“I’ll turn it off once you’re feeling better,” he says. “But I’m not going to watch you freeze and do nothing.”
I get his clothes on and climb into bed. Dylan snuggles in next to me and puts his arms around me.
“Let me hold you,” he says as he hugs me to him tightly.
I relax into his arms and allow him to wrap me up in his love.
When I’ve stopped shaking, Dylan orders us some tea and soup.
“All set,” Dylan says as he hangs up the phone. “Twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.” I bring his head down to mine so I can kiss him.
“Your lips are hot. Maybe that’s a good sign.”
I smile. “Maybe. Maybe they’re just responding to your hotness.”
He laughs. “I doubt your lips need any help.”
I rest my head on his shoulder again and look down at my hands. “Yeah, so I’m kind of from nowhere. Nowhere to go back to, either.”
“I think you’re even more amazing than I did before.” Dylan kisses the top of my head. “I wish you hadn’t been afraid to tell me. Do you realize how strong of a person you are?”
“No,” I say honestly. “I guess I don’t think about my past as a positive. More like a handicap.”
“You should think about who you are as a positive,” he says. “I’m so incredibly proud of you. You should be proud of you, too.”
“That’s partly why your charity hit home for me so much. The fact that you’re working with foster kids—I felt even more of a connection with you.”
“I remember your reaction,” he says quietly, his eyes closing like he’s reliving the moment. “You looked so startled. I asked if you were okay.”
“And that was part of the reason I pushed you away at the final team event, because of the group of foster kids who were there. Those kids just—hit me right in the heart when I see them. As if I’m still one of them. Because I guess in a way, I am. I always will be.”
“I’m sorry.” Dylan kisses my hair and my cheeks. “If I had known—one of the little girls was so damn cute. She kept following me around, telling me she just wanted a mom and dad to go home to. Freaking broke my heart.”
I put my hand to his chest. “You’re making a difference. Any positive attention I got as a kid was like gold. It means everything to have that kind of reinforcement. And in spite of all of it, I still want the ‘normal life.’” I use air quotes because I’m well aware there’s no such thing as “normal,” no matter how many ways people want to say there is. “As much as I try to convince myself I don’t. I want to be a mother. I really do. Whether I get pregnant or choose to adopt an infant or an older child like me who had no home—I’m not sure how I want to do things yet.”
“I would be open to any of the above,” Dylan says in a quiet voice. “Even though I know you weren’t asking.”
I inhale. “You—would be? Open to adoption?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
My stomach flutters with an unfamiliar emotion at his words, and I keep talking quickly. “But I don’t want to carry on all that crap—you know, abandonment issues and inability to parent.”
“You won’t.” Dylan kisses me again. “You’re in a completely different place than it sounds like your mother was when she had you.”
“Maybe. Except I still have that pain of having been unwanted,” I say. “I don’t want to pass that feeling down to my child.”
“Oh, you’re wanted,” Dylan says. “You’re very, very wanted.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Turns out I get sick. I stay in bed for three days with a high fever and cough. On the second day, Dylan calls in his team doctor, who’s still in town vacationing with his wife, and he checks me over carefully and then proclaims it’s just a viral flu and I’ll be fine in two days. Dylan stays with me the whole time, ordering soup from room service and getting us take-out dinners.
We play cards—Bullshit—when I’m feeling strong enough to be bored.
“Bullshit,” I say after he says he doesn’t have any fours.
