He knew what she meant. They were new; this was precarious. Which was why he said, “Sometimes you can just go with it and not worry about every little thing. Makes life more fun.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“This was from a single mom coworker when I was in the middle of a horrible divorce. I had to say it to myself A LOT! ‘Don’t insult the gene pool!’” — Anonymous, Colorado, USA
Rachel
Rachel pressed herself against Travis’s body. She adored the feeling of his strength as she nestled against him. The way her curves seemed to fit.How her body didn’t feel like something she should change or improve upon when they were together. Instead, her curves were something he enjoyed. Therefore, she enjoyed them,too.
Neither of them was even pretending to sway to the music at this point. Standing together, bodies molded to each other, was perfect.
She shuddered a breath. This brand of perfect had the power to ruin everything.
“I’m not ready to tell everyone about us,” she said, letting the words out before she had time to think and then overthink them.
“Okay.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “We don’t have to do that right now.”
“I don’t…I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.” She worried at the lipstick on her bottom lip. “What would we even say?”
“That things are good between us.” He traced her neck with his thumb, the path warming. He had a way of touching her that made her muscles release years of tension. The man’s hands were magic.
The tension building in this conversation was starting to make her whole body tighten up. He caught it. He remedied it.
This was life with Travis.
“We’d say that this is going wherever we want to take it,” he continued with that mesmerizing quality of his voice. “We don’t want it to end.”
“That makes it sound so simple,” she said, whispering into the cocoon they’d built around each other.
The muscles in her back continued to release with his touch.
“We can take the next step,” he said. “Just for us. The rest will fall into place when the time is right.”
“We’re doing this.” She couldn’t help it, she pulled herself up on her toes, so her nose brushed against his.
He smiled. “We’re doing this.”
“Are we going to give each other keys and stuff?” she asked.
She vaguely knew where his apartment was downtown, but she’d never been there. The boys had been, though. Their comments about the space all revolved around his video game setup. It was, apparently, amazing.
“My apartment has a doorman. You’re already on the list of people with clearance to be let in whenever you want,” he said against her hair.
Her eyes went wide. She was on the doorman list? Wait…he had a freaking doorman?
“Since when,” she asked,“am I on the list?”
“Since you became part of the family.”
“Oh.” She glanced at his palm, still practicing magic in the muscles at her shoulder.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, but it sounded like it was actually a pretty big deal to him.
“Even after the divorce?” she asked carefully, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.
“You’re still part of the family.” His sincerity pierced through the sadness that came whenever she thought about those times.“Divorce doesn’t change that.”
The divorce wasn’t contentious, but it was still a divorce. She still mourned what her boys had lost when their parents split. Knowing they’d never remember a time when Mom and Dad were together as a couple, not just a parental unit.
