That hits me hard, and I wonder if she would ever be open to moving. To going anyplace else. If what this is could be enough to convince to her leave if I did.
My appetite is starting to die, but I slice a huge bite of cheesecake with the tines of my fork and scoop it up. “Have you ever wanted to live in a big city?”
She lifts one of those perfect brows and licks the last bit of cream from her fork. “No. Everything I love is here.”
I nod and look down at my fork. I slip the bite into my mouth and…fuck. I mean, it’s freaking good. Everything about Star Falls is better than I expected.
“I always thought kids who grew up in small towns had big-city dreams.” I laugh to try to cover my own feelings of anxiety about the topic. “I mean, isn’t there a whole genre of movies dedicated to that?”
She matches my humor with a smile so beautiful I want to put aside the dessert and kiss her again. “Yeah, of course. A lot do. But when you have such a big, tight family like I do… I don’t know.” She’s quiet for a minute. “Sometimes I think Vito isn’t happy here. His life hasn’t turned out the way he planned, and I mean, whose has? That’s adulthood. But I wonder if someday we’ll wake up and he’ll just announce that he’s leaving.”
I nod. “How would your parents take it? His moving, let’s say, really far away. Like my sister in Los Angeles?”
She raspberries a breath through her lips and shakes her head. “No one in my family is the LA type.” But then she’s quiet for a moment. Really thinking about it. “God, it’d be hard,” she admits. “It’d be hardest on my mom and dad. They’d worry every day they couldn’t run down the street and check on their kids.”
I don’t say anything to that, and she finally fills up the silence.
“It does sound a little smothering when I say it out loud.”
“No, no,” I reassure her. “That’s not what I’m getting at. I’ve been thinking about all this ever since we moved here. I wanted a fresh start, and I am falling hard for Star Falls…”
She leans over and plants a kiss on my shoulder when I say that.
“I just wonder how parents make those decisions. Like if I stay here with Luke and Cora, and then someday they want to leave? Would I give them better opportunities if I moved to, say, New York?”
She widens her eyes. “That’s a leap.”
“I know. And I’m not saying I’ve considered it, but…” I decide to get it all out. Put my cards on the table and see how Gracie reads them. “Austin wants to start a business,” I tell her. “He asked me to move back to Columbus and run it for him.”
“Whoa, whoa. Back up.” She doesn’t give me the brow, but the look of utter shock on her face makes me feel sick. She looks like she thinks I’ve betrayed her. “You’re thinking about leaving?”
I lean back against the pillow. “No. I mean, I honestly don’t know what to do. I want to do the right thing for my kids above everything else. But I’m not enjoying teaching the way I did before. I have been thinking about all the choices I’ve made. Where I live. Who I keep around me. All of it.” I look at her, trying to gauge how she feels, but she is stone silent, her face completely unreadable.
The next words she says cracks a crater in my heart.
“I need a glass of water. Excuse me.” She gets up from the bed and walks into the bathroom. Then she returns and climbs back into bed, holding a glass of water.
“Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”
All of a sudden, there are tears in her eyes. “I just…” She wipes a tear that falls down her cheek, and she shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’d leave. I know it’s really early, but I’m attached, Ryder. To you. To the kids. I…” She rubs a hand across her face and sniffs hard. “This isn’t just a fling to me. I am falling for you.”
I reach for her, opening my arms, and she climbs across the bed and cuddles against my chest.
“I feel the same way,” I tell her. “Since the day I set eyes on you, I knew there was something about you. I think it was your coffee addiction, your bossiness, and your right eyebrow.”
She lifts her face to glare at me. “It’s not an addiction. It’s a habit I can break if I need to, but come on.”
I kiss her forehead. “So, you’re not going to deny being bossy and having eyebrows that basically have their own personalities?”
She grimaces but then smiles. “You know me well. And I want to get to know you better, Ryder. I want more of these times. Is that selfish? Am I pressuring you to stay?”
I don’t know the answer to that. What I don’t want to do is make a mistake because of my feelings for a woman. I’ve done that. And while my marriage to Elizabeth wasn’t what I wanted it to be, I have two kids who are part of my soul now. I can’t afford to make the same mistakes again. It’s not just me they will affect.
“It’s not pressure,” I tell her. The light from the TV shifts into sleep mode. The logo of the inn pops up in plain stark-white letters, casting a slightly ghostly glow on our faces. I feel colder and tuck the blankets up to our chests. “You’re just being honest with me. That’s one of the things I love about you. I always know where I stand.”
She nods. “Yeah, but you should be excited about your work. Or at least satisfied with your choice. You shouldn’t waste energy wondering what if. So, what’s going on with the high school? Is it being part time or is it not coaching yet? Do you think you’d feel the same way if you were teaching back in Columbus?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s been three years now that I’ve been away. And coming back to a new school seemed like the right idea. New faces, no old memories to drag me into the past. But nothing about it feels the same as it did before I had kids. I want to work—I mean, fuck, I need to work. I’ve been off longer than I ever imagined I would be. But the idea of doing something else…the idea of running a business with my best friend is exciting, Gracie.”
