“What are you doing here?” she asks, brows scrunching into those little lines I’ve started to memorize.
The words barely register because I’m still fighting to tear my eyes off her edible body and up to her beautiful, confused face. Her expression shifts in an instant, realization dawning.
“Our session. Shit—we rescheduled our session to tonight.”
I clear my throat. Then again, louder, because the first attempt didn’t work. “We did. But, uh, we can reschedule again if you…if you already have plans.” My gaze finally drops to the object in her hands, and I blurt out before I can stop myself, “Wait. Is thatJurassic Park?”
“Yes,” she says flatly.
And suddenly my lust-fogged brain starts trying—but failing—to make sense of the picture in front of me. It’s six o’clock on a Friday night. Elliot is standing there in a faded red plaid onesie that looks older than her and yet is somehow sexier than anything I’ve ever seen in a lingerie pop up ad. And she’s holding a DVD case for a movie that came out three decades ago.
Nope. None of this makes sense.
“You still use DVDs?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” she says again, more defensive this time.
“Okay.” I lift my hands in surrender. “Like I said, we can reschedule if you and Sam are having a movie night.”
The words leave my mouth, and instantly I know they’re wrong. Her face falls, and for one horrifying second, I think she might burst into tears right in front of me.
“Hey.” I step forward, gently nudging her inside before I shut the door behind us. I’ve seen this woman cry more times than I’d like, and I’ll be damned if I let it happen again tonight. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She sniffs. “And everything. It’s silly.”
I frown. “I’ll be the judge of what’s silly. Out with it.”
She sighs, and her breasts lift in a way that short-circuits every brain cell I have. I vibrate with awareness of her.
“Come on in,” she murmurs, turning away.
And it nearly kills me. Because if the front view of that flannel onesie had me rattled, the back view is lethal. Her curvesshift with every step, the snug fabric hugging her in ways that make my pulse slam against my throat. I bite back a curse, dragging my gaze up before I do something insane, like reach out and grab her.
I kick off my shoes and follow, nearly face-planting over Sam’s school bag because, well, I’m not watching my feet. Not when there’s something infinitely more captivating swaying just ahead of me.
She leads me into what must be her TV room. A beat-up couch sits in the centre, bookshelves crammed with paperbacks and hardcovers flanking a dated television. On either side of it are stereo speakers that look old enough to belong in a museum.
She drops onto the couch, hugging a pillow tight against her chest. I hate it for blocking my view. I also love it for giving me one less distraction to wrestle with.
“Sam is at his first sleepover,” she says softly, fingers raking through her messy blonde waves. Suddenly, it all clicks.
Her laugh is shaky. “I know it’s ridiculous to get so emotional. Not that I’mupset…just emotional. Most kids his age have already spent a million nights away from home—grandparents, cousins, friends. But it’s always been just us. I guess I got used to it that way.”
Her eyes are glassy, her voice raw, and I can feel the weight of what she’s not saying: Sam is growing up, and she’s scared of being left behind.
“I don’t think it’s foolish,” I tell her as I lower myself onto the couch, careful not to sit too close. The couch groans in protest under my weight.
She laughs, but it’s without her usual warmth. “No? You weren’t here when he asked if he could go. My first instinct was to lock him in his room like Mother Gothel.”
“Who?”
“It’s fromTangled.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a movie. One of Sam’s favourites when he was little. It’s the story of Rapunzel.”
“Why didn’t they just call it Rapunzel?”
