And I was pretty fucking proud of her.
With a sigh, I pushed off his chest.
“Don’t go.” He looped his arms around me, pulling me close and burying his face in my hair.
“I need a shower,” I said
“You’re perfect.”
Propped up on an elbow, I assessed him, his hair wild and the lines on his face soft in the afternoon light filteringthrough the blinds. “Should we…” I let out a long breath. “Should we talk?”
He ran his hand gently down by back. “Whatever you want.”
“I just.” A wave of panic rose up inside me. Now that the haze of my orgasm had faded, it hit me just how big the step we’d taken today was.
I liked Josh.
I more than liked him.
But I was a thirty-six-year-old single mom of three trying to prevent my ex-husband from making parole. I wasn’t exactly datable, even if I had the time.
“I think I like you,” I blurted.
Rather than panic, he broke into a lazy smile. “That’s a relief. Because I think I love you.”
That should have worried me. We should have both been panicking. Instead, his words sent a warm feeling buzzing through my limbs.
“I owe you so many details?—”
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said, his voice firm.
“I do,” I replied. “Because I come with a lot of baggage. And I can’t do this or anything or?—”
He sat up and put an arm around me. “It’s okay.”
I let out a long breath. I had two choices.
I could get dressed and go back to my house and my kids and pretend this day never happened. Avoid Josh and chalk this up to a fun, sexy time and nothing more.
Or I could put on my big girl pants and have the difficult conversation.
And when I thought about it like that, there was no question which I’d choose. Because he was worth it.
Scratch that. Because I was worth it.
“My mom died when I was thirteen. Cancer,” I said, the familiar sense of grief creeping through me. Like a weighted blanket keeping me pinned down even on the best days.
“My dad,” I went on. “He just checked out. He’d loved her so much, and all of a sudden he had four kids to raise on his own while keeping the family business going. Chloe was only eighteen, but she jumped in to help. Though a year later, she took off to the West Coast and didn’t come back for twenty years.”
His lips turned down. “I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “Not her fault. The burden my dad placed on her was unbearable.”
Beneath me, his muscles tensed. “Was he abusive?”
“No. He loves us in his own way, he just didn’t know how to take care of us. If we wanted to eat, we went to the grocery store ourselves. I went to my brothers’ games, otherwise there wouldn’t have been a single person in the stands to cheer for them. But Dad paid for everything. I asked to take an SAT prep course, and he happily gave me a check, but I had to arrange rides back and forth.”
“So you lost both your parents.”