I didn’t look, but IfeltJeremiah’s eyes on me, warm and understanding.
That’s when Debbie did something that stopped my heart entirely.
Still mostly asleep, she shifted toward Jeremiah, snuggling against his side like it was the most natural thing in the world. She shifted, trying to get comfortable. When that didn’t seem to work, she climbed directly into his lap, wrapping her small arms around his neck and resting her head against his chest.
Within seconds, her breathing slowed with the peaceful rhythm of sleep.
Jeremiah didn’t dare move. He sat perfectly still, his arms coming up instinctively to hold her tight against him. His expression was soft with wonder and something that looked like awe.
Debbie muttered something, half asleep. All I caught was, “. . . good daddy smell,” as her little nose nuzzled into Jeremiah’s neck.
When he looked away and a tear slid down his cheek, I had to swallow hard against the army of emotions lodging in my throat.
Chapter 18
Jeremiah
Five-thirty came easier than it had in weeks. I was awake before my alarm, my body humming with an energy that had nothing to do with caffeine and everything to do with the memory of Saturday night.
The gym felt different, too.
Every rep, every set was charged with purpose. I wasn’t just working out—I was preparing. For what, I wasn’t entirely sure, but my body seemed to know something my brain hadn’t caught up to yet.
By seven-thirty, I was back in my truck with my route sheet, ready to face another day of packages and people and the familiar rhythm of deliveries that gave me an odd comfort in its simplicity. Some people liked grand plans and strategy. I didn’t have the mind for all that. I liked simple and clean and neat, something I could wrap my head around or hold or believe in because it was right in front of me. My job wasn’t glamorous, but it served a purpose—it served people. The steady repetition of driving my route each day felt familiar and easy.
But today, nothing felt routine.
Today, every customer got the full Jeremiah treatment.
Mrs. Patterson, who always answered the door in her bathrobe, got a genuine smile and a compliment on her garden, the one with more gnomes than plants.
The college kid at the apartment complex who usually just grunted and grabbed his plain brown box got a joke about the weight of what was probably textbooks that made him actually laugh.
Even Mr. Hendricks, who’d never said more than “thanks” in three years of deliveries, found himself chuckling at my observation about how his dogs always knew when the mail truck was coming from six blocks away. Unlike Cuddles, they were lickers and loved to slobber all over whatever body part I left vulnerable to their eight-foot tongues.
I was spreading joy like some kind of demented, glitter-covered postal fairy, and I couldn’t seem to stop. I couldn’t stop grinning either. For one blessed day, I was all floppy blond hair and brilliant white teeth.
As my route wound through the familiar neighborhoods, inching closer to Maple Street, my mind began to drift back again. Hell, it didn’t have to drift. I was basically living in the evening at Theo’s house, daring me to yank it from the night’s cozy embrace into the cold reality of present day.
My mind’s eye wandered to sitting on that couch with my knee pressed against Theo’s, feeling the warmth of him beside me while Debbie slept in my arms.
I laughed aloud, shaking my head at the absurdity of it all, the silliness of the incessant giggle that little girl had implanted in my chest . . . and the warmth of her daddy’s twinkling eyes.
There had been no sex, no kissing, not even hand-holding. Hell, we’d barely touched except for the accidental brush of fingers when we’d both reached for the soy sauce at the sametime. If we’d been in one of those grocery store romance novels, we wouldn’t have earned a single pepper. We might not have even made it into the produce section.
And yet, somehow, the whole evening felt more romantic, more real, than any date I’d ever been on.
Whatever was building between Theo and me felt tangible, a living thing that begged to be fed and nurtured. It grew stronger every time we looked at each other, with every shared smile over Debbie’s head, every moment of understanding that passed between us without words.
Don’t get me wrong—I wanted him.
God, did I want him.
I wanted all the peppers of every heat level any grocer had ever sold.
I dreamed about seeing him naked, about touching and kissing and feeling every inch of his lean, lightly dusted, overly pale body. My now-crusty sheets were evidence enough of just how vivid those dreams had become. I wanted to know what sounds he’d make, what he’d look like with his hair even more messed up than usual, what his hands would feel like on my skin.
But this whole thing was strange.
