I should beexcited.
Instead, I feel weirdly hollow.
Because at some point…the fantasy changed.
Now when I imagine the trip, it isn’t just me alone on my adventures.
It’s Chloe holding my hand as we walk through the streets of Copenhagen.
It’s Rhodes smiling as Chloe and I pick out another trinket at a market in London.
It’s all three of us eating gelato on a street with the Swiss Alps in the background.
Dumb.
Sofreakingdumb.
And yet…there it is.
And it’s why I’m Googling family-friendly museums in London instead of cocktail bars when Rhodes walks into the kitchen, his hair damp and his cheeks flushed from practice.
Yum.
His gaze lands on me first and he smiles.
Then his eyes flick to the plans spread over the counter.
And his smile fades.
I should probably say something, tell him…
What exactly?
Come on my trip with me?
I almost do exactly that, the words bubble up in my throat, but then he moves into the other room. “Nice, pumpkin,” I hear him say.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she replies. “Finn helped me.”
“I’m sure she did,” he says as I close my computer, clear away my planner.
“How was practice?” I ask when he walks back into the kitchen.
He comes over to me, presses a light kiss to my lips. “Fine.” But then his gaze drifts back to my notebook and he lifts a brow.
“I was just…” I nibble at the inside of my mouth. “Going over everything, you know?”
He nods once. “Of course.”
I want to explain that I wasn’t exactly planning, not really. That it’s become more like daydreaming and not even in the same way I used to, and also maybe that he and Chloe can come too and?—
He drops one hand on the counter beside my hip.
The other settles on my waist.
And he steps very,veryclose.
Suddenly, I can’t think at all. Not with him all around me. Not with his body pressed to mine. Not with desire making me ache and heat flooding my veins and?—
