find u
Henry: r u ok
I ruffle his hair, trying to keep the mood light. “I’m fine. See? I’m fine. I couldn’t sleep because of the jet lag, and I went to work out, and then I wandered around the hotel,” I say, peeling off another layer of the lie.
And I sound like an idiot. Who wanders around a hotel because he can’t sleep? Who strolls aimlessly down the corridors because of jet lag? It would be obvious to any adult what I’ve been up to, with my rumpled hair and morning breath. God, I probably have her scent on me. I probably smell like sex.
As these thoughts collide, a pit forms in my stomach. A fucking sinkhole, and it funnels all the good feelings from last night into it.
I’ve never thought a single parent should be handcuffed to his kids. No need to be a monk, or even be home every night. I completely believe single parents should be free to date. Moving on, finding romance, and falling in love again is normal and healthy. It’s something I tell my clients, and I mean it. From the bottom of my black heart.
But if you’re going to do those things, you have to do them the goddamn responsible way.
With a plan. With sitters or family booked for the night.
With your phone on.
With a return time.
With clear details shared with those who need it.
Me? I did none of that.
I thought with my dick and my emotions. My wound-up, pent-up, torqued-up jealousy over a guy Piper didn’t even want to get with. That was what drove me.
I made irresponsible choices, and now here I am, doing something I despise.
Lying to my children.
“I’m sorry you were worried, little man. I wasn’t thinking, and I’ll do a better job next time,” I say, because I can’t reside in this sinkhole. I might not be able to tell the truth—they don’t need the truth—but I can’t live in the lie. I will do better. I will improve.
Henry jerks back and grins widely. “You’re the best. I love you to New York and back.”
I laugh and tug him in for one more hug, then set him down. “I love you to London and back.”
He smiles at me. “Can I have scones for breakfast, and jam? That sounds good and I’m so, so, so hungry.”
Just like that, he’s moved on. He’s over it.
He rubs his belly.
“Give me a couple minutes to pay Louise and brush my teeth, and then we can go downstairs.”
Lucy claps. “I want to have tea with my breakfast scones.”
“Then you shall have tea,” Louise chimes in.
Yup. I’m nominating her for sainthood.
I pay her, brush my teeth, convince Lucy to read Henry a book for five minutes so I can take the fastest of fast showers, and ten minutes later, we’re out the door.
Henry runs down the hall. “I want to press the elevator button.”
“It’s my turn,” Lucy declares and rushes ahead of him.
All is well. All is forgiven.
But I don’t know how to forgive myself.
I’m keeping secrets from them. They don’t need to know who I’m sleeping with or if I’m sleeping with anyone. But they should at least know where I am. They shouldn’t have to wake up and wonder where their father is.
We eat and drink tea, and when we’re done, I get ready to meet the guys for golf and to hand off the kids to Piper.
As we planned, she waits in the lobby, a Mary Poppins grin on her face when she sees them. She only has eyes for Henry and Lucy. “Just you wait. I have so much fun in store for you.”
She waves goodbye to me with barely a word.
Yeah, I’m an asshole.
It’s official.
21
Piper
I’m taking a trip through time.
As we wander down Cecil Court, it’s as if I’ve stepped back into another century.
This entire alley is bursting with bookshops of all kinds, from those that sell stamps and antique maps to those that peddle secondhand, rare, or children’s books, and even one that purports to sell psychic literature.
Can I fi
nd a book that’ll predict what happens to a woman who sleeps with a man who then runs the next morning and can’t even manage a single text saying a single word? Oh, wait. Who needs a book for that? I know the answer. Nothing will happen.
After all, it’s been six hours since his bat-out-of-hell exodus.
And sure, I do understand your pants are on fire when you’ve overslept and your kids—I surmise—are calling or texting.
I get that completely.
But I’ve already shepherded them through a morning at the park scampering up a climbing wall, down a slide, and up into the sky on swings. Incidentally, I am a rock star at pushing a seven-year-old on a swing.
Never have I ever heard a kid squeal so much as Henry did with his endless requests for again and again, and higher and higher.
I didn’t stop.
There was no cell phone gazing for me at the park. No plopping down on a bench with my e-reader as they played. I was involved every second, and when we left, I checked my phone, figuring that’s when a “Last night was amazing, and let’s talk later” text would have arrived.
Something.
Anything.
Surely he could have texted me on the way to golf. Or maybe then once he arrived.
Nada.
Fine. In between holes?
No chance.
See, I don’t think you’re supposed to ignore a woman after you rock her world three times. I’m counting each orgasm because orgasms should always count. I’m deeming the first bang as one, that fantastic tongue-lashing as two, and then the flip-me-to-my-knees-and-drive-into-me-like-a-man-on-a-mission that he did after going downtown as three, especially since my last O was the hallelujah kind. We’re talking the lasted-for-minutes variety of oh God, oh God, oh yes, right there, God.
Fine, maybe it was one minute, but it felt like I was coming forever, and isn’t that a delightful thing to experience?
Yes, dee-lightful.
Getting ignored? Not so much.
I don’t believe in ignoring people.
And I won’t ignore his children even mentally, so I shut the door on thoughts of Zach, devoting my energy to these two people who do know how to make a girl feel adored.
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