From an outside point of view, it doesn’t seem like I can offer her much. I can’t provide for her financially. Though I make more money than I’ll ever need, she will always make more. Materialistically, I can’t give her anything that she can’t give herself.
But I can provide for her in every other sense of the word. I can take care of her in every other way. I can make her a part of my unconventional family that I love so much. I can listen when she’s had a hard day. I can fight with her when she needs a safe battle. Be her sounding board when she needs to talk something through.
I want to spend so many more days making her laugh, flirting with her, encouraging her, and challenging her the way she challenges me.
I want to be her closest friend because she’s mine.
I wonder if she knows that.
“Reese,” I whisper.
Eyes closed with the sun on her face, she hums in response.
“I know I told you that there was no part of me that wanted to be your friend, but I think you might be my very best one.”
A smile curves her lips. “That’s good, Em. Because it’s been occurring to me that I’d like to hang out with you for a lot of years to come, and that might be kind of hard to do if we aren’t friends.”
My chest splits with the easy confession. “A lot of years, huh?”
“A whole lot of years.”
I tighten my arms around her middle.
There’s something different about falling in love this time than when I did in my twenties. When I was young, finding love seemed like a rite of passage. A guarantee. A part of life everyone gets to experience and that it was simply my turn.
But now, getting this chance with Reese, it’s filled with more gratitude that I somehow found it again. There’s more of a fight to hold on to it. More desperation to keep it. Love feels more sacred this time around because I didn’t think I’d get the chance to experience it again.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her, but I keep that information locked up for another day.
“Can I ask you something?” she says quietly.
“Of course. Anything.”
Reese is silent for a moment. She swallows hard as a pinch forms between her brows. Whatever this question might be seems to have been weighing on her for a long while. “Do you think you have it in you to move on?”
Move on from her? Absolutely not.
“I don’t understand.”
She shifts between my legs, pulling her feet out of the water to turn and face me. “There’s no wrong answer, Em. I’m just trying to manage my expectations here. That first night I slept in your room. The night you told me about Miller and her mom. You said you didn’t have it in you to move on. I’m just wondering if that’s changed for you.”
She studies me for my answer before the eye contact becomes too much and she forces herself to look away.
But I’m sitting here trying to rack my brain for what the hell she’s talking about. I retrace that conversation in my mind until I get to the part she’s referring to. The part when she asked me if I ever moved on after Claire.
I was drifting to sleep and didn’t have it in me to fully explain. I thought she understood, but it’s clear she’s been holding on to my words since that night.
“Reese.” I cup her face, bringing her eyes back to mine. “You misunderstood, baby.”
“How?”
“When I said I didn’t have it in me to move on, I didn’t mean emotionally. Or that my heart was still taken. I meant that Iphysicallydidn’t have it in me to move on. I was a single dad. I was exhausted all the time. I didn’t have the time to focus on someone who wasn’t my daughter. I was too busy trying to figure out how to do right by her. And by the time Miller was oldenough to be on her own, I was older too and thought I’d missed the train on the whole ‘finding a life partner’ thing.”
Her brows lift in surprise. “Oh.”
I chuckle. “Yeah. Oh.”
“Well, that makes a lot of sense.”
