“I couldn’t bring myself to send it.” She turned the laptop back to herself and scrunched her forehead while she reread the message.
The message, for the record, was perfect. Firm, but not terse.
“Limits don’t mean you’re weak.” He traced his fingertip down her forehead, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She hadn’t bothered taking out the knot she’d put it in when he came into the room. “They actually mean you’re strong enough to recognize the importance of the other things in your life.” He nodded to her screen with the blinking cursor. “This lays out the terms of the relationship. There’s nothing wrong with that. Isn’t this what we did that night? Doesn’t make us weak.”
“I don’t want to tick her off.” Rachel squinted at the screen and then scowled at it.
“Isn’t she ticking you off?” Travis asked, because Cassie sure ticked him off on the regular.
Rachel nodded. “I should send this to everyone I work with.”
She inhaled. Exhaled. Glanced to him. Worried her top lip with her teeth.
Her finger hovered over the button.
He wanted to make this easier for her, but there was nothing he could do except stand there like a doofus with a stone in his stomach, waiting for her to make the call.
She pressed the button and closed her eyes.
“Do you want to take a minute and send it to everyone. Or do you want to do that later?”
“Now.” She clicked through her screen. “I should just do it all now.”
He sat on the bed beside her, running his palm up and down her back while she finished clicking send.
“There,” she said.
“There,” he echoed.
She stared at her screen, unmoving. He continued what he hoped were reassuring brushes over her back. “The world didn’t end.”
The edges of her lips twitched. “It didn’t.”
He pressed a light kiss against her temple. “How do you feel?”
“Scared.” She adjusted how she sat on the bed, so their mouths were close. “But I had to do it.”
He deleted the space between their lips, brushing his lightly against hers.
The commotion of Dakota and Gavin—mostly Dakota, since Gavin wasn’t fully participating in the scream fest—passing in front of the open bedroom door in the hallway had Travis pulling away.
Then the front door slammed.
“I think she left.” Rachel’s wide eyes met Travis’s. “Where are the boys?”
“Kitchen with Dane, last I checked. Mama was showing them how to crumble cinnamon sugar toaster tarts over ice cream for a special topping.”
“Great.” Rachel rubbed her forehead. “Gummy bears and cinnamon.”
The motion made his stomach cramp. He didn’t want this for Rachel. She deserved easy for a while.
“Maybe I can drag them out with me for a run?” Travis asked. “Give them a way to burn off all the sweets?”
Rachel’s email chimed, and Travis’s gut turned over on itself again. Rachel seemed to feel the same way, because her skin had gone chalky.
“It’s from James,” she said. “He said he understands the changes and is happy I’m working with him.”
“Who’s James?” Travis asked.
